Man from the moon (UNDER EDITING)

Journal002/HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Creating engines of war hoping to never use them is the greatest paradox man has created.
However, we have never once failed to pull the trigger.

My hand touched the frigid glass. My numbed fingers sucked in the cold condensation that had seeped its way into the car.

I dragged my thinning fingers across the glass, grooves forming where I touched, random strings of numbers I'd memorized, or dates and shapes, or smiley faces and peace signs.

I've seen a few of the latter burn lately. On the edge of where suburbia met rural, when that cowish manure smell started to assault you through the sharp winds; A smell that made you roll up the windows, but told you that you were free of the city born smog that had grafted itself to the sky.

We'd gone on back roads, abundant fields of wheat spreading past the mountains like seas of gold.

I remember when my father took me to a formicarium—It was very boring—but, wrapped around us, forward and back, were armored vehicles, like we were a queen ant moving to a new nest.

The sparse buzzing of the intercom brought me away from my shoes. Aunt Cassandra was sitting next to me, she didn't speak often. Only speaking in morse sporadically.

Her eyes were flitting to every strobing light flared off by a communication tower, or the occasional bump of my feet. My aunt was brilliant, and confident, watching her sway like a skyscraper in her seat made my gut churn.

I bit my nails a few times; ripping the skin around them to shreds on this long car ride, that quote: "Would not stop unless the world ended."

Truth be told, I was scared. Through loose newspapers, I've seen the tension between superpowers, and their threats of destruction.

How close had the clock been set to midnight?

10 seconds till midnight.

It terrified me. The thought of our home being torn away from us, our old home, that sat on the ridges of blue mountains, where you inked my height through the years. The thought I'd never see it again-- due to old men too scared to discard their agendas that filled their already bursting-at-the-seams pockets.

It terrified me to know that you may come back with life, with news of a better — greener — planet, and the blue marble, that as our plump ol' president said, "Home" would be filled with a smog that wouldn't disappear until forever.

More than most. It made me rise at night like a zombie searching for brains, the thought of never seeing my cool dad again. My awesome dad who raised me alone. My dad who struggled to provide, but kept a smile all the way through. From A to Z, a dad who knew it all.

The thought of me dying.

Sorry, Auntie's asking me a few questions, see you soon. Love, from the Little Wizard on our pale blue marble. From "Home" to Superbia.

On its back, the world was crucified. Left to burn as we searched for a newer tomorrow.

Statement of Y/N Saint. [December 10th, chief scientific officer within Superbia-001.]

"Hello, sweetheart," You wiped your face with a napkin. "How have you been?" Your voice was there—the same voice —yet your eyes were distant. Bleak, like they'd been buried beneath a snowstorm. It made me worry.

Your shoulders slouched further into the seat. A smile on your lips, a smile that spoke of wonderful things, and that it'd be alright, no matter what because daddy's here.

Except you weren't here.

After a pause, you spoke again; "I pray, not to god, but to the stars, that no matter where you stand, you'll see their light." You turned his head for a moment.

"It's nearly your birthday!" You exclaimed.Spreading your arms into a hug, and drowning the camera in the shadow of your white undershirt.

"My sweetheart is growing up. So, so, fast" You said.

But that wasn't true. My birthday wasn't due until March, I wondered for a moment if you meant in general or literally, and then, the thought faded into a recess of my mind.

"Didja' know you share your birthday with your..." You stopped. "Never mind." You stared at the camera for a long time — unblinking, like the headlights of a car — I was the deer because I couldn't move. Too entranced by whatever he'd say.

"Maxine." My heart crumpled and deflated. You never used my name; It was more foreign than the plethora of sobriquets you'd given me over the years, and it was my own name.

"We may be here longer than planned." He said, face flat and gaunt, a piercing seriousness skewering any of the happiness that may have been bubbling in me. "Far-... Far longer."

Mirth boiled into anger, like the lid of a pot with a hole far too small, steam would've pumped out my ears, but no, only hot saliva flung out my mouth as I wailed.

I hit things, a lot of things — broke my wrist — punched a lamp, hit a pillow. How could you do this to me? A fat crack the size of a fist bleeding black goo across my laptop. How could you, how could they, why would? Why is this happening to me?

I just want my dad back. I want YOU back.

I don't have much to say — Auntie stopped me from hurting myself further — I wept, long and endlessly, like I was the sandman, and the tears were my sand. It was nothing to write about. But I don't like you. Dad. Father. I don't like this.

Painfully wrapped around my chest were your warm arms, and it made this hurt all the more. That you were gone, and that you still loved me, and I still loved you.

I lay on my bed, it felt like stone. The thick mattress is harder than the bones in me and the pillow warmer than hot soup. Yet I slept fine.

Your jacket's on the floor. I don't need it.

Goodbye. From Maxine. From the one you abandoned.