Bedtime Stories
2020 Scholastics Art & Writing Awards
National Gold Medal
Illustration by Julia Cheng
Vignettes
- 月 yuè, moon.
- craters
- 天 tiān, sky
- typhoon
- 倒影 dào yǐng, reflection
- Shapeshifter
- 日 rì, sun
- supernova
- 生 shèng, life
- bedtime stories
2 | craters
“Space is cold,” Jun had announced once, in that matter-of-fact tone ten-year-old boys reserve for their baby sisters. “That’s why the astronauts gotta wear their suits ‘n helmets ‘n stuff. They’d freeze to death otherwise.” I gaped at him in horror. “What about the lady on the moon, then?”
“The what?”
“Y’know. The one Mama said floated all the way up there.”
He looked solemn. “She must be very, very cold.”
It wasn’t the first story Mama told us, but it was the one I remembered best of all: The moment our bedroom door clicked shut, I scurried out from beneath the covers—careful not to trip over Jun’s legs—and jerked aside the curtains. A stream of moonlight splashed onto the windowsill and I squinted, searching for Chang’er’s pale figure in the moon’s silvery craters. Hanging against the night sky like a stray pearl spilled out from a jewellery box, the moon did look rather desolate.
“Wan-ān, Chang’er,” I whispered. “You say it too, Jun—you’re louder.”
Jun mumbled something about sound not travelling in space, you dummy, but I bade her goodnight anyways, leaving the curtains slightly agape so a sliver of moonshine pooled onto our pillows.
Still, no matter how cold Jun claimed the moon was, our flat felt infinitely colder. The heater had been broken ever since we moved in—huffing and groaning like an old man complaining about his joints—and the landlord didn’t bother getting it fixed. Toronto’s winters wore the walls thin & our clothes thinner still, the wind a rattling, icy breath down our necks.
When our sheets fell apart with moth holes and we began sleeping in one room, it grew colder still. Father came home less and less, the bedtime stories grew shorter and shorter, and when Mother’s face began to sink with craters of their own, silver streaking through her hair like frost, I wanted to tell her that she looked much like the moon herself.