I went to the moon once

Ron Riekki

I was bored.  A kid.  There was a spaceship

in our neighborhood, abandoned.  I got in.

I don’t want to brag.  It was just the moon.

It wasn’t Mars or Neptune or Poseidon or

the sun.  I’m glad I didn’t go to the sun.

That would suck.  It was the moon and I

started up the spaceship and just drove.

I had no idea what I was doing.  It takes

three days to get to the moon.  I didn’t

just look that up.  It’s from experience.

I felt nervous falling asleep driving that

thing, but it’s too hard to stay up three

days in a row, so I just trusted the space-

ship and fate and coordinates and all that.

When I got to the moon, it wasn’t really

all that big of a deal.  I kept looking at

the Earth.  It felt like I was on Earth and

looking at the moon, but in reverse.  It

made me miss home.  Later, I’d join

the military.  No, not the Space Force.

The Air Force.  I was more interested

in air than space.  There’s the Water

Force too.  Except it’s called the Navy.

I wasn’t in that one.  I wanted air.  I

knew I’d never run out of oxygen if

I was in the Air Force, but I remember

this moment during the war where I

was on the runway, the B-52s all gone

destroying things and I looked back in

the direction of home and I missed it,

the horizon, somewhere on the horizon

was home and the harvest moon was

there too, reminding me that I love

adventure and I was alone and it was

night and I thought what it must be

when God looks down on us, if it

feels like when I look at the moon

or look in the direction of home and

miss my past & future at the same time.

Image by Harry Rajchgot (2022)