Bizarre Delusions

“Hey dad, why don't we have any magic here?” Mond had asked one brisk autumn night as they made their way through the theater parking lot. “Hm? Oh you mean like in the movie, well…” his father took a moment to look up into the sky, the fluorescent blaze of the streetlights illuminating his large glasses.

Taking his son's hand, he led him through the parking lot onto a grassy field hidden in the shadow of the theater, where the light pollution was less pervasive. Mond cringed at the squish from the damp grass that soaked through his sneakers and into his socks, until his father lifted him up out of the muck and onto his shoulders, pointing into the now clear night sky, shining like the frozen wall of an iced cave, the brilliant gem at its center lighting up Mond's eyes just as the film had.

“Ya see bud, I think all our magic is up there”, Mond's hands rested gently in his fathers wildly curled hair , eyes following his hand that traced through the diamond tapestry in the sky. “When life down here gets to be too much, too bland, it’ll always be up there, shining for us even behind the darkest, greyest clouds.”

A shooting star painted its way through the glistening crowd, reflecting off the moon and down into Mond’s crystal clear eyes. “And sometimes bud, a little bit of that magic will drip down off that beautiful, celestial painting in the sky, and right into our hearts.”

Riding home, a thousand more lights filled Mond's eyes. Street lamps, flickering neon signs, the occasional house lit up a month early for Christmas, but only one filled his heart, the giant round gem that shone up in that magic field of stars. Leaning his head against the rime frosted window, the cold rattling of the glass felt like a gentle hum that lulled him nearly to sleep, eyes filled with moonlight.

His vision began to blur , and just before sleep cradled him into its comforting arms, something up there caught his attention. A shadow, soft and round and dark like cosmic cotton candy, wrapped around the moon that had so grasped his gaze and began to form itself into a shape. The rounded clouds of stardust reflected the moonlight in a crystalline purple as it hugged itself around the heavenly body like a kitten would around a ball of yarn, a kitten- or a…

“ A Bear?” The young boy pulled himself up from his restful slump and pressed his face against the frosty glass, trying to get a better look at the clouds. They had indeed taken the form of a young, Mond would even be tempted to say small bear had he been a little bit younger and more naive. He knew the Moon only looked small because it was so far away, so this baby bear made of purple cloud and stardust must have been truly colossal.

“Can you? Can you please help me down from here? I've been stuck… for so very long” though it had no mouth, not to mention it being several hundred thousand miles away, the bear's incandescent eyes seemed to speak right into Mond's heart like a whisper from a friend. Had he even been mindful of his fathers presence in the seat right ahead of him, Mond would have noticed he was fully unaware of the great cosmic guest to their orbiting body.

“Stuck? You mean- you’re stuck on the moon?” he questioned the bear, watching as one great amorphous paw began to slip from its grip around its celestial perch, “How did you get up there anyway?”, his fingertips pressed onto the glass, their warmth melting away the fog that had accumulated along its surface.

“I climbed up here, oh so long ago. I was looking for my friend, a rabbit! But it seems he passed on long before I took his place on this domain.” The bear's voice sounded, though maybe sound wasn't what it was, felt, so warm and comfortable. Young, like a child he would meet on the local playground at the drive-in movies, yet also so old and wise with years of experience in its tone. “My name is Biblio, Biblio the Bear… and oh wont you please help me down Mond?”

The solitary flickering flame of Mond's birthday candle illuminated the malted brown liquid in the glass below it , before being blown out in a quick singular puff. “Happy birthday Mond!” putting down his phone and throwing his hands lazily in the air as the time shifted to midnight, “Oh thank you Mond, you really shouldn't have, you’re too kind.” His hand, reaching for his glass, clumsily knocked the candle he had precariously balanced diagonally in the bottleneck right into his drink, spreading ash and crumbling wax across its surface. “Gahhh sh-” He held the noise in mouth for a second before it came out in a defeated “shoot…”.

“The big ol’ nineteen huh? That's like..fully adult, eighteen is kinda like a trial test, but im really in the thick of it now huh?” He held the bottle up to a flashing neon sign that sat above his little sitting spot he’d made for himself outside of the convenient store that read, “Dead Fox Smokes, one puff and you’re the stuff!”. Using the light, he analyzed the debris that had begun to incorporate into the liquid. Mr.Masuda had told him once about a little slip in the drinking culture of Japan, “Most’a the time, when a worker will see’a foreigner, they’ll assume they’re from Europe, where the drinking age tends to run younger and wont ID ya. Don’t go tryin it at an actual bar though, they take that stuff more seriously.” It was the first time he’d actually tried it and it went out without a hitch, though he’d occasionally gotten a beer from those older vending machines in hotels that didn’t have a scanner.

Swirling the drink, he shrugged and took a sip. Leaning up now against the wall, slouching his head slightly as to not bump the sign, he craned his neck to get a view of the sky. It was, after all, why he was out here spending his birthday by himself. Not that he had a whole lot of social options, his parents were back in Canada of course, cheering him on through the art school they believed he was attending, that they had worked so hard for him to be able to attend completely on a whim, even helping him get a student visa to travel and live in Ibaraki. Truth was he was on borrowed time here, he wasn’t sure exactly how long it would be before officials caught on with his dubious citizenship, not really attending school, but he knew he was on thin ice.

His emotions and thoughts were paradoxical, and he was used with that. He felt hurt for being alone , yet relaxed and content with the silence. He felt ashamed of taking advantage of his parents generocity, yet proud for the little life he had built, for whatever it was worth. He thought about how lucky he was to have met his boss who had gotten him a job and a place to stay that asked little questions. And then, staring up at the increasingly visible stars, he felt nostalgia, and he knew that was a dangerous thing.

The sky got more clear, the bottle got more empty, and Mond's head filled with more and more memories. It had been a year since he’d let his thoughts flow unbarred, partly out of fear, partly from a guilty sense of embarrassment for indulging such childish whims. But another part of Mond's mind fought to keep from exploring its own corners, because it was afraid it wouldn't find anything. And he couldn't take that abandonment again.

But now, perhaps it was that his guarded heart did too well of a job suppressing those youthful days. Aided in part by the alcohol, and in part by nostalgia, which was an even greater drug. Mond’s mind loosened its grip, his heart fell into place, and his soul began to sing.

The sky stayed the same, as it always did, but his world stretched and grew around him. He felt off balance, his feet shook like he had the chills, a notable difference from when he had been a kid. “Guess I gotta get my sea legs again” he chuckled to himself, though he suspected his drink may have had a little something to do with that as well.

The concrete tomb of midnight city block metamorphosed into an urban fog of twilight stars. Buildings bent over him at a curious curve like the playful gaze of children inspecting a ladybug found in their backyard. And that beautiful unchanging tapestry hung ever present, just as he’d remembered.

Mond finally fell to his knees, laughing and letting the distorted dizziness get the best of him. “I- Im home… you didn’t leave me I… why has it been so long?” He hadn’t noticed till now that tears were streaming down his face. He quickly wiped at them, laughing to himself between gasps, but deep down a slight hinge of embarrassment still nipped at his heartstrings.

But none of that mattered now… drunkenness, a psychotic slip, whatever it was, Mond had finally let his soul see magic again, and it forced his heart to realize just how much he’d missed it. Despite the blur that seemed to come with each turn as he twisted his body around and around to take it all in, the dusky scent of ozone that filled his lungs, Mond felt like he could see more clearly than ever. So clear, his yellow tinged corneas became clear like crystal, till a hairline fracture made its way across his pupil.