Moonlight, by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

The Effect of The Moon, by Eugene Boudin (France) 1891.

​Moonlight

Moon flits about the clouds, drifting in and out, silver shrouds bursting over darkened lawns and sidewalks. A swarthy man walks, carrying the weight of things unseen upon his shoulder, the darkened apartment drawing closer and closer. He stops. Stares at the moon, above the trees, whose naked branches extend like skeletons in the night, the moon without any place to go, except along its journey. It smiles, luminous white smile a little crooked, illuminating his wet eyes. His inebriated soul, acrid booze upon his breath, regrets beginning to be born and in the morning he will give birth.

He stands there, watching the moon, watching her drift. She is a  beauty, a motherly sort, a sort who has seen loss, who has seen so much.It smiles, hides behind another cloud. He follows it, past vast buildings with graceful columns, buildings filled with friendship and academia by day, and by ghosts at night. The moon keeps beckoning him, and on he walks. He hears a lovely lilting song in her silence, absorbs the music, absorbs with each step he takes, his dark apartment drawing closer and closer. The night darkens, the clouds begin to gather and time and science call the moon away. He tries to reach for it, begs for it to stay with him, but just as fast, she vanishes, reemerges. And on she goes, the night deepening, the clouds gathering, the ghost trains whistling, the man alone.

Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

Mir-Yashar is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. He is the recipient of two Honorable Mentions from Glimmer Train and has had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions. His work is forthcoming or has appeared in journals such as Cicatrix Publishing, Fleas On The Dog, Bending Genres Journal, and Gravel Magazine. He lives in Fort Collins, CO.