Didn’t you don’t?

Preface

The girl once said: “If a statement is true, then it’s not the case that the statement is not true.”

He didn’t understand it at the time. Not really. But something about her voice, soft, almost not-there, like footsteps made of light and leatHER, stayed with him. Especially when he sent Me to the Moon.

 

Part 1 – About Authenticity

There was a kid, and he became a man. But before that, there were little things he carried: dreams folded like maps, a helmet too big for his head, and a ticket to the Moon that no one believed was real. Ideas were distilled during dark summer nights; intuitions came in the dark winter mornings. The tilt of the Earth carved out space for temperature to define the seasons, and it made him feel the shift,but it was the same kind of dark.
One day, he used his ticket and sent his proxy, named Me, to the Moon.

Hope is a process, not an emotion.

People didn’t expect much from that kid. He was always holding up his pants, spindly in summer, chubby and woolly in winter. At school, his curly mind was shrouded by fear, bullied, his silent arms marked with coin-shaped bruises. But he trusted Me.

That day at the Moon ramp, the Kid and Me looked the same. They were the same age, same size, same talk. The ramp was almost always empty. Few had the courage to send their proxy. The trip was short, but the white-white light of the Moon was unapproachable, even to the eyes.

On the Moon, great polymaths were formed, and sometimes lost in confusion. Me felt a tap on his back, a blurry wave of goodbye, and then, white-white. He landed, sliding down a hump.

The gravity that shaped the tides on Earth shaped his new weight too, reflecting the textured mass beneath his feet. The Moon appeared to be made of spongy rock. Between caves and canyons, arches rose high, firm enough to form bookshelves, holding all the books she wrote from the whispers of the Earth.

Earth, or (as she sometimes called them) Motherland, whispered the stories their gentle parasites were corroborating and inventing, to charm and bring her closer. “Cute and mischief Earth,” Moon always thought. But those weren’t the rules of the Universe.

So not to be tempted, and not to fall into a deep sleep, the Moon wrote memories into books. Me was reading. Tons of books gathered at his feet. Some tossed on the ground, some stacked gingerly. Eventually, only half would be finished.

Even though Me appeared random in his reading, he was cross-pollinating ideas. All subjects were welcome. He never limited the number of books he could start. Sometimes he paused because he couldn’t understand the black on white. Other times, he switched books purely from boredom.

He didn’t impose rules. He let his soul choose what echoed.

There wasn’t much to do on the Moon: reading, exploring books, staying shaded by Earth, Venus, and Mercury… and living upside-left.

The maturity of Me manifested in his appearance, wisdom deepening his features, shaped by low gravity. His reflections grew sharper. He suspected the Moon was not sponge, but brain, the same material as his own, with one side always shaded… asleep.

He left some books unfinished on purpose, not because of indecision, but by design. Me knew that learning too much might anchor him too deep. And to return home, he had to stay unrooted. To know just enough, to be light just enough… and long for the rest.

Time passed. Me knew. The Moon knew. Because Me’s soul always knew.

It was almost time to leave. As Eric once said: “The intensity of discontent seemed to be in inverse proportion to the distance from the object fervently desired.”

And so they all said: “We shouldn’t be believers!”

Part 2 – Back to They (to Earth)

Meanwhile, at twenty-three point four degrees north of the Equator, more or less. After long one-hour showers, and beside the red-chested robins perched on the ice cream vendor’s lorry that always plies from here to there… we go back to the Kid.

He was again wallowing in the mire, alone, practicing his resilience through authenticity. When the girl came along.

She was standing by the edge of the puddle. Crouched, hands on her knees to hold down her black, slightly short dress. A white collar made with a crochet hook framed the neck that held her tilted head. One long blonde braid hung to the side.

As usual, she was scouting the Kid’s eyes with a firm-minded step and emotionless curiosity. Ebony skin like a dark, faded wall… and in the end, only her shoes were visible. Because the girl was invisibLE.

She was no stranger to the Kid’s stories. She always came along, driven by curiosity, like the other only thing she owned: the shoES.

She used to say: “Made for walking! You know! Dared for asking.”

What you need to know about her has already been said. She didn’t enjoy watching the Kid. The Girl was fascinated by the talent he displayed in staying true to himself.

In the end, the sun was his spotlight. And he couldn’t escape the unfair justice of his own comeuppance.

 

Part 3 – Coming Soon

 

Part 4 – Ending

Kid:
“What if no one understands?”

Me:
“You’re not asking, ‘Am I good enough?’ You’re really asking, ‘Is this as meaningful to others as it is to me?'”

“And that’s not vanity. That’s generosity out of Authenticity.”

(The proxy grasping the Kid’s shoulder)

“Because only someone who knows the weight of their own story can carry it with grace, and offer it, one day, as a torch.”

Kid:
“I knew it… but I didn’t see it!”

Me:
“Didn’t you don’t?”