Over the Moon

by Sheila Murdock

Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

Ven mumbled something akin to “gross” on his way around the counter. He plopped down on the other side of the prone figure. Sophie moved to find the spot on the sternum to begin rescue resuscitation.

“Oh no, sister, you’re going to do the lip-lock. I ain’t putting my mouth on his while that stuff is oozing out.” A tattooed finger pointed to the rivulets of discharge that traveled alongside the professor’s jaw. Milky drops disappeared into the worn blackness of the carpeting.

“You’re such a selfish ass.”

Reminding herself of just how dear the professor was, Sophie swiped two fingers into his mouth to clear out as much of the curd as possible. Pinching his nose, she tilted back his head to open his mouth for the first breath. She prayed for spontaneous circulation to occur.

A few seconds later, a frenetic siren heralded the arrival of a city ambulance. None of Sophie’s silent prayers were answered that morning. She was alone again. Too late. They were all too late.

* * *

No one knew she was inside the professor’s house. She wasn’t supposed to be there now that he was dead. No one else knew about the monkey-paw backscratcher and its secondary purpose as a door opener. Through the old pet door, one could gain entry using the monkey paw.

She had met the professor for the first time through that old pet door. One summer, on a pre-adolescent dare by a neighborhood boy, Sophie thought she could find a way to unlock the kitchen door through the small opening. Although she was petite, her head was still too big to fit through a cat door. Dares were children’s version of initiations. Instead of gaining entry and a place in the neighborhood clique, she gained a new friend that day.

Sophie felt her ears tingle from the memory. She blessed the older man for keeping a straight face as he used dish soap to free her. He good-naturedly lectured her about juvenile delinquency and the dangers of breaking and entering.

Many months later, he showed Sophie the monkey-paw back scratcher and told her it was to use if she were ever goaded again by the ‘riff-raff’ of the neighborhood. Today was the first time she’d used it.

Standing in the middle of the living room, memories of him and their friendship circulated through Sophie’s mind like consecutive pictures in a bright red ViewMaster: sharing store-bought brownies and drinking cold sodas on the lawn while observing through his telescopes at night. Often other neighbors or Sophie’s parents would join the two on the lawn during a particularly clear evening. The camaraderie was enjoyable.

Voluminous stacks of books, newspapers, and magazines were piled waist-high on the wooden floor and sparse furnishings. Aligning the far wall, the bookshelves had reached capacity long ago.

Three telescopes were directed out a window; they varied in size and value. Sophie’s fingers trailed along one of them with affection; a similar model was assembled at her home. Gazing into outer space always made evenings a little less lonely.

Scooting aside the precarious towers of text, Sophie began a path to the kitchen. She skimmed the visible print. One stack of newspapers was dedicated to the current news. It focused on America’s double-digit increase of reported deaths connected to allergies. According to the headlining article, physicians and scientists theorized that the losses were connected to cheese consumption, specifically from the rennet used to separate curds and whey.

Another stack’s print caught her eye. The books’ spines and hardcovers were tooled in gold or black. The first five titles drew her attention: Renaissance Poetry and Nursery Rhymes: a Collection of Abstracts, Ancient Aliens, The Art of Making Fine Cheese, The Old Farmer’s Almanac and Hollow Moon Mysteries all looked well worn. Creases on the bindings suggested that her old friend referenced them repeatedly. The former astronomer and weekend UFOlogist was definitely an eclectic reader, Sophie thought.

Sophie smiled recollecting the older man’s complaints about lack of respect for his research. The professor had admonished and dismissed the celebrity-obsessed masses as pea-brains and lemmings believing everything they watched on the television, reality shows non-excluded. He was particularly passionate about the broadcast of the first lunar landing being a hoax.

Who in their right mind would willingly expose themselves to radiation from the toroidal Van Allen Belts, he had argued with no one in particular. There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.

As Sophie grew up, stargazing nights were postponed, then canceled, and the professor became more adamant about his space theories and increasingly less social. There had been no one else like the professor. Moisture welled up in Sophie’s eyes. She missed him.

The professor’s last words repeated in her head, “N... is silent. Silent... N”. Why so cryptic? she questioned. What did it mean? Finding a tissue box on the computer desk, Sophie jerked a few thin squares from the container.

Underneath the dispenser was a small, fabric-covered journal. It was a notebook the professor carried everywhere. She thought, He probably slept with it too. The single drawer of the computer desk was ajar, and inside, she could see the corners of a few more of the slim volumes.

* * *

Sophie skimmed through several pages not sure what she sought, not sure what she’d find, but hoping there was something that would help illuminate the professor’s final words.

Journal Entry, August 28: Total lunar eclipse! Always a special treat to view one.

Journal Entry, December 5: Visited Sophie at the restaurant. Had my usual order of pizza. She invited me to spend Christmas day with her family. I am a regular fixture. She’s a kind soul and I think my only friend these days.

The thick pages of the journal fanned her fingers. Her thumb propelled the sheaths to something more current. There were scribbled notations, equations and doodles in the margins.

Journal Entry, May 5: My physician advised that I begin taking Lipitor for my dangerously high cholesterol. He also advised me to see a nutritionist. What for? I eat just fine.

Admittedly, I’ve been feeling sluggish. No cheese for two days. Not even a Lilliputian crumb of feta. I refuse to eat that tasteless soy substitute.

Journal Entry, May 16: Another study on the increasing deaths in France and parts of Europe was published in the World News. The cheese trade there has been decimated, although physicians and scientists claim idiopathy.

The FDA suspects the crisis connected to the rennet used in the cheese making process. Authorities can’t seem to pass new policies curtailing the dairy industry’s production. The government is impotent, or at least makes a good show of it. Activists for veganism are out in full force. Becoming vegan is easier said than done.

Journal Entry, June 18: Renaissance Poetry and Nursery Rhymes: a Collection of Abstracts, by Rafferty P. Polk, was unusual reading. I enjoyed the chapter on the original rendering of “Heigh, Diddle, Diddle”, as an account of a UFO sighting in the 15th or 16th century by an old peasant living in the countryside.

Heigh diddle, daddle,
The puss and the paddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such craft,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Journal Entry, June 20: I sent an email to the author of the nursery rhymes book. I’m intrigued by his notions.

Journal Entry, July 10: Polk responded. We’ve begun an exchange about ancient and modern visitors. Interesting fellow. He was a scientist for a satellite project in the 90’s (VIPER/TANGO) created to research the Big Bang and microscopic life in space. He left to pursue his interest in ancient civilizations and historical UFO sightings.

Journal Entry, July 29: It’s been almost two months. My special order of five assorted cheeses in a gift pack arrived this morning. I consumed a pound of it by bedtime. It will be a dark day when the citizenry will not be able to eat quality fromage.

Journal Entry, July 30: Awoke before dawn feeling ill. Chest feels weighted. Best to take rest today. Maybe more sleep will help.

The professor died the next day, foaming at the mouth.

Sophie batted her fingers in front of her eyes to keep them from tearing. Two folded sheets of paper functioned as placeholders in the journal. They separated the blank pages from the entries.

Sophie unfolded the first sheet. It was an article published by the Education On Dairy Committee. Disgusted, Sophie read about the 800 million pus cells found in every liter of milk; 9.5 billion pus cells in a pound of cheese.

Sophie gagged thinking about how much mozzarella she had consumed since hiring on at Amoeba Pizza.

The article also extolled information on synthetic hormones, and the excessive amounts of mucus found in human organs after death; many died of asphyxiation. Some of the dead had cheese in their stomachs still waiting to be digested, according to the article.

The second sheet was a printout of an email sent to the professor. It was from Polk. She skimmed through his response:

“Good day, Professor, Thank you for purchasing and taking the time to read my books.

...There have been numerous UFO sightings through the ages, and many that will never be told...

When reversed-engineered, several are in detail through poems and rhymes such as the one you cited (Heigh, Diddle, Diddle). Our ancestors left us numerous clues obscurely verifying the existence of extra-terrestrials. They’ve visited our planet long before recorded history. Children’s rhymes aren’t always just poems for innocent play...

I suspect that there are other life forms, not of this world, right under our noses!

Why and how they would be here: I would not know. It stays a mystery with endless possibilities and theories.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Below the message, the professor had scribbled on different spots on the paper, single words, short notes and question marks aplenty: Polk insane or just misguided? Existence of mammals’ milk 500 million years ago; the cow; astrophysics and bio-crafts; Planck theories, aliens x 10²⁰, and several indiscernible scratches in ink. At the bottom of the sheet was scrawled, “Where did they come from?”

Wha’ the hell? Sophie thought. Was the professor, bless his heart, one Amoeba short of a star?

* * *

“Hey, Sophie!” Ven greeted her from behind the counter. “You’re looking particularly lovely this morning. What happened to you last night? Judging from the bags under your eyes, you finally found a live one?”

“Oh, go soak your head, Ven. I’m not in the mood for you today.”

“Heh, you need to get laid, or you’ll end up being single and have a bazillion cats as companions the rest of your life,” he walked off to the kitchen chuckling.

“Yeah, yeah. For your information, I don’t own a cat,” was Sophie’s lame comeback. To herself she mumbled, “Not now anyway.” Five hours of sleep in three days was making her moody.

She had reviewed all of the professor’s journals, and re-read several entries from the most recent volume. The folded article and email were tucked into her pocket. Some of the words at the creases were now faded, and the edges were beginning to fray.

An answer to the professor’s riddle was an exciting prospect, links were starting to connect. Most of Sophie’s time was spent researching these days. It was getting lonely cooped up in her apartment. She no longer had someone to share her thoughts with.

* * *

Amoeba Pizza was packed Saturday night. Every available seat in the main dining room was taken up with softball teams, young couples on a date, and large groups of families and friends.

Small strobe lights flashed slowly above the front counter of the pizzeria; they signaled customers to come forward. A child-sized alien doll glowed a greeting from inside its acrylic case near the register. Its large, black, almond-shaped eyes were blinkless and staring out into the crowd of diners. Someone had mounted a bubble sign that read, “Eat pizza, Human, or prepare to be disintegrated!”

Children, anchored into their highchairs, stared upward. Various miniature spacecrafts and action figures hung above them. The ceiling was homage to creativity, technology and the horror outer-space movie genre. The paraphernalia was scattered across the black-painted drywall. Glow-in-the-dark stars and neon comets dotted the blackness.

The television sets mounted in the corners of the restaurant were tuned in to the current sports events, or newscasts. Several patrons were watching a baseball game. No one seemed interested in the latest broadcast about the current allergy-related body count in Wisconsin; no one except for Sophie. She stood still in front of a set watching a scientist answer questions and point to a pie chart.

Her shift was almost over. She was due to meet a date there for dinner. Her new young man was a ‘keeper’ so far as she could tell. They had met a few times for coffee and spoke on the phone on occasion in the last two weeks. Georgie, the date, was clean, funny and pleasant, and a friend of a friend of a friend. He possessed at least three of the five criteria that matched her short list. Tonight was their first meeting of any length.

Georgie made his way to an empty booth next to a window. He smiled wide and made eye contact with her. His teeth were very white.

Sophie took her chair while Georgie ordered a “Gigantor” from the second-shift server. They greeted each other and commenced to small talk. They didn’t have to wait long for their food. The aluminum pan haloed the server’s head as she brought it to their table. There was enough food for a troop of Girl Scouts. Sophie fidgeted while surveying the steaming food before her.

Moonlight from outside streamed through the window. It blended with the lamplight above the couple’s booth.

Daily news of mucus-related deaths; emails about super-microscopic entities, and the ridicule her old friend endured over his eccentricities bubbled-up into Sophie’s mind like the mozzarella on the “Gigantor.”

Each night since finding the journals, she took them from their hiding place hoping to discover something new. Often, she ruminated over the professor’s notes and to the point of falling asleep in mid-sentence. Reading the journals comforted her. The professor’s questions became her questions. Could it be true? Are there real aliens? Where did they come from?

The enticing odor of the cheese permeated the air around the small table. It wafted into the nostrils of the hungry couple. “This smells great,” exclaimed Georgie, as he reached for the dried Parmesan dispenser. He mentioned skipping lunch that day, and something about his salivary glands working overtime. Sophie smiled in response, half-listening. Her eyes were glued to the mozzarella on the pie.

“What’s the matter? Aren’t you hungry?” he asked. “You ought to eat while it’s hot.”

Half the slice he doused in dried Parmesan had already disappeared. Sophie could see the toppings and crust mashed in his mouth-similar to a cow chewing its cud. Not so impressive, she thought, but not a deal breaker. This was still her first decent date in a very long time.

The moonlight crept across the table illuminating Sophie’s clasped hands, and then her taut face. The moon was a beacon for her eyes. Her eyelids twitched and her gaze fixated just beyond the powerlines.

Sophie’s hand spanked the table’s laminated top. “That’s it! That’s it! Silent N! That’s what he meant!”

Georgie jumped in his seat and looked out the window too. “Huh? What-who? What are you talking about?”

Beyond the powerlines, the quarter moon’s light was hindered by a road-dusty billboard. It was decorated in splotches of black and white, and in the middle, letters spelled out, “Got milk?^TM”

“Got milk?!... Ha! Got milk?... don’t they mean, ‘Gort milk’?” snorted Sophie. Her eyebrows rose so high they disappeared into her bangs. Sophie pointed out the window again.

Her lips puckered. “Moo... moo... mooooon,” she almost laughed. “The N is silent! They’ve been telling us all along.” Georgie still didn’t get it. Georgie was slow on the uptake; still not a deal breaker.

“Don’t you see?” insisted Sophie, “Moo... mooooooN. The cow jumped over the moon. They’re from the moon!”

“Oh-kay then. They’re from the moon. Riiiight.” Her date winked knowingly and reached for another slice of pizza. “Ya’ know, you’re kinda cute when you get excited, Sophie.”

“Don’t eat that,” she exclaimed. “They’re in there!” She grabbed her date’s hand to stop its ascent to his open mouth with all of the pearly white teeth.

“It’s oh-kay, honey.” Georgie extricated himself from her grasp. “Everything’s oh-kay. Just relax. Maybe later, we can go to my place to kick back and talk about this some more.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

“Hey, this pizza is getting cold. Maybe you won’t be so jittery if your stomach was full. Go on, Sophie, one little slice isn’t gonna kill ya.”

Open Challenge 290...