To moon from the darkness

She sat down on the damp grass near the cliff by the lake. The night was cold — not the kind that bit sharply, but the slow, creeping cold that seeps into the skin and settles in the bones. Her thin green frock did nothing to protect her. It clung to her legs, heavy with dew, and every gust of wind sent a small shiver through her body.

All around her, the paddy fields whispered like a thousand soft sighs. The tall blades of rice swayed under the moonlight, bending and rising as if breathing with her. Somewhere far away, a night bird called once, then silence returned. The air smelled of wet soil and lake water — a scent raw, honest, and alive.

It was almost eleven. The rest of the world slept under its roofs, breathing in warmth and comfort. But she couldn’t. The little girl of eleven had learned early that comfort wasn’t meant for everyone.

She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The green frock she wore — the one she hated — rustled faintly. It wasn’t just the color she despised, but what it reminded her of: being unwanted, being told what to wear, how to behave, how to shrink into obedience. The frock was her silence stitched into fabric.

She sat all alone.

Yet to her soul, it was the least lonely moment of her day.

Beneath this open sky, no one shouted her name in anger. No plates crashed. No footsteps echoed across the floor like warnings. The wind didn’t scold her; the moon didn’t judge. The quiet lapping of the lake and the rhythm of the crickets were gentler than any lullaby she’d ever known.

The fireflies drifted around her, pulsing softly in and out of the dark — tiny flickers of gold that refused to die. She watched them through a blur of tears, and something in their fragile light mirrored her heart. They were small, flickering, and stubbornly alive. She, too, was trying not to disappear.

Her small fingers brushed at her tears, but they kept falling — warm streaks against her cold cheeks. Her breath trembled in the night air. Still, it was less cold under the sky than beneath the roof she had been given.

The roof meant walls, and those walls meant silence — the kind that could bruise without a single sound. It was the silence of people who pretended she wasn’t there. So she had run — barefoot, breathless — until she reached this cliff where the lake shimmered below like broken glass, reflecting a moon that looked just as lonely as she felt.

She tilted her head back. The moon was bright, whole, and surrounded by a sea of stars — yet even among them, it looked apart.

A beautiful thing that no one touched.

The darkness around her felt kinder than the smiles beneath the roof. The wind smelled of grass and earth, rough and pure. It was better than all the perfumes people wore in that place she ran from.

“Can you come down for me for once?” she whispered to the sky.

Her voice was thin, trembling — a secret shared with the universe.

Her lips quivered. “The people are not nice to me,” she said, voice cracking. “They always say things to me. They always hate on me for being me. No one likes me. It’s so suffocating.”

Her words came out in bursts, like she was trying to breathe between sobs. “Can you become a human and reach me? I have no one here who wants me.”

It wasn’t her first time crying to the moon — but tonight, her tears carried a prayer.

She tried to wipe them again, but the more she did, the more they fell — steady, endless, like a rain only she could feel.

“No one protects me,” she whispered. “I see other children… the girls in my class, they’re all loved. Their mom and dad buy them whatever they want. They wear pink, and it makes them look beautiful. They have Barbie stickers. When there’s lunch break, their tiffins are full of home-cooked food…”

Her breath hitched. “Their parents come to pick them up. The boys in my class always call them pretty. All the girls are friends, and the teachers love them.”

Her gaze dropped to her frock — its worn green fabric catching faint moonlight. “While I—” she paused, her voice breaking, “I’m always stuck like this.”

She plucked at one of the cheap plastic buttons on her dress, forcing it loose until it snapped free and rolled into her palm. She stared at it, small and round, like a fragile world. Then she threw it into the lake below. It vanished with a faint plop, leaving ripples that stretched and faded — like her own voice dissolving into the dark.

“Why, moon? Why my life is like this?”

Her voice rose for the first time — not loud, but raw, aching. The sound trembled through the air and died in the water’s stillness.

“Please come down,” she whispered, almost pleading now. “Please, it’s so lonely here.”

Her eyes followed the moon’s reflection trembling on the lake. “Please, if I can’t belong to a family that loves me… then please, moon, become one for me.”

The night deepened, the air heavy with cold and unshed dreams.

She spoke again, her voice quieter but firmer, “I read about you in my science book and also in literature — both in scientific and poetic language. The moon is like the groom of darkness who illuminates it, turning it into moonlight… like soulmates and celestial beings do in fairytales. And my name… it means darkness. Queen of night. Eternal light — all together, in different languages.”

Her small forehead wrinkled as she thought, eyes shining with the reflection of fireflies and moonlight.

“Isn’t it like Aladdin and Jasmine? Cinderella and her prince? They meet, they fall in love, and they belong to each other. They turn their fate into fairytales building a home where only they belong”

Her voice softened. “Since the moon and the darkness of night sky are eternal companions, incomplete without each other… doesn’t that make them soulmates too? Doesn’t that mean you are incomplete without me? Doesn’t that make us companions too? Doesn't that make the sky our home moon? Both yours and mine the one we create together?”

Her voice wavered again — not with fear, but with the fragile conviction of a child who has known too much pain and too little love.

"But I exist as a human even if I am called the night or light, but Moon you don't" She spoke tears falling her heart aching. “Moon, I don’t want anything from you — no Barbie stickers, no pink dresses, nor tiffin boxes — just this one thing.”

She took a breath that trembled but didn’t break.

"Couldn't you be born as a human too?" She asked. “Please turn into a human and find me. Save me. Protect me. Take me and keep me with you — as a groom, as a soulmate, as my future and only family in this world. A place where I’ll finally belong.”

Her small hands came together, fingers pressed tight in prayer, her forehead nearly touching the damp earth.

“From now on, I’ll belong to you, and you belong to me. I won’t be lonely with the fireflies; you won’t be lonely with the stars. It’ll be you and me together, side by side. So please, grant me this one wish, God — let the moon become a human and find me.”

The wind grew gentler, brushing the hair from her face. The fireflies floated closer, forming a slow, glowing halo around her. The lake shimmered faintly, reflecting the moon’s patient gaze. The whole night seemed to listen — the paddy fields swaying, the darkness holding its breath.

And then… silence.

Peaceful. Heavy. Infinite.

She lay down on the grass, the scent of wet earth and the cool of night wrapping around her like a fragile blanket. Her small hands loosened, resting beside her face. Her lashes still glistened with the last of her tears, but she wasn’t crying anymore.

Above her, the moon burned quietly — bright, steadfast, and aching.

By the time someone carried her back under the roof, she was already asleep.

When she woke to the scolding voices, she didn’t cry this time.

Because she remembered the night she prayed for the moon —

and believed it had heard her.

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