Love On The Other Moon by N. Barry Carver (great book club books TXT) 📖

Earth’s second largest natural satellite is a 26 km long by 3 km wide irregular chunk of rock named, Toro.

It wobbles around the planet much closer than Luna does... so close in fact that it almost never grabs a single sunbeam. Current theories speculate it was once part of terra firma that was blasted somehow into orbit near the time our earliest ancestors were blasted into dinosaur heaven. Because of its near invisibility, no love poems are written about it and not a single astronaut plans a visit. Because it is stable in its meandering orbit, there isn’t even a plan to destroy it should it flounder free and veer earthward.

Totally without effect or notice, Toro wags back and forth watching over us without hope of fame or release. There are two meager lifeforms on Toro... both microscopic. Not really the extraterrestrials we’re looking for and only slightly evolved from their long extinct earthbound relations. The larger, which is still no bigger than the breadth of a single hair, we’ll call the “R”, for with its stereo-pseudopodia it does often resemble that in letter in our present alphabet. The smaller resembles nothing more than a speck with a squish-turned end. But, in keeping with our nomenclature, we’ll call them the “J”.

After a long evolve on the edge of Toro’s only patch of part-time ice, one of the R became so animated that it moved several millimeters from the tiny mass that is the sum total of R culture. In truth, all the R and the J combined wouldn’t coat the bottom of a small soup plate but from their point of view, they are a vast community with billions of members, a lively social life and aspirations of (do they even dare dream it?) actual aspiration.

That solitary R looked skyward at the spinning Earth, too large to be comprehensible, then looked back at the teaming, surging mass that is civilization on his planet and, after what must have been a very long moment for him, realized he was lonely. Horribly lonely.

Everyone he knew was busy with their own lives. Evolving in harmony with nature and the common good. Many of his peers had started families and had lost all other interests. Even now, many of his classmates were proudly budding or bifurcating – some doing their best to produce spores and get a little more action that way. But Henry’s membrane was as intact as the dot of DNA first branched from his mother/father. His cytoplasm lacked excitement. Inside his civilization, or here beyond it, he had a deep, unfulfilled hole in the pit of his life that no great love or friendship had ever filled.

I suppose I should mention that the J are considered vermin. They are so far beneath the R, and so prolific, that they are looked upon with slightly less disdain than humans hold for cockroaches. Sometimes distastefully used as food by the rural Rs but never, ever, mentioned in polite company. Should one make an appearance at any social event or scurry through a work gathering it would be the faux pas of the decade – which on Toro is about two Earth days.

Our R, let us call him, Henry Pyner, decided that if he was going to feel so miserably lonely, it would be easier just to live out his life alone. His situation would match his feelings and his life would be a bit more harmonious that way. Henry chose a nook at the edge of a towering butte (that to you or I would rise no thicker than a fingernail) and made his plan to settle in for however long his particular monocellular deity allowed him to live. As he made the dimple cozy he noticed that, right in the middle, was the largest J he’d ever heard of!

He was frightened, disgusted, and angry all at once and shouted at the thing to leave instantly!

The giant solitary J, let’s call her Enid Creebs, had a full and happy life. She was neither deep nor dumb and was simply sitting, planning her next forage, when the jaunty Mr. Pyner came on the scene. She had never seen such a small R, nor one so beautiful. He was compact and tidy, his appendages were uniform and symmetrical. He clung to the rock face like, say, a pearl earring might clasp onto an African’s earlobe. And the dear little “face” he had was the cutest she could imagine! When their visual sensory apparatii first met he seemed a bit shocked but quickly recovered and set right in to singing an operatic ode. This, she thought, must have been a declaration of his love at first sight. Enid skittered off like a schoolgirl, giggling all the way.

Henry screamed at the vile creature until it ran off, screeching all the way. Its cries, he thought, must have been a declaration of its own decrepitude... or a vow of revenge. He knew he could not be happy unless he put an end to this awful infestation. So it was that he made his way to the local supermarket and purchased a small container of J poison. This he mixed, half-and-half, with chocolate ice cream – for everyone knows Js can’t resist chocolate. He managed to serve this, in his only disposable bit of crockery, by kicking the bowl with the mixture up to the edge of the butte, which the J had run behind and, figuring that was that, brushed, washed and put on his nightcap and went to bed. Snoring quickly followed.

Enid, after fixing-up her amorphous self as best she could, slipped demurely back around the corner. There was a low and rhythmic music in the air. Sort of a purr and a bit of a growl but, she thought, very, very suggestively done. It paused just long enough for a whistling refrain and then began again. It was mesmerizing and for a moment she quivered transfixed by it. Then a fragrance wafted toward her through an absolute lack of air. An exotic mix of burnt bitter almond and, and... chocolate ice cream!

When she finally did dare to look she couldn’t believe her visual sensory apparatii! It was a bowl of chocolate ice cream and she closed on it like a Chinese bullet train with control circuits made in France! One taste of it told her that it was much more than her usual favorite dish. It had been lovingly mixed, by hand, with the most delicious of additives. Oh! The flavors were exquisite! The young Miss Creebs had never had such a delight and, to have someone actually make it, especially for her!

She could hold herself back no longer. She sped to the sleeping R and thrust herself between his pseudopodia. To hell with what people would say! She had found the love of her life and she was not going to waste another instant. She intertwined her gooey mass with his, inserting, caressing and cilliating anything that would yield to such activities.

Deep in a dream, Henry’s thoughts turned sexual. And just as those dreamy activities passed the point of no return – Henry woke. He looked down to see portions of his anatomy engulfed by Enid! But now, instead of horror, something else filled his mind and he began the equivalent of a toothy grin. Did I mention that things were far beyond the point of stopping?

At this moment Toro made its turn through the Van Allen belts – bands of strong radiation and magnetism that circle our globe in a peculiar pattern of their own. Whenever the cigar shaped planetoid does this, it is bombarded with a thin drizzle of very fast protons almost assuredly sterilizing it. Due to the odd orientation and shape of this moon, the ancient crust of slush that sustains life here stays just beyond these twice-weekly toastings.

I am sorry to say that I do not know if there is more to this story. I don’t know if it was a case of all’s well that ends -uhm- well or if Mr. Pyner got a good lawyer and won whatever judgment he might for this extraterrestrial date-rape.

I hope instead, that Mr. Pyner and Ms. Creebs enjoyed a lovely ceremony marking their permanent union and lived long, fulfilling lives. But it is more likely that they were just far enough beyond the usual boundaries of their species, both physically and morally, that they were incinerated just half a heartbeat after Henry began to smile.

Which, upon reflection, is also about as happy an ending as anyone could wish.

Henry’s college buddies, Mercutio and Benvolio have, as many long awaited, given up the charade of looking to subdivide and are enjoying their life together in a loft, in a neighborhood on the way to being the premier destination of life on Toro.

Publication Date: 09-30-2011

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