Watched a video today that left a little mental scar on me… Writing a story based off of it… Only with Kimiko… If you want to be as upset by it as I was, let me know and I can send you the name. It wasn't really freaky or disturbing, but it was really sad to me… And it left a definite impact… I can hardly think on anything happy right now…
The Moon…
She had gazed up at the stars her whole life, desperately in love with the moon. It had always been there and she had always said someday she'd get there. At first her family encouraged her optimism. They'd always say, "Of course you can Kimiko, you'll get there one day." "You can do anything you put your mind to," they'd say. But slowly, they stopped saying things like that. Soon the "you can" became "not now sweety" and "grow up, Kimiko". It had broken her little heart for her father to tell her that there was absolutely no way for her to reach the moon.
So she had given up on the dream. Kimiko sat in her living room, watching TV. On the floor, alone, while her mother smoked and her father drank. A commercial about starving children. A report on a war in the Middle East. A list of dead names. An animal abuse commercial. Was nothing happy anymore? Her mother wasn't anymore. Mother never smiled. She just stood around, smoked her cigarettes and talked about all the bills and the death and the fighting. Father never laughed anymore. He just complained of his inability to hold a job and drank away his problems into the night.
Kimiko flipped through channels, changing from depressing thing to depressing thing. A young boy had been kidnapped and strangled to death. An old man set his ex-wife on fire. Women starving themselves. It was all so sad.
And then she found it. A video of a puppy playing in a park. Stopping, she began to smile again. For the first time since she last looked up at the moon and thought she could get there. For the first time in years. The puppy hopped around as its owner told it to go get a ball. It looked so happy. So free. And suddenly an immense crash. A flash of red. The camera panned up to the city skyline behind the puppy in the park. There were explosions. Bombs. Missiles being dropped onto the city. The camera lit up, and then faded into darkness.
"There were no survivors…" came the cheerful voice of the newswoman.
With tears in her eyes, Kimiko threw the remote at the television screen and ran through her house to the front door. She flung the wood open and ran in her bare feet through the woods. Away from her mother. Away from her father. Away from all the sadness. She ran until she came to a cliff.
Stopping, she gazed up at the one thing that had made her happy. The moon. Sniffling, she stared.
She'd get there. She would. Kimiko ran at top speed toward the moon, stepping on a rock and cutting her foot open and causing it to bleed, and all at once…she jumped. Reaching her hands out, grasping, groping the night air for the moon. She felt suspended in nothingness, but she felt heavy. Heavy. Heavier. Faster. The moon! No! She had to reach farther!
And the suddenly, she had a hold of it. She grasped the moon, climbed onto it, and sat upon the moon. She looked around her; saw everything floating away below her. And she saw her foot. Not bleeding. Not cut. Completely fine. She rubbed the spot and smiled. She was alright. She had made it. She was finally there…. She was finally at the moon… She was finally happy again…