Marshall Ramsey

The young performer sat on the stage, dejected after a terrible performance. It had been a horrible night. The rows of chairs in front of him were now empty. So was his heart. Dejected, he thought briefly about quitting. About giving up. Instead, he sat in the nearly dark hall mulling over his future. He closed his eyes and began reviewing his dream.

His dream. The very thing that had driven him for years. The very thing that had taken him from being a middle-class boy in a middle-class suburb to this very stage.  He had made it. His talent had brought him this far. And then he had failed.  His eyes hurt. So did his soul.

He plunged into darkness.

“When you are driving in your car and a dog chases you, do you stop and pull over? Or do you keep going and leave the dog behind?”

The performer looked around and didn’t see anyone.

“Ever read the anonymous comments about you on the internet?  Remember the boos you heard tonight?  They’re like that dog.  The dog can only hurt you if you let it catch you.”

The performer strained his eyes, trying to see the source of the voice.

“I let the dog catch me.  Don’t you allow it to happen to you.”

An elderly man pushing a broom and a barrel came into view.

“I had talent just like you. I once performed on this stage. But then I quit. I allowed my critics to get me down.  I chose the wrong people to listen to.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve lived a good life. But I didn’t live the great life that was I was capable of living.”

The custodian walked over to the performer and sat down next to him. He then put his arm around the boy.  The performer was surprised but just sat there, listening to the wise old man.

“You had a bad night. And you’ll get a bad review. You’ll probably have people shelling you on the Internet within the hour. Heck, probably at this very moment. Keep driving son. Don’t let the dog catch you.”

The performer looked at the custodian’s eyes and could see his reflection within them. He then looked out into the dark theater.  He had to keep driving — his journey had taken him this far. It was time see where it would take him.

“Now if you will excuse me, I have a theater to clean up.  And you have an act to improve.”

The custodian stood up slowly, balancing himself on his broom.  He walked into the darkness and disappeared.

“Thank you.”

“No son, don’t thank me with your words.  Come back tomorrow night and give the performance of your life.  That’s how you can thank me.”

The performer nodded.

The next night, he did indeed give the best performance of his life.  And when he came out for his third encore, he invited a special guest onto the stage.  An elderly man in a gray uniform, walked slowly into the spotlight and joined the performer in a duet of  Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”.

The audience gave both men a standing ovation. And then the performer realized he had just left the dog far behind.

The Moon had a millenniums-long crush on the Earth — but could do nothing about it. He tried to tug at her heart but instead pulled her tides. He glowed from the sun’s rays  to light her on dark nights but she hardly noticed. The Moon just quietly rotated around her, always keeping his face turned  toward her blue and green beauty. “It must be my face,” he sighed. Pocked with craters,  he was scarred with the abuse of time.  Once he had gotten his hopes up when she had sent some of her inhabitants to check him out. But she hadn’t done that in nearly 40 years.  Space was lonely. The Moon was lonelier.

Poets had written about him. Young lovers had fallen in love beneath his glow.  The Moon was a romantic. He just couldn’t get the Earth’s attention. Around and around and around he went, nearly always the same distance away.  He just quietly orbited her as they took yet another trip around the Sun.

The former astronaut, however, was not so romantic about the place he had once visited. He saw the Moon in scientific terms: Gravity. Space. Acceleration. Escape Velocity. One of the few men on Earth who had walked on its surface, he had a serious up on everyone he met. Like the comedian Brian Regan had once said, he could trump anyone by just saying, “Well, I walked on the Moon.”  He sat out in the backyard of his Houston home and looked at the sky.  “Someday we’ll get back to you, old friend,” he warmly growled. “Someday.”

The astronaut’s great-grandson walked out carrying a sippy-cup.  He stopped, dropped the cup onto the St. Augustine grass and pointed to the sky. “MOOON!” his little sing-song voice cried out.  The astronaut picked up the little boy and said, “Yes sir, we’ll be back someday.” He then laughed, “Maybe Newt Gingrich will build that Moon base after all.” The political joke was lost on the child but what the astronaut didn’t know was that indeed someday his great-grandson would go back. Because America’s courage to explore would be re-ignited. He’d take one small step for man just like his grand-grandfather had so many years ago.

“Never quit exploring little buddy,” the astronaut finished. “It’s the most romantic thing you can possibly do.”  With that, he put his great-grandson down. He then watched as space exploration’s future picked up his sippy-cup and stared at his future.

If the Moon could have smiled he would have.  Any attention from the Earth was good attention.  But in the meantime he patiently waited, spinning around and around the woman he loved until he was visited once again.