Ride the Moon: An Anthology (2 page)

Even standing a few steps from the ornately decorated metal portal, Luke could not see anything but darkness beyond its threshold. He took a moment to examine the carvings. He ran his fingers on a likeness of a strange bulbous creature with no eyes and three limbs. The metal felt unlike anything he had ever touched. He took another step and climbed onto the moonbridge itself.

Into the distance, Luke noticed small shapes moving along the moonbridge. But there weren't enough of his classmates to account for all the moving shapes. Who else was on the bridge?

The scaffolding of the moonbridge was part metal, part grey stone, part gigantic wooden vine—or was it of one material that somehow took on aspects of all these things? Leaves of muted reds, browns, and greens grew from “metal”, “stone”, and “wood”—or whatever the moondbridge materials were—confusing Luke's notions of living and nonliving. Grabbing hold of a support beam, Luke was reminded of the texture of the portal doorway.

The sky was a subtly iridescent indigo blue that, mixed with the faint golden glow of the stars, suffused everything with a subtle green tint. Planets, stars, and other celestial bodies appeared much closer than they did from the surface of the Earth, yet also more otherworldly and bizarre than Luke had previously imagined.

As with the guardian when Luke had stood right next to it, Luke mistrusted the evidence of his eyesight. The entire universe, and everything in it, shimmered, as if unable to hold on to any specific form. Even the moonbridge itself seemed subtly different every time Luke focused on it.

In the sky—above, below, and all around him—Luke could detect movement between the various celestial bodies. There was an irregularity to path taken by the flying objects that suggested biological rather than mechanical locomotion.

In the far distance, the bridge reached the Moon, haloed in undulating shades of grey, blue, and green. Luke marched forward, toward that destination he had dreamed of for so long.

Swallowing his last handful of trail mix, Luke looked back toward the destination he had come from. He could no longer detect the source of the bridge. Forward, the Moon now loomed much larger than it had when he had set off on his journey. But of the Earth, there was no sign. Nor had he yet encountered anyone, although a few times he'd heard the leaves rustle as if someone were moving through the strange rock-metal-vegetation the bridge was constructed of. It could not have been the wind, because there was only the slightest of breezes, nothing strong enough to cause such commotion. Despite himself, despite his desire for this entire journey to be a wondrous adventure, Luke was growing scared at the thought of who or what might be hiding from his sight in this alien environment, and the longer he stayed on the bridge the more the fright settled into his bones.

He thought he had packed sufficient provisions for the journey—enough to last him three or four days. He wasn't sure how long he'd been travelling, because his watch had stopped working the moment he had crossed the portal and there was no day-and-night cycle on the moonbridge—only an unchanging jade-blue crepuscule. It felt as though he had been walking nonstop for close to a week, but he had not yet slept and up to this point had been only mildly tired. Looking at the Moon, though, which, in spite of its larger size, still looked unattainably far, Luke was seized by despair at the notion that he might never make it there. And with that despair came a deep exhaustion that made him want to lie down on the floor of the bridge, which was of the same rock-metal-vegetation as the rest of the structure.

Just as Luke was getting ready to succumb, he heard and saw the leaves move behind him, to either side, and atop. He now fully gave in to the fear that had been gnawing at him and mindlessly ran forward toward the distant Moon.

When his aching legs and burning lungs brought Luke back to self-awareness, he stopped running. He unstrapped his knapsack, which contained all his camping gear, bent over, hands on his thighs, and panted coarsely.

The boy took stock of his situation. There was no doubt that the Moon was now much closer, but how close he could still not determine. What little encouragement his progress might have inspired was mitigated by his physical condition: his stomach growled in hunger; his eyelids rebelled against staying open; his throat was raw from dehydration; his legs ached from overexertion. He could not imagine how he could ever make it across the bridge to the Moon. He knew for certain that he could not turn back; he would not survive the duration of the return journey.

He yearned to sleep, but he dared not. He thought he might never wake, that he would fall prey to some fatal violation. Feeling as though there were no other option open to him, Luke strapped on his knapsack and trekked onward toward the Moon and the shimmer of its faintly reassuring blue-green-grey aura.

A few hundred metres back, Luke had entered a particularly lush section of the moonbridge. Fruit of strange shapes and unfamiliar colours hung from the bridge's vinelike framework. Luke was wary of eating the alien substances, lest they be poisonous. But he had not eaten in what now seemed like weeks of nonstop walking and sleeplessness, and his resistance wavered. He approached one fruit that was shaped somewhat like a small rodent and smelled it. It had no aroma. He smelled other fruits of other shapes and disquieting colours, but none of them exuded a detectable odour.

Hunger got the better of caution, and Luke ripped off a fruit that looked like a tumescent saxophone and ravenously bit into it, before he could second-guess himself.

The thing tasted like chalk and was very dry at first bite. In his mouth, though, it dissolved into a thin, watery substance that immediately refreshed him. He devoured the whole thing and afterward felt sated and restored—euphoric, even. He grabbed an empty plastic bag from his knapsack and filled it with the bland bridgefruit.

Luke contemplated the Moon, which now loomed larger than anything he'd ever seen. He strutted toward his destination with a new bounce in his step.

The lushness of the bridge increased as the Moon neared. Soon, Luke was engulfed within the stone-metal-plant material of the moonbridge, unable to see either sky or Moon. Unable, in fact, to see anything. He scraped and scratched his hands and face repeatedly as he moved forward within the dark tunnel of the moonbridge. Whenever panic threatened to overwhelm him, Luke ate some bridgefruit; while it didn't completely reassure him, the taste was calming him enough for him to continue his journey with a modicum of levelheadedness.

At one point, Luke thought he'd hit a dead end, but, after eating more bridgefruit to stave off despair, he palmed the walls of the tunnel until he found a narrow opening at a tilt from the direction he'd come from. The tunnel remained thus—mazelike, confining, difficult—for several turns, during which the boy further lacerated his already ill-treated flesh on the thorny walls of his surroundings.

After a dozen turns, though, the tunnel opened up. At first, elated at the turquoise demi-light of the sky and the open space, Luke failed to notice that the Moon no longer loomed ahead. In the distance, he noticed pitched tents and the sound of conversations reached him. It was only then that Luke realized that he had reached the Moon.

He headed toward the camp, toward his classmates from the secondary 4 class of Prettygood Park High School.

As soon as Luke reached the periphery of the camp, conversation stopped. No-one greeted him, and his classmates either avoided his gaze or looked at him in icy silence. He was used to this kind of treatment, but it nevertheless stung that none of them was able to move beyond that pettiness, so far from everything any of them knew.

Still feeling unsettled from the bridge crossing, Luke pitched his tent near the others, not wanting to be isolated. Regardless of what the others thought of him.

Inside his tent, exhaustion overwhelmed Luke and he promptly fell asleep, before he could unroll his sleeping bag.

Sometime later, Luke awoke to an eerily seductive cooing. The sound was unmistakably feminine, yet unlike anything he had ever heard before. From the outside, someone unzipped the flap of his tent, and to his surprise Blair Jonas slipped inside, without a shred of clothes on, her skin glowing with the same colours as the Moon.

A pungent loamy smell invaded the tent. Blair smiled at him with a mixture of the predatory and the submissive, not saying a word but cooing that strange sound that had roused him from sleep. Her eyes were now black instead of their usual light brown, and as she drew closer to him he realized that the rich odour emanated from her. There was not a trace of that peach scent he associated with his fantasies of her.

She brushed her lips against his lacerated cheeks. There was not a mark on her flesh, though. She was perfect.

Blair fumbled to remove Luke's clothes, growing more impatient, almost angry, and the cooing abated, which left Luke with a stark sense of loss. The boy shed his clothes, and the girl relaxed, resuming her soothing coo.

She kissed him, and Luke lost himself in a brew of new sensations, unsure of the details of what transpired between them. The blissful state segued into sleep, and when Luke awoke the girl was gone.

Shaken, elated, confused, smitten ... Luke dressed and stepped outside, eager to find Blair, to hold her, to kiss her again. But Luke was immediately surrounded by a pack of his male classmates—naked, crouching like monkeys and snarling at him, their eyes wild, violent. They blocked his every attempt at moving away. Even more shocking to Luke was that his friend Ben was among the pack. Ben had made it to the Moon after all, but why had he joined the others against him? Luke whispered, “Ben?” but his friend bared his teeth at him. Beyond, Luke could see that all the other boys were naked, too, roving the camp grounds on all fours, like wild beasts.

Soon, Montague Farmer, in the same feral state as the others, approached the pack that surrounded Luke. They deferred to Montague. Unlike the others, who were no smaller or larger than they'd been on Earth, Montague had grown to nearly double his usual height and girth. Montague was now in all ways the alpha he'd arrogantly strutted around as back home.

Where were all the girls?, Luke wondered, as he avoided Montague's hateful glare. Scanning the horizon, a mass of pinkness caught his gaze. On a rocky shelf overlooking the camp, the girls had gathered, naked, their various limbs lazily entwined. They looked down at the scattered wild boys with amused superiority. Blair was among them, but her skin no longer shone with the hues of the Moon.

Montague growled, seizing Luke's attention.

The two boys stared at each other. Luke was terrified of the violence that was threatening to erupt at any moment, but he refused to let his fear show; he didn't flinch even a smidgen from Montague's glare. While the two boys were locked in that stalemate, all the other feral boys gathered around them in concentric circles.

From afar, the congregation of girls laughed mockingly. Montague cringed at the derision and shrank back to normal size. He cowered away and the feral pack scattered. The girls laughed even louder.

Luke spent the next several hours wandering around, examining the strange vegetation that grew on lunar soil. The other boys still ran around naked and feral, but they stopped harassing him. Luke yearned to seek out Blair, but the gathering of girls intimidated him too much, and he kept to himself until he grew tired enough to slink back into his tent. Sleep never did come and, although he pined for her in silence, neither did Blair.

Luke stepped outside frustrated and disappointed. He heard snoring from the nearby tents; no-one else was out and about. Everyone was sleeping. Luke gathered his gear, and, having had enough, set off for the moonbridge.

He barely noticed the trek back, although it did seem to take quite a long time, but he no longer cared.

The next day at school, Luke didn't feel like speaking to Blair or Benjamin or anyone else. He considered talking to Mr. Saint-Michael about his experiences on the Moon, but the teacher's affected mannerisms now struck Luke as smug and ridiculous. Mr. Saint-Michael was the same as ever, though, Luke knew. It was himself who had changed and not his former mentor.

Luke kept to himself until school gave out for summer. Blair never gave him another look. Benjamin tried to hang out with him, but Luke avoided him.

For his next year, his graduating year, Luke transferred to another school. It was thirty years before he saw anyone from Prettygood Park High School again.

A few minutes before midnight, on the first day of autumn 2012, Luke sat at a hotel bar near Bloor and Spadina, not paying attention to anyone around him; he was in town for the Toronto International Film Festival. None of the films he'd seen that day were any good. Before going up to his room, he'd decided to order a hot toddy to soothe himself to sleep. The guy to his right blurted out, “Luke? Luke Fort?”

“Yeah,” Luke said absent-mindedly. He turned, but then was shocked to recognize his old friend Benjamin House, albeit somewhat balder and greyer.

They shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, gabbed about cinema, and talked about their recent divorces. Luke grew bored with that conversation, though. Remembering the last time he'd spoken to Ben, he said, “Hey, sorry to change the subject, but that Moon trip, back in high school—that was too weird and creepy. What the hell happened to you up there, man?”

Ben looked puzzled. “What do you mean? It was the most boring thing ever. The portal jumped us instantly from Montreal to the Moon. Then, there was nothing up there but dusty rocks. No-one spoke to anybody. We just sat around the fire, bored out of our skulls. I thought the thing was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime. Anyway. I tried to find you; I hoped you'd be proud that I'd made it after all, but where were you?” Resentment crept into Ben's voice. “You weren't with any of the others. I know you went up. I saw you go through the portal from where I was hiding, trying to muster my courage to confront that nightmare guardian.”