The Bay of Love

by Steve Himmer

What else can we do? Fred won’t come out of his basement, banging away down there night after night, hammering heat shields onto the flimsy frame of his rocket. He’s planning to visit the moon, says he’s always wanted to see it and finally can. That his wife would have wanted him to. So the rest of us who live on this street have been sewing moon-person costumes and turning our neighborhood playground into the Sea of Tranquility, rushing to finish before the morning he’s set for the launch. And hoping -- though we don’t talk about this -- that once he’s had a look at the moon Fred will want to come home.

6S

Steve Himmer's stories have recently appeared or are forthcoming from Monkeybicycle, Ghoti, Juked, Pindeldyboz, Brevity & Echo (Rose Metal Press), and A Field Guide to Surreal Botany (Two Cranes Press).