The Man On the Moon

by michaelcahill

Sense of Place Short Story Contest Winner

I wish I could've put a better marker on Linda's grave. The materials to provide a suitable headstone weren't available. Accidents happen and here, where there is no atmosphere or hospitals for that matter, accidents are fatal. It only took a small hole in her suit to kill her. She tried desperately to cover it as the life sustaining air escaped from her little world.

I didn't even have to bury her. There is no decay on a lifeless world, no devious microbes seeking activity. I buried her for my sake. How could I look at her lifeless body reminding me of my future. Such a pathetic memorial to mark her grave. Some copper tubing in the form of a cross. Was she even Christian? It never came up.

The Earth looks beautiful from here. It is wonderfully blue, or perhaps I'm letting my mind see it that way. This "be careful what you wish for" place is not blue or any other color. I imagine you could call it grey or greyish, but I call it colorless.

There is no excitement here or even movement. If not for me, nothing would move or be altered in any way. These giant craters must have some story to tell. Surely, at one time a spectacular impact created each one of them. I close my eyes and imagine such a cataclysm.

The vision in my mind, a giant ball of frozen rock crashing to the surface with the force to shake every molecule of matter within, leaves me as cold as the vacuum surrounding me. There is no feeling without life. There are no majestic trees of great age, or flowers of great beauty torn asunder in a moment's catastrophe. Loss has to be a factor in tragedy, doesn't it?

I look around at what is now my home. My house is dome shaped and the same colorless grey as the surface it sits on. The all-terrain vehicle looks like a simulation of life in a strange way, a giant insect creeping along the landscape seeking a meal. But, it isn't alive. It angers me to use my imagination to foolishly conjur it in such a way. Imagining life must be the ultimate curse of this place.

It's easy for me to visualize having been surrounded by abundant life for most of my existence. Now there is me ... me and the food I grow in the grey-domed hydroponic greenhouse. The greens, yellows, browns, the colors of life look drab compared to my memory of orchards or fields of growing things. Perhaps sharing is a part of color. I only realize now that there is no sharing to be found here.

The others never arrived. I can only guess they perished in the massive explosions enveloping the Earth twenty-one days ago. It is an image I will die with: Bright lights dotting the surface of Earth, and then all at once the entire planet glowed like the sun. I could almost feel the warmth the heat looked so intense. Nuclear winter certainly had a bright summer to precede it.

It glowed but a short time; it didn't take long before it looked somewhat normal. I knew, of course, it wasn't normal. Nothing could've survived that maelstrom of fiery destruction. The light I see now is just the sun reflecting off a dead world, just as it does here.

Now, here I am, the last man, and I'm not even on Earth. I pretend the Earth is blue and I know this damn place is grey, grey like the most final of deaths.

I look up into the endless black void. A ball of fire seems on a course with this place heading straight for me. I run to the ATV and fire it up. I am correct. The impact shakes the ground like Uncle Tony's fist on the Thanksgiving dinner table, after he's had one too many. I speed to the site of impact.

The crater is deep and smoldering. Plumes of dust rise up and I imagine ghosts released from beneath the surface dancing. It is spectacular!

My heart pounds in my chest.

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Writing Prompt
Write a 400 to 700 word essay describing a place. This should be a descriptive short story, make sure you describe the place very well. This place you are describing can not be a place in your imagination, dreams, ext. It has to be a real place, preferably a place you know very well. You do not have to have been to this place, and this can be a made up story. Be creative and descriptive!