First – our man on the moon
Some of my stories are odd. They may not start out meaning to be odd, but they inevitably end up laa‑laa and more straitjacket than book jacket. This may limit the number of publications for me to submit them to, but if a story’s good then it’s good, right? Right.
But every now and again I chance upon a periodical actually shouting out for oddities. Donut Factory was a print magazine based in Berkeley, California and edited by American writer A.E. Phillips. The second edition featured my work.
Gnu Shoes finds the purely fictional Mr. Brown visiting a shoe shop run by a pushy wildebeest willing to do anything to make a sale and, although it received a couple of readings at my Aberdeen spoken word night Per‑Verse around 2014, I didn’t expect it to go anywhere else.
Perhaps it never did.
First
I perched on a dusty bank, chewed on an apple and watched their peculiar craft shake like a Bandito pencil topper. ‘That’s not going to keep the cold out later on,’ I thought. ‘There’s a fair nip to the lunar night round here.’ I took another bite of my apple.
‘Hoi!’ I shouted. ‘What kind of cosmic spiv did you buy yon shonky craft from?’ There was no answer. The door was open but nobody seemed ready to come out yet. ‘Perhaps they’re having a wee coffee and enjoying the view?’ I thought.
Twenty minutes later, one guy did come out, bouncing around, probably drunk, but I paid the notion no mind. His speech wasn’t clear but I thought I could make it out.
‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’
‘Are man and mankind no’ the same thing?’ I asked.
‘Good God man! Put your helmet on, you’ll die!’ he shouted back at me. I don’t think he realised I had been watching. What do I need a helmet for? I’m not planning on motorcycling, not this afternoon at any rate. ‘Wait a minute. Who exactly are you buddy? How did you get here? I’m supposed to be the first man to set foot on the moon.’
‘The first to do what?’
‘Walk on the moon.’ he sniped. ‘The great, glowing moon that man has only gazed at from earth for millennia.’ He seemed a tad melodramatic.
‘Och, away with ye. There’s been a wee flying bus from Falkirk station coming here for years. We’ve been coming here as a family since 1955. My wee boy is sick of it, all his friends are off to Mars again with that Thomas Cook lot.’
‘Pah! I don’t believe you. You’re a hallucination brought on by a lack of oxygen.’
‘Oh am I? Say, would you like one of these apples? Granny Smith. They grow extra large around here, must be something in the air.’ I held one of my apples out for him, but the man simply bounced off across the shimmering moonsand towards the cash and carry.