Lunar Man

Рассказ, с которого начались "перекрёстки".
О тебе, лунный странник, заблудившийся вдруг...
_________

He fell one day. Though he wasn’t hurt, it occurred to be quite a misfortune – to be fallen from the moon. At first, he didn’t realise, but the fact that the moon was filing his eye, mixing lemony brew into slowly appearing tear, left no doubt – he’s fallen from the place he was born down to lands of unknown – wasteland – thus he called them from the nearest thought, and thus he became very desperate of that sudden knowledge.
So he sat in the middle of nowhere, murmuring lunatic breeze, when the lady appeared from the darkness, and taking her nightgown off whispered softly to his shallow ear:
‘Come with me, for here I am the Moon.’
And he followed her walk, holding nightgown tail, being perplexed so far, as he couldn’t deflect that weird fact that he fell from the moon. Still, he wasn’t assured if he’d go with the lady, but her name... Do they call her Moon? Or is it just some trick? But she, as if could hear minds, just laughed with silver:
‘Don’t be afraid, my son. I mean no harm.’
Though, still he felt uneasy.

‘What is this place?’ He asked.
‘How would you call it?’
‘Wasteland.’
‘So be it. But how do you know it is a wasted land when you are just the one who fell from moon?’
‘I don’t... it’s different, though...’
‘Sure it is. As different from the moon as differ genders. Say, can you tell desire from disease?’
‘What kind of question is it?’
She giggled:
‘Never mind, just wonder...’

‘Is Moon – your name?’
‘Depends... on whom I’m meeting. You call me Moon.”’
‘You have another name?’
‘Plenty for each. It depends, like I told you.’

She wasn’t straight, and he who fell from moon followed her way, deranged, watching the night becoming pale morn, unveiling noisy street of some unknown city in its brightest stage of wakening life. Lunar bed, faintly seen, melted in the ripening sky, and with the sound of growling motors, hurried heels, multiple hums and over-pouring coffees – day began.
Suddenly, he found himself in possession of the deepest urge to stay here – in this day – for there were no any days up there on the moon, just darkness that you eat and drink, sometimes have sex with, even fights, like fighting echo at the bottom of the well, being the servant placed to ring the bucket-bell. And though he did not remember why he’d fallen down, he had a stroke in mind, that maybe it was he who jumped attempting to become the void, at last forget all humanly depressions, but gained himself a day – one day of being able to control his senses and feel, standing in the light, not hiding on the other side. Thus, it turned to be mistake to call this land – a wasteland, so he thought when decidedly and sharply rejecting the lead of the lady, who was passing like spectre amidst his desire-full day.

‘I’m staying here.’ He told her in a windy tone.
‘Say, not a wasteland any more, when day encumbers?’
‘I feel alive.’
‘Just as you wish. Let’s make a deal – you live a month, I’ll tell my different name. You’re not – we’re on our way, I am Moon, thou doth obey. So, what do you say?’
‘We deal’.

He was alone, again, the lady let him off and waned just like the moon in city smog, leaving the one – fallen down – in the centre of the universal play of crawling life during the flight of day. Yet, it was fine with him, and sparkling through his eyes he felt obsessed by all the shiny tides he could stage in throughout the day.
He’d fallen from the moon, but still he wanted to be a man.

He got some job, some house, some car and some friends. He even got some wife, some child, and for a while everything was going good and lovely. But then they realised he was from the moon and told him to return where he belongs.
Out of the blue, their words again made him feel like being fallen. Again he was sitting on the bottom of some terrifying well filled with greasy reminiscences, crashing his head against the solid gloom-proof wall, enveloped in disease of un-desire... to live.

At first, he was as good as any other men who live a day. But then some later time he noticed that he happened to wake up at night and couldn’t work till day, being clumsy and distressed, and furthermore some days he even couldn’t go out the door, feeling like stopped by some unearthly powers, breeding sickness inside of his mind. They called him from work on and on and his wife just repeated despondently that: ‘He is mooning away...’
He remembered the deal with the mysterious lady and locked himself down in his room, trying to find the origin of his discord with the way how others live a day; and then after some mind-sweeping while he managed to know that his biorhythms are strangely connected to the calendar of the moon, hence his days are lunar days – different from those common to others.

‘Strangely, no way!’ He was crying or laughing, mooning around the parlor, dreaming himself as a wanderer of lunar mares. ‘I fell from the moon! I fell from the moon! Why does this blasted world not live by lunar calendar?! What should do people like me to become the day? Or you’re telling me just go away, return to your goddamn moon?! Is this what you want? Are you hoping I’m breaking my neck? There, bastards, eat me!’
That is how he fell again…

‘There you are.’ Reproachful she spoke.
‘You knew I couldn’t make it…’
Moon shook her head:
‘Unfortunately, I wouldn’t say I knew. It’s only you who fell again, this time is badly. So, can you tell desire from disease?’
‘One can be both.’
‘Exactly, just like you. You’re not the only one who fell from moon. Each has his own moon – to moon her over. But can be lost within her dreamy loves. Yet, can be lost in day of human being, in urge to be amidst but not aside. You either trade your moon to become others or strive as hard as can for her to gain the light and turn it on to let them, posing queenly, admire of her night supremacy. Thus, then their day is full of memorizing moon, when you’re the one who made her that desired, them – diseased. Now come. We had a deal, I lead the way.’    
_________
They said he jumped out of the window.
On the 29th day of the moon...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/190071044/Lunar-Man