Tales and Stories

Chapter 9 - The Full Moon

He finished the story and its poignancy was augmented by the rising of the moon. Each fell into a reverent silence after their own fashion; the sadhu whispered a prayer from the Rig Veda, Kifkef gazed at the silver orb as though in love and Gypsy Lou drank in the light with both eyes until they overflowed. Her cheeks glistened as she let the tears run and she did not even object when Kifkef ran his hand through her hair in empathy.

“I am considered strange amongst my people for loving the moonlight.” He said in a wistful voice. “I have seen my cousins awake with a terrible sickness after sleeping with their faces exposed to her light.”

Gypsy Lou forgot her discomfort of sitting on the stone floor and seemed to be in a place far away. Expressions ran through her face like water as she relived distant memories. Presently she began to whisper and with each word she returned a little, disconnecting Kifkef’s arm with an absentminded yet savage pinch. Amidst the howls of her admirer she raised her voice to a gentle soliloquy.

“Unreachable beauty. Lust for the untasted and forever virgin. How many times have I impaled myself upon the cruel caprice of unattainable ambition?

Once a love has been devoured its beauty can be crushed in the hand, shrivelled and spent. Always a disappointment from the cherished fantasies that sparked the flame of desire in the first place. Which is why few men have ever enjoyed me twice.”

She heaved her full bosom with the thought and Kifkef almost fainted.

“So it has been and always shall be that my heart is reserved for that which I cannot possess. There is no more exquisite a cocktail than tragic and unrequited love.”

She stretched out her hands to the pulsating moon.

“And it is with the names of those who were beyond my reach that I awake on my lips each day. It is their hands that I feel on my cheeks when the wind blows and their warm kiss on my eyes in the afternoon sun. And though I know that a life of such fruitless love must come to a violent and bitter end - Perhaps dashing this body on the rocks to set my spirit free from these earthly constraints - Yet I live with the desperate hope that I might grasp the eternal about me, consume the undying life force and become one with the relentless passion that surges through all living things…”

Her legs had now straddled some imaginary love and even her celibate host seemed to be sweating.

“For there was once such a man who achieved this goal...

The Story of the Full Moon