Once there was a river with a tall palm tree by it, at the mouth of the ocean.
Actually, River herself lived by Palm Tree and spent a good deal of her time gossiping with Sea and anybody else who stopped by to get a cool drink from her sweet waters. As it so happens, one of her time-to-time buddies was Moon, who came infrequently, what with having to travel so far all the time, but when she came, she brought tales of distant places and old hard laughter. Part of Moon's job, other than traveling with Sun, was to make sure that Water got to every place that could handle it. So she come to gather up buckets and buckets from the edges of River and Sea to make Rain. River was jealous, since she already had the water, but never let on.
Sea wanted to know when would be the next time Moon was coming around to get her water and River said it was never the same time twice in a row, so how would she know. They both looked up into the night sky and realized that it was pretty dark save for a few stars trying to show off. Moon was on her way.
It just happened that Moon was getting tired of being up there all the time with no neighbors to speak of, what with the stars being so far away, she couldn't even yell, "yoohoo!" to get the latest news. She treasured her trips to River, Palm and Sea's home. Too bad she always had to go back after a few days. Catching herself, she realized she was already through the Tight Airs and needed to get into her earth get-up. Walking quietly through the forest, she arrived at the clearing that marked the shoreline and made a bee-line for Palm, the single tallest thing out there.
As she made her way there she heard some people talking all bad about the moon that they saw the other night, like the color was off, or it revealed itself funny-like which means somebody's gonna lose a baby, or…she was a pretty nice character and was shocked to discover that folks used her as an excuse for just about anything. River had been talkin', determined to bring the high and mighty low.
As far as Moon knew, "people did all they business by my light, even though they pretended that it was the Sun," the reality was that he just made it hot enough for things that people planned and arranged by her light to prosper in his. "Menses, tides, fishes, growing seasons, cloth making," oh she could just go on! "All those things because of me, Moon!" Her salt-sea blue wrapper just flapped angrily behind her as she marched on towards Palm.
Closer, she began to feel sad. She had sacrificed everything for everybody and now they were angry with her, she could at least have neighbors. By the time she reached the mouth of the Sea, she had pretty much shaken the whole thing off, clear that you can't please everybody.
Now, since River had hatched her plot to convince people to distrust Moon, Sea had become a little agitated. Though River thought that she should be able to distribute rain all by herself and didn't need no too-pretty Moon no way, Sea was very clear that without her, moon that is, stuff would just be odd. She understood that her pretty dancing for which she was held in high regard had a lot to do with Moon, though she wasn't all that sure how.
-"SWAAAAAHHROOMMM PAH! This gas is giving me trouble. Too much trouble. River, it's like I'm being sucked down into my own stomach."
-"Maybe you should change what you drink," said Palm in his customary wry way.
-"Oh shut up," yelled River, "everybody know I got the sweetest water there is."
-"This true," said Palm, "but not the only water, and not exclusive water."
Sea thought about that: "It is true that our waters meet and its none too clear to me why it even stop being saltee wher-- SWAAAAAHHROOMMM PAH!" Night fisherman were just struggling to get ashore. Nothing seemed to calm Sea down, but she didn't seem to be particularly angry, for which she was also fabulously known. All those bad thoughts River was having, was making it difficult for Sea, since she was so connected to Moon. They were throwing off the rhythm.
Moon arrived to find the atmosphere around her three friends more than a little odd. What's the what she asked. Oh, nothing said River we were just wondering when you were gonna get here. It did take longer than usual. Sometimes I just get in a groove you know, close to some folks who can really throw a party and I just want to stay. They chitted and chatted for a while. Moon began to collect her water, sensing she had interrupted something.
-"Oh, you don't have to go so soon," said River.
-"Well, I do, I'm a bit off schedule, gotta make up the time somewhere and you all must be tired of my tongue."
-"SWAAAAAHHROOMMM PAH!"
-"Sea? Are you alright."
"I don't think she is, look at her running all crazy like that. Hey, come back! Where you going?"
-"SWAAAAAHHROOMMM PAH!"
-"Girl, you better see somebody about that."
-SWAAAAAHHROOMMM PAH! UMUP! SCHASCHASCHASCHA OOOOOOP! HMMMMMMM."
Palm lay all bent down, looked almost broken. River's mouth was jammed full of logs, sand, old ships, chains and animals that were no longer among the living. And Sea and Moon were gone. It took days for people to clear off the beach and open the River's mouth. A gal like that like to gossip that much, you better believe she was getting her talk in somewheres else; as a result, so there had been flooding all up into the fields and villages off her banks. As for Palm, he was playing possum and managed to make it through, except now he was gimpy, leaning a bit to the right, cursing at River to stop wetting his feet so damn much.
At last River was clear, but Sea had run out way far on her plain, and couldn't nobody see her. Worst of all, Moon had gone missing. The fishermen were having to walk miles before they could put in and then was nothing live to be found, only smelly floating fish, scales slimy with death. To add to the mess, there was now a drought on, and nobody, not even River, could get it to rain. It seems that Sun had gotten pretty angry that his lady friend had left him without so much as a goodbye--so what they was always too busy for sweetness, didn't he say good morning and goodnight to her every day? He was scorching up the sky something bad. Things were, to say the least, awful.
If times were hard above water, they was sweet sweet sweet beneath! It seems that in her pain, Sea caused a tidal wave, which woke up Volcano, who, after she shook off her sleep had moved around the rocks sand mud just enough to make a new beach, or rather a nice apartment for Sea and her sister-friend, Moon. Yes, Moon had been taken down, down to the depths of the Unknown only to find lots of creatures that glowed like herself and who had good rhythm and threw great parties. Sea was content, with Moon so close she had no fear of anymore indigestion. And so them grouper fish was just a blowin' their music and the Fishtail people jammin' on their shells, it was a real festival every night--Moon had come home! They had shown her secret roads and alleys that led to forests and rivers and more people, people with legs like she was accustomed to seeing. Sea would just come on in and swim around with the River gals there, whom she had meet before along time ago, but had forgot about since the last time she had had this, let's just call it "problem." And everything was sweet and nice, cause Moon had come home to the Great Glow. But above, way above in the other dry place, things were hard and bitter.
Everybody, including Palm, had given up on Moon ever being recovered, the fishermen had gone out everyday at dusk with water lanterns, hoping that like would attract like, but they had no such luck. The only thing that they noticed was a persistent thud, almost like a song, but ain't no rhythm they ever had heard, so they shrugged it off like the noise their ears understood it to be. Except one fella. He was a thoughtful type and where everybody else just heard random thuds and slaps, he was certain that it had special meaning. Now this is true of any noise that you hear, but whether or not you decide to stop and listen properly and long enough to get the message it may as well just be a bunch of banshees screamin'. Now, anyway, he was wrapping his mind around it, this underwater noise, and trying to figure out what it was. He was a pretty good musician as well, which is often the case with people that spend all their time trying to out-shimmy water, so he knew to hear the silences first, the margins, and that would take him into the heart.
Seemed like every time they went out there, some sort of noise was happening. He soon convinced everyone that there was in fact some SOUND coming from the bottom of the Ocean which had the only effect of scaring the rest of the boating party off, since every body know that a singing and talking fish is a bad thing indeed. But he persisted and soon had the idea to build a special water listening contraption out of shells, scales and fish guts--like cancels like.
Down beneath, Moon hadn't thought more than twice about Sky, Sun, Palm and River; let alone no Rain. She felt good, People here had a special rhythm just for her, just like they had for River and Sea on the Upside, that's what you call when you on the Under. So she loved that place something fierce and Sea was no help in trying to get her to leave since she was feeling too good herself.
All the songs that people sung to Sea on the Upside had always seemed half done, but here, they remembered the whole things. And boy did those songs go on and on, just like Sea herself. From shore to shore, you couldn't handle much more! Battty bat bat bat, batty bat bat bu, batty bat bat bat bubu, batt bat batty batbatbatbat buh u buh batty. And on and on. Moon's lick was something like ting a tong a batty baty bop babop tinga tinga batty bop bop boit boit boit batty batty ting tong bop. And when they had the nerve to run the two rhythms into each other, OH MY what a fish fry!
Most folks was dead except the ingenious, so our brother the fisherman was still making his dusk trips out to sea to find Moon and beg her to come back. He put his special listening device into the water and had a realization: what would he do if he understood what he thought he was understanding? Dance? Swim? Die of fright? Plead? That's what he'd do, he'd sing back a plea. It didn't quite work out that way. At that moment that he was doing all of his what ifs, he had already jumped into the water and was swimming down towards the music, entranced by the sounds which now felt like a big heart wrapped around him. He swam and swam, and there he saw her, the Moon, in get-up-and-jam Big Glow clothes, which, quite frankly, is too much for an Upsider to handle. As he opened his mouth to beg, he took in water, sinking down towards the dance floor. Without a hesitation, Moon rushed up towards him and wrapped herself around him. Sea gave her a push and she flew far back into the sky.
People on the shore who had seen the fool jump off into the water--as they had expected him to have done a long time before--witnessed the great surge of water and light and marveled as Sea swam back to shore, full of fish. But that strong light was immense and it just kept on going into the darkness. And there it was, the moon. People stood around with their jaws dredging the sandy shore. A little girl looked up and said, "Look ma, there's a man in the Moon!"
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