FICTION

Moon Miner

Finding joy when you’re trapped far away from home

All images by Jason McBride

I wish we had remained strangers to the Moon.

I used to love the Moon. As a child, I thought it was a giant nightlight in the sky. Its beams pierced my bedroom window and chased away my nightmares.

Before we were married, when we were still in love but not together, I spent a few years on the other side of the world, and each night I’d look up at the Moon knowing when I woke up the next morning you’d be staring at the same Moon.

One day after we’d been married long enough to have two kids, I said I loved you. And you didn’t say anything. Not for an eternity — or maybe it was a minute. It could’ve been five minutes or five years. I’ve no way of knowing. You stared at me, anger and pain flashing in your eyes.