Before the moon hung in the sky, a village where rolling, lush hills met the sea bustled with life and song. The villagers lived a simple yet harmonious existence, tending to their gardens and celebrating the earth’s bounties. Their pride and joy lay hidden in the deepest cave - not gold, not jewels, but cheese.
The cheese, made from the milk of mystical Lunacows, was anything but ordinary. By day, it glimmered with a silvery sheen; by night, it shimmered with all the hues of a starry sky. Villagers called it Stellaricchio, renowned far and wide for its sublime taste.
But there was one soul who had dreams far more ambitious than just nibbling on cheese sandwiches. Abner, the village's most inventive and wayward spirit, was known for his imaginative, and often foolhardy, tinkering. Abner had one true friend who believed in him — an owl named Orzo who possessed the wisdom of ages in his amber eyes.
One crisp cloudless evening, Abner found himself staring into the deep, endless darkness of the sky.
"If only to place a beacon in that abyss," he murmured to Orzo. "A monument to our cheese, shining, guiding, and… oh, think of it!"
Orzo hooted softly.
Abner could not contain his ambitious heart. Guided by his dreams and the soft glimmer in Orzo’s eyes, he sought counsel with the village elders the very next morning. And, after months and months of ridiculing and exasperation, they finally gave him permission, partly to silence his incessant pleading. Eager now with opportunity, Abner raced to the cave and began fashioning what would be his most audacious creation.
For days and nights on end, he worked tirelessly, molding a gigantic sphere out of Stellaricchio. His hands moved with the agility of a sculptor and the precision of a clockmaker.
He fortified the surface of the sphere with stardust collected by Orzo in clandestine nightly flights. He added a touch of river fog to give the sphere a dreamy aura.
But a monumental question loomed large - how would he get his monument to their cheese into the sky?
Abner, never short on daring despite occasional common-sense lapses, devised an intricate sling made using a launching mechanism powered by the village’s windmills. Every villager, intrigued now by the scope of Abner’s vision, pitched in to help build this gigantic contraption.
The day of the launch approached. Nerves rattled the village air and anticipation bubbled like a cauldron. Abner, eyes glistening with a mixture of trepidation and exhilaration, strapped the colossus of cheese into the sling. With a final nod to his feathery friend Orzo, he summoned the villagers to start the windmills.
The ground shivered under the humming tension of the sling, until finally, the cheese began to rise inch by inch…
Suddenly, a loud “SNAP!” pierced the air. The sling's sinews strained and then one side abruptly unraveled. The sphere of cheese catapulted upward, somersaulting dramatically into the twilight.
Villagers held their breaths, and Abner’s heart hung in suspense. The sphere shot through the sky, crashing into the vast midnight canvas. There it hung gloriously; the magical cheese glowing resplendence over the world.
The binding of stardust, river fog, and cheese cemented the luminous sphere into the night sky. And Abner, from below, kept a steady watch. He noticed something peculiar — the surface of his creation began to reflect the villagers’ faces.
Whispers spread among the villagers. The once-skeptical hush turned into murmured reverence for Abner and his friend, Orzo. The magnificent moon, with its soft glow, became a nightly presence that guided fishermen, travelers, and dreamers alike.
Years went by, and stories about the man who flung the moon into the sky became legend. Each month, as the moon waxed and waned, villagers celebrated Abner’s marvelous masterpiece. For whenever they looked up, they were reminded of the duo who turned an ambitious dream into a shimmering reality.
© Odd Voyage