Flash Fiction: In the Moon We Have Everything by Avra Margariti

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

In the farmers market, the first girl I ever loved sells a cornucopia of moons made of papier-mâché, marble, even organic cheese. She spreads them out on her weather-worn stall like an orrery, only it’s not a solar system, just the same not-planet on repeat.

Have you ever bought a moon from me? she asks, polishing her orbs, piercing me with her eyes. Have you ever held a celestial body between your palms?

I tell her I have not, but once, when we were in high school, I sold my underwear for a few coins each, three days worn. She laughs and I don’t tell her it was at least two of her ex-boyfriends who bought my used underwear from the oaken hollow of the school’s oldest tree. I don’t tell her that her older brother, home from uni, was a regular either.

Did you know? she asks, as she twirls her moons like a cosmic maestra while around her tomatoes, oranges, plums change hands. She used to be the school queen, the town’s envy. Now, everyone but me avoids her stall. I was the good-for-nothing of our high school, now I consult the local businesses. Where to invest, and when to show restraint.

Did I know what? I urge, my eyes drifting to a cerulean crystal moon the size of my pinky-promise fingernail; another shrouded in puffy cotton candy that shields its true size from view. I think one of them must be shaped like a heart.

Does she know I always wished she would be the one to show up to my secret tree stash after the final bell had set us free? That she wouldn’t ask to buy, but to trade?

They say there is a man in the moon, she tells me, mouth and brows pursed. Conspiratorial. But I know the truth.

I peek through the crater-tunnels of one of her gruyere moons. Turn the orb this way and that, a kaleidoscope to catch the sun rays, the peppercorns like ore, the veins of fool’s gold. Rainbows traverse cavernous walls, alighting an eardrum pulse.

And inside her moon, there is a miniature tree with its hollow gaping open, tiny boys and men gathered round, eager to buy something no longer sold. The figurines appear lost in its absence, tearing at their own clothes, their hair.

Their money, their attention, no longer needed.

And farther through the labyrinth, at the gooey fondue core, me and the last girl I will ever love swimming in perfect synchronicity, butterfly strokes, her wingtips brushing mine.

And a silver beam of moonglow stretching between us like cheese stringed by heat, by fate.

Avra Margariti is a queer author and poet from Greece. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Wigleaf, SmokeLong Quarterly, Best Microfiction, and Best Small Fictions. You can find Avra on twitter (@avramargariti).