Long ago, the story goes, the moon was of many different colors, like an opal or a piece of shot silk. On the coldest nights of the year, when the air was so clear you could see to the ends of the sky, the colors seemed to twist around eachother like oil on the surface of a puddle. The earth was just a young man then, and he loved the moon like a daughter. Every night he watched her drift through the stars, and when the sun chased her out of the sky in the morning, he opened his other eye, on the opposite side of the world, and watched her once again. It was an act of devotion. One day, though, the earth closed his eyes for a moment, or looked away, or fell asleep - the story is not clear. What is clear is that when he looked for the moon again, she was on the wrong side of the world, falling into the sun. The sky grew so dark above the earth that he could see the stars piercing through like a thousand shining claws. He watched the moon touch the sun, then turn black, and then diminish to the smallest prick. Whereupon she vanished. A few nights later she rose again, but the earth could tell that she was only a ghost, for her eyes were gray and her face was a bloodless white. This is the story of how the moon lost her colors. Now, whenever she shows a brighter face, it is never more than the mistiest shade of yellow, orange, or blue - simply the earth remembering what she used to look like long ago when he was young.
