Short Fiction

To the Moon and Back

For all our triumphs, the Moon is shattered in two. The heart is shattered, too.

“You sure that you can put it back together?” she asks me.

The cuts and callouses along the palm of her hand orbit the heart-shaped locket. At least, the fragments of the locket that remain. It has seen better days. Yet, who hasn’t?

Fractured beams of moonlight creep through cracks in the walls, and the lamp above us flickers. Mariam’s eyes gleam softly as our gazes lock. The world is on fire in there. I can see the sparks.

“Sure,” I say.

I am a handyman. I fix things.

“There is nothing I can’t fix,” I say. “You know that. Like, when does anything I fix ever go wrong?”

My chuckle echoes.

Perhaps I spoke out of turn.

Spokes on the wheels turn, as handy-bot whirs to life. Leaping from his fingertips are bits of lightning, and he shifts his boxy body forward ever so slightly.

The ground quakes when I put pieces of the locket onto handy-bot’s work plate. At first, I worry that yet another meteor has hit the Earth. Then, a laser scans over the locket fragments with precision, and I realize that the quaking is merely my vertigo coming back with a vengeance.

My head aches. So does my soul. Why is it that the things that come back strong are indiscernible from the things that come back with a vengeance?

I clear my throat. “You know, now that it’s all over… Maybe we can try to get back to what we were building.”

Her face is blank, but her hand lands on the crook of my neck.

“We can always try.”

I smirk. “Well, these are trying times.”

There is a screech. Handy-bot’s gears gnash together and he vibrates with a fury. Stumbling over myself, I steady him and tighten a few of his screws. The screws are rusted and groan as I put them back in their place. Nevertheless, they must go back to how they were.

“Remember that night, ages ago, when I first showed you him?” I say. “I — I was so scared you were going to think he was just another dumb trinket, like you usually do.”

Handy-bot’s body steadies back into rhythm. His hands return to hover over the locket, spinning metal and electricity into an elegant tapestry. Already, I can see the bits of crushed locket reforming into its former glory. Though, Mariam doesn’t see this. Her footsteps shift away from me.

“Oh, he definitely is,” she says, teasingly.

Her hands flit along the old bookshelves. The bindings move in and out, as keys in a piano concerto that only she can hear.

She pulls a book out and inspects it. “Your machines — they’re cute. But they’re not why we’re still here.”

Handy-bot is operating smoothly now, his mechanisms now tightened into clockwork. I brush some moondust off my tattered coat, and stride toward her.

“Is this the part where you point at me as the reason?” I say. “And then, I have to be modest and tell you that it was us? All of us…”

I flash a grin.

The book falls out of her hand, and she stoops to pick it up.

Déjà vu. My hand moves toward the book. I am back in a library. A dream. The pilot episode is on rerun.

I can go back to the line of dialogue that is tried and tested. “Here, let me hel—.”

“No.” Her voice is hard. Calculated. “You’re already helping. It’s fine. It’s my book, anyway.”

I squint at the title. I want to tell her that I have read the book a million times, from cover to cover. Yet, I do not recognize it.

“That’s what I do,” I say. “Help. I’ll never give up on that.”

Her eyes shine as pearls; perfect stars.

The stars break, and tears come pouring. It is a rushing stream. It won’t stop.

My face burns.

“What about Lana, huh Jack?” Her voice is brittle steel. “Or my father?”

I force my lungs to keep giving me breaths. Time stops, and I suddenly wish time would start turning back.

“That was never supposed to happen,” I say. “You know that. The group broke from the plan.”

She shakes her head. “Yeah, because you always have it all figured out…”

“I mean, I usually do.”

She stares into me, cutting to my core. A hatred closes around her that I haven’t seen before. The walls feel like they’re collapsing around me.

I need space. “They were hit by chunks of the goddamn Moon! How can any of us be expected to beat that?”

I step away and pause to catch my breath. The adrenaline and sheer terror is rushing back, but I must cool down.

“I said we needed to stay in the bunker.” I pace my words to the tune of my chipped watch, keeping a slow monotone. “We were supposed to wait to loot food replicators until after we were sure meteors weren’t going to hit. We weren’t even supposed to be in that town.”

Mariam’s book is open. She peers at it, closes it, and puts it back on the shelf.

“Were we supposed to just go another week without food?” she asks.

I have no answers.

My eyes rove around the room. I want to grab something and smash it. I need to leave this place. I need to cool my head, before I lose it.

“We could’ve flown a mag-lev car and tried to get them back to safety in time,” Mariam continues. “We at least could’ve tried to call them, to warn them about what your sensor said...”

“Mariam, we would’ve died, no question. Besides, that sensor I built gives false alarms. It always does.”

Even as I say this, I know it isn’t completely true. Infinite possible solutions existed, all unexplored. There was so much more that could’ve been done.

“Why did you stop me?” she says.

I want to speak, but I will just choke on the words.

“You tried to stop so many of us, Jack…” she says. “And, there used to be three hundred in our group. I remember when the Moon first split, and the meteors first started coming down… You said you would protect us. All of us.”

Phantom faces haunt the room. My spirit curdling and chest tightening, I let out a sigh.

“I did everything I could,” I mutter to myself. “I didn’t know. How could I?”

“I know, how could you?” she says. She is looking at the ground. “I don’t want to blame you. But this is just so hard, Jack. Twenty… Those are all who made it from our group.”

My eyes sting, and I turn from Mariam. She can’t see me. This stuff never touched me. I am stronger than this.

The locket is nearly reforged, all holes and cracks filled and welded with new bits of steel. Handy-bot starts on a chrome outer coating. It is terribly beautiful. Though, has the locket truly been repaired? Or is it merely a faded facsimile of its true self?

Mariam’s arms wrap around from behind me and give a squeeze, just the way that they used to.

She manages an “I love you.”

I manage an “I love you too.”

I look up to the ceiling. There is a hole there.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Mariam… We were supposed to own this house outright, by now. Maybe we would have a kid.”

Mariam rests her chin on my shoulder, and I can tell she is looking through the hole in the ceiling too.

Flares of light move through the night. The Moon hangs above it all, a trench of darkness slit through its center.

“The universe had different plans for us,” she says.

I lean into my desk, and stare at handy-bot. It is nothing short of a miracle that the electricity is running to power him again.

“The meteors aren’t coming down anymore, I swear,” I say. “And, we’re building a new world here now. There might only be a few of our group left, but we’re scrappy. We can put together anything. There are also more people migrating here, with other groups… I think we still have a chance to bring back a normal world. To start over.”

Mariam holds my jaw and draws our faces together.

“I can’t stay here,” she says. “This town was home. It hurts. Look at us. We’re different now.”

I see the lines of stress and exhaustion mapped across her face. She is not wrong. Though, it seems wrong.

“I don’t feel different…” I lie.

Her hand moves to a deep scar on my forearm. I don’t remember where the scar came from.

“You feel different,” she says.

Handy-bot gives a loud chirp. I pull the locket off the work plate and inspect it. Its chrome finish isn’t quite the same as it used to be, but it is spotless. The screws, hinges, etchings, and curves are shaped back into perfection.

“I did it,” I say. “I told you I was going to fix it. You can’t even tell the difference.”

Mariam gives one of her diamond smiles. It is the kind of smile that puts you on another planet, in a distant galaxy.

“It is gorgeous,” she says. She looks at it, but her eyes pull away. “Thank you for fixing it. It’s yours now. Keep it.”

It is a blow to the gut.

I place the locket in my pocket without a word. I did everything I could to fix it, but it wasn’t enough. What is there to say?

We stand in this room for a few minutes, inspecting what it has become over the years. Much of the wood and plaster has peeled away from the foundations, fleeing for the wind. I wish I could do the same from my own skin.

Something was still alive when we first entered this room. It is dead now. We only wait to find the right goodbye.

“Mariam, a few months ago, that meteor hit us. Even though our bunker was reinforced and made of iron, it still crumpled in on most of the group… It nearly killed all of us. And, you said that the only thing that saved us was fate.”

She brushes a strand of hair out of her face. “I did.”

“And, don’t you think that might mean something?”

Her eyes narrow in thought. I know that she’s wondered this.

“Fate was strong enough to save us…” she says. “But Jack, it isn’t enough to save us. This wasn’t — it isn’t meant to be.”

She walks to the door.

“Mariam, please don’t leave.” I open the locket’s heart, to reveal the words etched inside. “I — I love you to the Moon and back.”

She nods. There is pain in her face, but she gives me a warm smile. “I wish you the best. You’re going to do great. I’ll see you when I see you.”

End