“Happy Anniversary?” • by Andrew Jensen

“It’s just us old farts again.” 

We hadn’t met since the twentieth, and even then the young pups refused to attend. “Bo-ring!” they’d text, and go off to whatever it is they do. It probably involved social media. Hmmph.

“Speak for yourself! I’m not old, and I never fart.” To be fair to Steph, she didn’t look anywhere near her forty-five years. But as my bratty little sister, I knew she could fart with the best of them. Especially when she forgot to avoid garlic.

“I just think they should show some respect,” I grumbled.

“Respect for what?” That was Ben, the teacher. Where did my cousin find this guy? He could make anything sound boring. Maybe the kids weren’t totally wrong. “How  can they respect something that was gone before they were born? You’re being unreasonable.”

“We’ve shown them pictures…”

“Like that makes any difference. Might as well show them a picture of a steak: no sizzle, no taste, no passion.”

They were ganging up on me. Not the first time, either. Why didn’t they care?

Steph piped up again. “Hey, remember the tenth anniversary, when Gerry brought out this old round puzzle of the Moon, all in shades of gray? The kids thought that was the most stupid thing they’d ever seen. You spend too much time alone, Gerry.”

Before I could defend myself, Kiki piped up “And this is the twenty-fifth. The Silver Anniversary. How delightfully ironic!”

“At least some things don’t change,” I snarled. “Silver is still silver. It’s just the moon that’s gone.”

“Why can’t you be happy, Gerry?” Oh shoot, I’ve gone too far. Now Mom is telling me off. I may be fifty-two, but I can’t talk back to her. “My grandchildren are living normal lives. Isn’t that all we’ve ever wanted? To fit in? For generations we’ve been outsiders. Now we don’t stand out. We don’t live in fear anymore.”

I shut up. Mom’s words might be true for some of us, but not me. I’m an outsider in my own family.

“Time for cake!” Kiki announced, “and it’s vegan, Tom: no eggs or any animal products at all.” Tom smiled awkwardly.

Kiki’s partner, Francoise, brought in the cake. It had twenty-five sparklers going, and I wondered if the icing might catch fire. If this couldn’t be respectful, at least it might be entertaining.

Then I saw the cake. It was round and white. No, silver. Not perfectly round, either. On one edge was a tiny, elaborate building: a miniature Moonbase Alpha. On the opposite edge was a missing chunk, looking like a blackened crater. It gave off a greenish glow that was even visible under the light of the sparklers. Francoise had gone to a lot of trouble. The pastry artwork was impressive.

“Happy anniversary!” called out my cousin, Leo. Stupid name, stupid man.

“Happy anniversary!” answered the rest of the table, raising their glasses.

I couldn’t take it. Such disrespect. No sense of the past. No appreciation for what we had lost. I ignored everyone’s protests and blundered out the back door. Kiki’s fence is short enough that I could still leap over it, and I was loping pretty fast by the time I got there. Then I kept going down the laneway between the other houses until I got to the cross-street.

It felt good to be running at night again, even in an unfamiliar neighbourhood. I’d taken up night jogging a decade ago, but after a few years my knees started to object. My family has always healed well from injuries, but age creeps up with its grinding joints and stiff muscles. There’s no defeating time.

Twenty-five years. A quarter century without that irresistible sense of abandon, that wild freedom, that vital return to nature.

No wonder climate change is happening. Everybody blames the loss of the moon, but it’s deeper than that. We’ve divorced ourselves from our true natures, and nature itself.

Look what we’ve become! Ordinary! We used to live on the edge. Now the kids are living on their devices, with no connection to reality. Some of us have even become vegans, for crying out loud.

When was the last time I cried out loud?

I slowed to a halt. I couldn’t keep running with tears streaming down my cheeks. I couldn’t keep it in. None of this macho big boys don’t cry bullshit anymore: I started to sob. To wail. To howl. To shake my fists at the empty sky and howl for everything we had lost.

“Gerry?” The voice was familiar. Time for the macho bullshit to re-assert itself. I wiped my eyes and looked around.

A woman was coming out of the woods in the park. She was familiar in a remote way that threatened to bug me for weeks. The voice helped: someone from the distant past. But who?

Then the breeze shifted, and I caught a familiar perfume.

“Claire. Long time no see.” I tried to even out my voice. She’d dumped me in high school. Then she’d switched schools. Probably my fault: I might have gotten carried away on our last date.

“Yeah. How’s it going?” Like she hadn’t just heard me freaking out.

I sniffed. “Sorry. You’ve caught me at a bad time. Family stuff. How are you?”

“I was out walking. I like night walks. They remind me of the past. I used to love walking in the moonlight, and with all the stuff on the news about tonight being the anniversary I just had to get out here.”

I looked at the ground, tongue-tied. “I’ve missed you,” I finally said.

“Me too. I’m sorry about vanishing like that. It was my parents. That was more than a hickey you gave me that night, and they freaked out. They even moved us across town.”

“I know. I watched the moving trucks come. And go.”

“Stalking me?” I could almost hear that cute, crooked smile that had attracted me in the first place.

There was a pause. “You know, I kind of wished that you had followed me across town. I was really alone.” Somehow we’d started walking down a park path under the starlight.

I nodded. “I wanted to, but my family stopped me. They feel like stalking’s a stereotype. All they talk about is fitting in. I couldn’t even find you in the new phone book.”

“Unlisted number. My parents were really determined.” Claire thought for a moment. “Fitting in isn’t worth it,” she said, “if you have to stop being who you are.”

We walked on in silence. It was a friendly silence, the kind they used to call “companionable.” Then Claire gestured toward the dark sky. “You taught me to love the moon. I hated it for a few months. Then I grew to anticipate the moon’s full beauty. For a few years I got to revel in it. Now I miss it.”

She brought her hand down, and took mine. It was dark, but I knew we were both smiling.

“What good is a werewolf without the moon?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe good for remembering the moon with someone else.” I could smell the hope on the breeze.

Maybe it would be a happy anniversary after all.

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Andrew Jensen has moved to New Brunswick with his family and too many dogs and cats. He has retired from the ministry, but of course, clergy never really retire.

His stories have appeared in Canada, the USA, New Zealand, and the UK. In July his work appeared in Amazing Stories and James Gunn’s Ad Astra. 

As you’ve no doubt guessed, Andrew sent us this story for Space: 1999 Week. We liked it a lot, but felt it was too much like Jeff Currier’s “A Curse and a Blessing” to run them both in the same week. Informed of this situation, Andrew obligingly wrote “Waxing Crescent,” which we published last week. Wonderfully helpful writer, Andrew is.

If you enjoyed this story, check out “Running Away With the Cirque” in Stupefying Stories 24. If you’re still not convinced, read “A Can of Piskies” or “Chapter 7,” both of which are here on the SHOWCASE site. 

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Categories: 1999 Week