Apu’s World

Once upon a time, when Earth was very young, (almost a toddler, you could say), Moon was a lot closer than he is to her today. For you see, Earth and Moon were actually siblings who had been separated from each other when they went to the large fair of the Universe in its heyday. In the early days, they could still remember the time when they had been together, and Moon began a slow revolution around Earth so that he could always see his sister, as she moved around their mother, the Sun. 

But time went by, and the memory of the early days grew faint. As Moon looked out at the vastness of the Universe, billions of light-years in every enticing direction, he resented his ties to his sister and even pretended to himself that the bond had been of her making. As the Sun’s shadow moved every hour of the day, and slivers of darkness covered one longitude at a time, he brooded over his insignificance in the larger scheme of things and wondered why he couldn’t be a planet himself. It was the resentment of all younger children, who know that however bright and beautiful they may be, they can never truly be first. 

With every movement around his sister, he took a step further away, until, many years later, when Earth had grown up (and so had he), he was many millions of miles away from her. Over that unbridgeable gulf, he looked at her one day, and for no reason at all, the memories of his childhood came to him uninvited. The ties that he had snapped now seemed worthy and desirable, and his heart cried out in sorrow. By now, Earth’s heart had hardened and she would not hear his cries, but her children, the young oceans heard a kindred voice and could not help responding. 

Every day they heard the desolate Moon’s call and answered with their tides, but the Earth hushed them up and ordered them to shut their ears. And that is why, to this day, the tides rise and fall every day, but Moon goes farther and farther away. 

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