By M. Bluman

December 24th, 2007
Jenny and I had decided to go stargazing again. Like we did when we were young. It was
the thing to do; after all it had been far too long.
It was Christmas 1998, and the air ran crisp and bright outside the dew ridden window. I
awoke first, and forced Jenny to jolt upright, somewhat terror-stricken. We had both, in a
way, correctly theorised that Santa had visited the night previous, and so the relevant
protocol was to proceed to cause a commotion in our parents tiny box-like bedroom.
I recall us thumping down the splintered stairs, and into the living room. We were never
extremely wealthy growing up, and as we lived on a farm, our Christmas tree had over the
years become more worn than the year before by the animals whom we lived in unison with.
Jenny and I sat cross-legged on the knitted carpet and were given a few small trinket-like
presents, in which we obviously appreciated, but we were further intrigued to see what lay
inside the huge cuboid box upon the left of Jenny. Our parents held their breath in
anticipation and allowed us to tear the wrapping paper. Our eyes shone as we saw the
beautiful metallic telescope before us, and a shrill sound escaped our throats.
Approximately 4 hours after our turkey dinner with family, under the yellow lighting of the
90s, we wrapped up warm and appropriately, and scurried off the forest behind the acres.
We scrambled through the brambles, and scurried through trees to the little opening beyond.
A misty white fog sat comfortably above the horizon like it had always done and the sky was
a miserable profound grey. Jenny and I had always been each other’s best friend due to our
small age gap, and without knowing how long we had been doing so, we sat on the bench
and talked. And talked. And, perhaps, talked some more. Until a silver spheroid looked down
at us as day transformed into night, and eureka struck Jenny as she realised we had the
telescope with us. We looked up, blind, then peered into the fuzziness of the telescope and
realised the crystal clearness of the matter.
A man. He waved. I think it was in joy.
We squealed in delight and eagerly waved back. “A man! A man on the moon!” Jenny
exclaimed. I agreed with her, obviously- she had always been my role model and biggest
hero. We unlocked our eyes from the telescope and looked up. It didn’t take long for us to
understand that we could see the man without the telescope. It rained magic that night, all
the way from the moon in a beam of warmth and protection. Drops of pure gold saturated the
grass and the spirit of Christmas was the most alive. Until it wasn’t.

4 years later, we had gotten the call that our mother had passed- she wasn’t expected to last
as long as did after our father. And the telescope sat in the attic, stained with once gleaming
spirit and spun in the cobwebs of our childhood laughs. But, in order to see the man again,
the conditions of the old times needed to be revived once more. Jenny and I, with caution,
brought the artifactual telescope down the stairs from the attic and we polished all of the dust
off. We used a j-cloth to shine the front lens until we could see our reflections.

A reflection of two girls with toothy grins and hope filled eyes; they were so close, yet so far
and out of reach to hold. To affirm. To comfort.
Jenny and I moved away from the farmhouse to pursue our positions on this planet; it was a
difficult decision but a flower cannot bloom in captivity, better yet blossom. She lived but a
few hours away from me but seldom we saw each other. A card in the post, wedged
between the letterbox, or a postcard, arriving many months after its initial send date.
I would often sit in the zen of my dark room and reminisce about the years in the farmhouse
and how easy I would have it. Christmases in my new studio drained of colour each year, the
ex-sunshine was exactly that and I would spend the day alone instead of seeing my family
and waving to the man on the moon. I would reminisce about him and if he truly was a
figment of my imagination, but with my hand resting upon my heart, I could tell you that I
remember his eager wave and I could have sworn that one of those years I heard a distant
but clear “hello”.

And so it was 2007.
It had been many years since I saw Jenny’s freckled face and it had been many years since
I saw our parents, whom of which I missed dearly but had come to terms that of course, they
were not coming back. The stones crackled and shattered into smithereens underneath my
car as I pulled up onto the driveway, parking next to a very familiar face. The first hour and
roughly a half were awkward; it had been many years after all. We rang the doorbell and
greeted extended family one by one, all of them repeating the same combination of 3
phrases- how much we had grown, how much they missed us, and how much older we
seemed.
The dinner was nice, of course never the same. I missed my family’s cooking and my heart
yearned for my mother’s puddings. Maybe if I had peered around the corner, I would’ve seen
her in the distance slaving away over the stove, and the faint smell of sugar still lingering in
the air. But I’m probably wrong. I sat opposite Jenny, I chose to. I wanted to study her face
and observe how much it may have changed in what seemed like centuries of separation.
But it didn’t. And she looked exactly how I remembered. My sister. We made eye contact
and she signaled to me that she wanted to talk outside of the dining room.
She explained how she wanted to see the man again, because years of faded memories
made her realise that it may not have been as she first thought. I agreed with the statement
and leaving the door wide open, we sprinted freely through the forest, scrambling through
the brambles, and scurrying throughout trees to the little opening beyond. The same fog that
was present 19 years earlier still sat, as if no time had truly passed at all.
Jenny ensured she had the telescope to hand, just in case we couldn’t see the moon with
the naked eye on this night. She assembled the tripod, pointed it upwards to the black ink
and peered into the small eyepiece. She stood. For quite some time. And slowly backed
away. She looked at me, eyes glossy with tears and in between half sobs, she cried “He’s
not there”. She handed me the metal cylinder and I, too, peered inside. And she was right.

Jenny began walking back towards the farmhouse in defeat. I took one last look inside the
small eyepiece, expecting a different result from the last.
And although there was no one there, I noticed the stars shining a little bit brighter that night
than previous years.

M. Bluman is a teen writer and poet from the UK. She has been creating art and helping people feel emotion by such since she was 8 years old. Apart from writing, M also enjoys playing piano, drawing, and just overall having a laugh.