lunar landscape by chris. you looked up at me from the lunar landscape with a dead face, mouth open and eyes wide. the cinder ash that we had piled up in an attempt to make our home's walls refused to take shape and instead began forming small mountains, entirely unsuitable walls for any kind of structure. i suggested bricks, but with no water we could not make bricks from the ash. "we came unprepared," you said. "obviously," i said. "completely unprepared," you said. "yes. and at the moment you are dead," i said. you looked at your hands in your lap. "yes. because of you," you said. "yes," i said. bricks wouldn't have solved all our problems. i can't breathe here with you. the air simply does not exist. i can't even complain about its staleness or its pungency because it is completely absent and it never existed. and i've told this to you before. "again, because you failed to plan," you said. "yes. and now you are dead," i said. "and now you are dead along with me," you said. "yes," i said. i often wonder what we could have accomplished if we only had water. with water i could make a paste of the ash. the sun beats down on us and burns us and makes our blood hot on the other side, where there is never any shade. we could let the bricks dry on that side, then bring them to our side, which is always shaded, always unbearably frigid. but we have no water, and this lunar landscape is exactly like you.

back to me