The Red Moon

(This is an experiment in writing stories based on song titles of whatever's playing on my iTunes.)

Once upon a time, the moon and the sun moved together in the sky. The moon once travelled together with the sun in the sky, perfectly synced. They were a team of sorts, ever travelling one beside the other. The days were always bright, even through clouds, and the nights were nearly absolute. The moon was very happy, and often said that it would be happy thus forever.

The sun, however, was discontented. It looked down on the people below and saw that they were blinded by the light of day, and unable to see in the night. To fix this, the sun moved itself far from the moon, so that in the day, only the sun was visible, and in the night, the moon shone alone.

The moon was very upset at this! It had lost its only friend for no reason that it could understand. At first it tried to speed up, to catch the sun; but the sun just moved faster itself! The people got very confused. Eventually, the moon gave up. Now it was angry. And it burned a terrible red.

This red was not an ordinary red. Every night, as the moon rose and cast a crimson hue o'er the night sky, people would become sickly and weaken. Animals and trees and people alike all became sick when the red moon rose. Some of them even died! It was a desperate situation. A very brave, very clever shaman named Katherine decided to act. She went to a big tree, and performed magical rites on it. "Grow, tree, grow!" she said. "Grow until you cover the moon!"

The magic tree grew very tall. It grew taller than the mountains. It grew taller than the sky. It grew straight up to the moon! Then it grew until it covered all the moon. Now there was no more evil red glow hurting everyone! All of it was absorbed by the tree's branches. But this hurt the tree a lot! It died pretty soon, but its branches stayed covering the moon.

A sun priest, called Stephenson, went to the sun to ask for guidance. "O Sun," he intoned, "the red moon that was hurting everyone is gone now. But now the night is dark again! No-one can see!" The sun was very surprised at this. It hadn't realized that the moon was red at all! It was always up when the moon was down, and down when the moon was up, so it never saw any of this. It told Stephenson, "The moon lit up the night before! You must go and find the reason why the moon was red, and now is dark. Then you must fix it! If I go help, the world will be dark in daytime, and light in the night-time. Thus, you must fix this problem yourself."

Stephenson was a little annoyed, but he was a sun priest, so he did what the sun said. He journeyed many miles, across rivers and hills and forests. Eventually, he came to the great magic tree, which he had seen from miles away. He tried to chop it down, but the tree was far too big. So he climbed up it!

Katherine tended the tree regularly, so the very next day, she saw the marks that Stephenson's axe had made. She was very angry! "Who is trying to destroy the great tree, that keeps everyone safe from the evil moon?" she wondered. Then she saw the footprints in the dirt that covered much of the lower part of the tree. "Someone is climbing up the tree - probably to do some evil! I must stop them!" she said, and commenced to pursue.

Stephenson climbed the tree for two days and two nights. He rested on outlying branches, and fed on tree-sap and acorns. Katherine followed him, even faster! By the time Stephenson reached the moon, Katherine was just one hour behind.

Stephenson looked at the branches that covered all the moon. He was a little intimidated! After some thinking, he chose a spot that looked thin, and chopped through the branches. Red showed through! He felt a little sick, but continued chopping, widening a larger area. On the earth below, a tiny dot of red began to appear, like a gleaming eye.

Katherine caught up, though. She yelled at Stephenson. "Stop your chopping! You are hurting everyone on the earth!" Stephenson yelled back. "I was told by the sun itself to do this! You must not interfere!" They called each-other many mean names.

Eventually, the moon tired of this. "I do not like the sound of bickering. Or you." it informed them. "Why do you appear here, on my surface?"

Both Katherine and Stephenson were very surprised. Katherine recovered first. "Why are you so angry, moon?" she asked. "Why do you hurt everyone with your red glare?"

The moon responded, "Of course I am angry! The sun, my only friend, has abandoned me - then I am trapped by a gigantic tree for months! I am very angry at everyone. That is why I am this furious red!"

Katherine said, "But the sun moved so that you could light the night while he lit the day! That way, everyone could see!"

The moon was unsatisfied. "I do not care about you people! I only care about my friend!"

Katherine suggested, "Perhaps we could get the sun to move back beside you?" but Stephenson shook his head as she spoke. "The sun does not compromise very much. He would just yell at anyone who suggested it."

Katherine and Stephenson stood on the maze of branches covering the moon, thinking. Then Katherine came up with another idea. "What if you moved at a different speed than the sun? Then you could see the sun sometimes, and the night would still mostly be lit." Stephenson nodded. "Yes, I could get the sun to agree to that, I think."

The moon grumbled, "Chop these accursed branches off me, and I will go to sleep until you get this compromise of yours - which I do not like very much, I will say." Stephenson and Katherine chopped busily, and the moon went dark. Then Stephenson went away, to talk to the Sun. Eventually, though much yelling, he got the sun to agree, and, two days later, the sun and the moon saw one another again.

And the moon glowed white.