Mike Allen - Clockwork Phoenix

Now it wasn’t as if the moon consciously chose who its keeper should be. It just gravitated towards those folk it could sense had pure hearts. Who would sacrifice themselves and expect nothing back. Who had been born on the nights when the moon had been full and whose souls compelled it to shine brightest when it hung over their heads.

Sometimes, once found, the moon would reveal itself to its new keeper. Other times it did nothing at all. Just slept in their presence with a deep, abiding certainty that should it suddenly require protection this mortal soul would provide it. Indeed the only reason at all why Mohammed Muneer even knew about the moon was because he’d spied it one morning while polishing his gold crescent. He never breathed a word though, just raised his fingers to his lips. For Mohammed Muneer was a wise man. He had a good heart. He knew the moon was precious, too precious for this earth.

As host to the sleeping moon, Mohammed Muneer rarely left his tea service in the hours that it lay resting on his roof. However, once a year at the beginning of summer he would leave for the big city to see the doctors about his arrhythmic heart—a condition he’d inherited along with bowed legs. How he hated leaving his teashop for the choking grind of the city but every year Reggie, bless his own perfectly beating heart, would offer to keep things running until he returned. And every year Mohammed Muneer would thank Reggie with a bowl of sugared almonds, while explaining that he’d really much prefer to keep the teashop closed. Whereupon Reggie would clap his short foreign friend in the small of his back and say “alrighty mate” invariably throwing Mohammed Muneer’s capricious heart into even greater chaos.

Mohammed Muneer was only ever gone three days. And every year he was assured by the doctors that his heart seemed fine—as fine as a heart that chose its beat from whim instead of necessity could ever really be. And every year Mohammed Muneer would drive back home feeling restored and confident that he could shelter the moon for another coming year.

But not this time.

Driving west with the remains of the day, Mohammed Muneer could see from the sky that something awful was unraveling around him. Gone was the cobalt blue of summer: the Indian yellow of the sun. Both had been swallowed, or so it seemed, by a blood-orange beast with cindering breath.

Roads had been closed by burly policemen. Fire engines screamed past, their lungs cranked up high. Radios shrieked warnings of firestorms out west, as if the raw, blistering sky wasn’t warning enough. But Mohammed Muneer knew the back route, down by the dams, so he drove like a desperate bugger, crouched low in his car. Praying out loud that he would make it in time, though deep in his heart he already sensed he was too late.

Arriving in town, Mohammed Muneer saw that Munch was already gone. Nothing remained but a grim twisted melt of gristle and plastic: a super-size imitation of a Munch daily special. Some of the local folk had gathered around, licking their chops and rubbing their hands. They could feast on the remains for days before the crows came to town.

Mohammed Muneer left them to scavenge (for it is what they did best) and trailed down the black road in search of his tea house. His head slung low, shoulders defeated, he was afraid to look up though he knew that he must.

In sight of the point where he knew his tea house should be, he peered between his fingers to find his worst fears confirmed.

His teahouse was gone and there in its stead was a fierce, roaring dragon with tangerine-coloured breath. This monster, it seemed, was swallowing his shop whole.

Mohammed Muneer dropped to his knees.

He was too exhausted to holler, too shocked to weep tears.

Praying out to Allah to save the sleeping moon, he was surprised when he heard a voice rising out of the flames.

“Bleedin’ heck!” it bellowed and then: “Bugger me.”

Mohammed Muneer looked up aghast, to see Reggie crouching on top of his roof, moving slowly, defensively, against the copper coloured winds.

“Come down,” he shouted. “Come down, my good friend.”

But Reggie could not hear him, or perhaps he chose not to, for he had his mind on the gold crescent and nothing else would do.

The crescent was spinning wildly, fanned on by the flames but Reggie was determined to save it for his one friend, Mohammed. He knew how much it meant to him, this glimmering rooftop ornament. How every day he would polish it so it gleamed in the sun.

Reggie clamped his hand firmly on the ornament’s base so it broke easily away in the palm of his hand. Then, smiling triumphantly, he waved it high above his head.

The smile did not last long however; nor did his jubilant wave.

The crescent moon was hot.

Viciously so.

It seared the big man’s hand so he yelled from the pain before flinging it skywards. The ornament spun high, slicing the air as it twirled, but gravity dictated that it must eventually descend. Hitting Reggie once on the head and then the small of his back as it tumbled its way back down to the fire. Reggie lost his balance too and tumbled from the roof. Straight after the crescent moon, straight into the fire.

Mohammed Muneer heard a thud and then heard nothing at all, just the sound of white-hot teeth, roaring as they ravaged.

“Reggie,” shouted Mohammed Muneer but he heard no response.

“The moon,” he said again mournfully, his voice lost to the air.

Mohammed Muneer turned his head away, he could not watch any longer. He had seen too much already. He could bear the fire no more.

Crouching amongst the dirt, he buried his head in his hands and wailed.

Suddenly the tea house shuddered violently, shaking the grass and the dirt below Mohammed Muneer’s feet. He stared at the ground, too afraid to look up.

He noticed a great shadow looming across the earth. Creeping towards him, unable to stop. Soon enough, he feared, it would cross over his skin.

He looked up to face it.

What else could he do?

But instead of confronting a fire monster, as he had thought that he might, he was greeted instead by a sight most peculiar.

A sight most spectacular. A sight worth a song.

It was Reggie slowly rising out of the jaws of the fire beast, cast in silhouette by the fierce light behind him. Lifted, somehow, by the seat of his pants, so he hung like a coat hanger up there in the sky.

Mohammed Muneer gazed on in wonder at this great floating man as he hovered above the land, a giant balloon in the breeze. Swooping and soaring in the early evening winds, with a broad, beaming smile and wide, gleeful eyes.

“I can fly,” shouted Reggie, joyfully waving down at Mohammed Muneer. “They said I never would but look at me now.”

Mohammed Muneer said nothing; he just waved back with both arms, wearing an expression both elated and extremely confused.

How could Reggie Macklewaite just have risen from the flames?

The answer soon came to him in the shape of the moon; slowly rising out from behind Reggie—from Reggie’s pants to be exact. Wriggling its way free from where it had been hiding since it woke to find itself falling out from the gold crescent. Tumbling from the ornament’s nook as it struck Reggie’s back, rolling straight into the rear of the man’s rather low-slung pants.

Admittedly, it wasn’t the most elegant place the moon had ever tried to seek refuge but it was moody and dark and strangely reassuring. Here it could hide safely while it properly woke up before starting its steady climb to the great sky above.