Luna's Night

I will never forget Luna’s Night.

It had all seemed surreal to me, so fantastical and yet so real that it could not have been a dream brought on by frivolity and celebration.

Lying in the fields after sundown, only the stars illuminated the countryside, of which my grandfather’s land stretched beyond the what the eye could see. My entire family had slaved away at the harvest, even little Liana shaking down sunflower stalks, seeds raining down on her.

Now was time to plant the fields again, the seeds we put aside would germinate in the earth and soon enough the fields would be filled once more. Grandfather said it was his dream to make a maze of sunflowers, and in the centre he could sit undisturbed, smoking his pipe. But until then he would have to wade through the ocean of yellow, grunting as he hoisted a canteen of water more firmly over his shoulder. Leathery wrinkled skin drenched with sweat, Grandfather would never stop for rest.

“Benjamin, see these sunflowers? Each one is a gift from Luna.” He would say each time I complained about the heat. “Each and every one of them is precious.”

The fields were bare, and lanterns glowed in the distance. I could hear chortles of laughter and squeals of delight as firecrackers burst and died. All praising, all thanking Luna, goddess of the skies. Food had been bountiful this year, and all farmers in the area had reaped the benefits.

June, my best friend, and I had wandered around, eating freshly barbequed corn and trying to guess which chicken was the fattest. Even my little sister Liana had been allowed up past her bed-time, clinging tightly to my hand as I led her around the festival games.
Most of the children had left early, it was a long drive back to their homes. It was rare for me to even see June except on special occasions like my birthday. My seventh birthday had been three months previously. We were always so busy on the farm.

Instead of going straight home, I had walked out to my favourite part of the farm and lay down, headless sunflower stalks towering above me. But we hadn’t taken all the seeds – that would be disrespectful to Luna if we were greedy and the next harvest would be minimal.

Birds were pecking at the fallen seeds, gobbling them up. I ran forward, and they squawked and twittered angrily, hurrying to get of the ground. Feathers flapped around me as I shooed them, brushing against me as they rose. Circling low in the air for a few moments, the multicoloured birds flew away into the sunset.

Stretching, I had lain down, with no sense of time to guide me. At some point I may have fallen asleep, sometimes drifting on the border of consciousness. Something shone through my closed eyelids. Rubbing my stiff neck I stood up, wondering just how long I had been lying there in the sunflower fields.

That was when I saw her.

Luna. Goddess of the Skies.

She stood, shining in the moonless night, long white tresses blowing in the light breeze that could not be felt in this world. When she moved towards me it was like gentle flow of Iris Stream, heading towards the river. I fell into a bow, face pressing against the drying earth.

“Stand, my child.”

My limbs obeyed. “But…I am not your child, Goddess. I am a son of the Earth.” Humans were her twin’s child. Ascendo, God of the Earth. The sky was her domain, and people did not belong to it.

“No Benjamin, you are my child too. A son of both Sky and Earth.”

Although I did not understand, somehow it all made sense. Mother Luna moved beckoned, and I rose as she pulled me into an embrace, a small smile on her ageless face.
Then we were flying, the farmland streaching out below our gliding figures. The bare land, stripped of its crops, would have seemed tragic if not for the fact that the lush vegetation would be replenished in the spring.

All those nights I had spent longing to be in the sky, all those melancholy days I had lain looking up at the stars…now I was really flying. I knew I’d have to come down sometime, the ground was already tugging at my heart. Just as the sky had done while I was on the land. Would I ever able to live with both worlds? I wouldn’t be able to stay in one, for I would always be yearning for the other.

I woke up in the fields, but it couldn’t have been a dream. I dusted the soaking dirt off of my back.

Wait, soaking? I looked up around. Stalks towered over my head, the sunflowers bigger and yellower than they had been before the harvest. The sun was already peeking over the horizon – I had slept the entire night from sundown to sunrise.

“Ben, Ben!” Liana’s joyful shouts rang through the air. “The flowers are back! It must be Luna’s magic!”

One by one, my family joined her, rubbing their eyes wearily.

I still remember the same night, as I climbed into the airplane, ready to take my first flight. The airforce had been surprised, but not unwilling to take me in when I was old enough, the young idealistic farm boy with a passion for flying.

The training had been foreign to me, as the only planes I had seen were the ones that occasionally flew overhead when I was playing or working in the farm.

Now at nineteen years of age I climbed into the cockpit. The new recruits’ graduation ceremony was here, and we had been training for this moment since we’d arrived. With a smile I checked all the dials with easy familiarity as the engine shuddered into life.

My first flight was on Luna’s Night, and I felt her smiling down on me as the wheels lifted off the runway with everyone else.

A hundred thousand wings soaring through the sky.