I’m sorry for the length of my silence. My pen was at the bottom of my backpack.
Today we made it to the moon. You heard me right baby: The Moon.
My elation is tempered with deep, limitless sorrow. Herb.
The signs were all there except for the incubation period. I realize now that the space-air must have retarded the growth of the squirrel larvae. Herb had been growing steadily worst over the past two months, but he was so stoic I think we all just thought he’d keep putting one foot in front of the other forever. He never showed anyone his thumb. Yesterday he doubled over in the inky blackness of space. I waded back down to him (hiking to the moon as it turns out, is roughly like walking up stairs made of quicksand.) “Wu Tang Clan”, he said, “ain’t nothing to fuck with” which was unsurprising as he’d been talking in only rap lyrics for the past fifteen days or so. Then his head burst like a chestnut roasted on an open fire and hundreds of larva - gaunt, opaque, luminescent squirrel babies with bushy tails and pincers, fell out. Lucky for us they were disoriented and had no natural affinity or instinct for space hiking.
God damn it Herb, I miss you already. Your endless string of disjointed lyrics kept my spirits up. And even though I now realize that they were simply a product of the last piece of your brain not eaten by the squirrels, they meant the world to me.
I’m sorry baby, I know I’m wandering here.
When we got to the moon the first thing I did was take Paul off my back and lay him down the on ground. He lost that first foot after the blister under that fuzzy warmer turned infectious. We all told him to throw it away, let it drift, but he wouldn’t have it. He put it on his left ankle nearly the minute after Doc Ringles cut his right one off. Well the pus had seeped into those fuzzy wisps and pretty soon they seeped back into his good leg. Doc Ringles had to take that one off with a tent stake and a hammer because his bone saw had drifted away in the night, or at least that’s what he told us. I don’t trust anybody who laughs like that during an amputation.
Paul wears it around his head now like a dead man, and it isn’t white but green with pus. I can’t explain him, just can’t fucking explain him.
My only regret Jilly is that I can’t come home to you. I know we talked about the skeleton transplant and the speed boat wedding, but Jilly it’s taken too long to get here. I’ve walked too far. I’m a moon man now Jilly, and in a way this moon’s my only bride. In another way the girl I married two weeks ago is my bride. Forgive me Jilly, I was drunk off stardust. We’ve decided to build a perfect society on the moon, and that means no lying, slavery or divorces. If it makes you feel any better, I do love her. We’ll name our first girl after you, the momma she almost had. You can have my NASA money, I won’t be needing it here. Good luck with your new skeleton. Look up at the sky at me.
-Barker
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