Tuesday, 31 May 2022

Moonscapes & Melancholy - Flash Fiction by Richard M. Ankers

 



Moonscapes & Melancholy

by Richard M. Ankers

 

There is no landscape, our world smothered by night. Only those obsidian undulations which roll between the permanent darkness and the star-speckled sky define forever. Until…

The moon rises like a great white whale dividing the horizon like chalk on a blackboard. At first faint, but growing larger, brighter, more definite, it eases its way into eternity. The moon never rushes. Haste is not in its nature. The night sky will always be there, resting behind its ebon curtain, awaiting the suns cool dispersal.

A silvered reassurance to those who observe it, the celestial orb caresses the stars out of its way this evening. Heading for heaven like a beacon to its nocturnal guests, it hangs for a moment, taking in all that universal vastness beneath. Yet melancholy prevails, and the view overwhelms. The moon feels such an overriding sadness at its colourless realm it fades back under the Earth’s midnight carpet, searching for more, always more. Perhaps on the other side? Perhaps below?

The moon transcends us in its quiet determination, its selfless search for light. It hopes where we would flounder. In its steadfast questing, it glows a simple farewell.

And we wonder…

If only we had the heart to confess the truth: the night is colourless. There are only monochrome moments for that fearless breaker of nightmares. Darkness is not born of light but for its balancing.

And it ponders…

How to tell us it knows.



Richard M. Ankers is the English author of The Eternals dark fantasy series. Richard has featured in Expanded Field Journal, Love Letters To Poe, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and feels privileged to have appeared in many more. Richard lives to write. 

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