Perhaps There Was Nothing Left

Millie wasn’t like the other kids her age. When she turned 10, instead of asking for a bike or scooter or some other such thing, she asked for a telescope.

She saw pictures taken by fancy cameras all zoomed in so you could make out all the fine detail of the craters and rocks and things. She'd heard so much of this stuff about Super Moons, Blood Moons, Super-Blood Moons, Blue Moons, Wolf Moons, all kind of moons.

Her parents often wondered where these things came from. There were only eclipses when they were young.

They hoped this was all just a phase, so they let it play out, and they bought her a fairly good telescope good enough to look at the moon and hoped that would be the end of it.

“She’ll look up and see there’s nothing of interest up there,” her father said. “And that’ll be the end of it.”

They wanted her to fit in at school, and invite friends over, and have sleep overs, and do other things of this nature that they deemed girls her age should be doing. But if she ever brought a friend over, they’d take one look at her bedroom, covered in space posters about planets and moons and stars and the Solar System and Constellations and whatnot, that they’d never come back.

Both of her parents agreed that if they were 10 years old again and a kid in their class was so in to space, that they’d probably not want to be their friend either. It was just natural.

But they humoured her, for what they promised each other was the last time, and bought her a telescope with some kind of special zooming lens or something, that was apparently ideal for zooming in to moon craters on clear nights.

And as luck would have it, Millie saw on her special calendar that a full moon was set that very night, on the evening of her birthday, so she had the perfect opportunity to give it a try.

Her parent’s had no interest in whether the moon was full, empty, super, or anything else for that matter, but they agreed to help her. If they ever wanted to see the moon, which was never, they were happy to just look at a photograph.

Millie set up her tripod, removed the cap of her telescope, found a nice comfortable place to sit down, and looked through the operational manual carefully. She didn’t want to miss the full moon and have to wait another month for the opportunity. Sure there were half moons and things like that coming round sooner, but for her first star gaze she wanted all of the moon. The full thing.

The sky was dark and clear, and she sat by herself, gazing through her telescope for over an hour before she came back inside. Her parents were happy to leave her to it, and hoped the moment would be something she would enjoy, but not so much that she kept at this thing forever or bothered them about it anymore. They wanted a daughter that would dress up in a nice dress for the school prom and things like that, not one that would miss the prom altogether because of some silly stars and moons.

Wiping her boots on the mat, she came in with a puzzled look on her face and silently walked past her parents and headed to her room, then reappeared in front of them shortly after.

There was no moon outside, Millie explained to her parents. In fact, there was nothing at all.

“Oh dear, have you got her dates wrong?” her mother said. “What a shame for the birthday girl. But never mind, there are other things a 10 year old could be doing to have fun.”

Millie shook her head. She hadn’t got her dates wrong at all, she explained. She checked and double checked, then came back inside and triple checked. Today was supposed to be a full moon, but where ever she looked in the sky, there was no full moon, no half moon, no nothing.

Her parents followed her outside and checked themselves and agreed that the sky was indeed just black and empty. What it likely was, her father explained, being an intelligent, well read man, was that the moon was hiding behind a building or something. “And all this light pollution won’t help either,” he added. “Somewhere outside the city with clearer skies would be better.”

Millie insisted that, as the birthday girl, and this being the only time she would ever be 10 years old, they leave immediately, and suggested the hills a few miles outside of the city where she knew a lot of stargazers went during the Super-Blood Wolf Moons and whatnot.

Reluctantly, her parents agreed, and packed up the telescope, driving out to the very spot Millie suggested, and unpacking it all again. Millie looked up at the sky, then set up her telescope and got everything just right, as her parents yawned and poured each other hot chocolate from their flask and sighed because they were missing their television program and both had work the next day.

After a few minutes, Millie stopped looking up and looked over, pointing out that the sky still looked black and empty from here, which didn’t make any sense. Perhaps, she said to her well-read father, all the stars and moons have gone, and there is nothing up there anymore. Perhaps the universe is empty and they, as Earthlings, are now all alone in it.

Both of her parents laughed and shook their heads and her father patted her head for being so innocent. Then they both looked up with their naked eyes and saw nothing by a black and empty sky.

“This must be a bad spot,” her father said. “That’s why there’s no one else around. The light pollution must still be too strong. If we were higher up the mountain, we’d see everything and wouldn’t even need a telescope.”

Again, on account of being 10 years old, Millie insisted, so they packed up the telescope and hot chocolates and drove up the mountain path, which was dangerous on account of it being so dark. While they drove, her parents chatted in the front about various important adult things, while Millie sat in the back gazing out the window, up at the sky, with a frown on her face.

Driving up the bending roads to a perfect clearing up the mountain, the city down below twinkled, and her mother bent down to Millie and pointed to where she thought their house was, and her school, and where her father worked. They could see it all from up there. But while both her parents were looking down and pointing at things they saw, Millie was looking up and still saw nothing.

Her parents also looked up.

"Aha!" her father said, pointing. "There's something there!"

Millie and her mother looked and saw what was quite clearly a helicopter. After it passed, they agreed that the sky was still black and empty. There was nothing in it. They didn’t understand. It was getting late now, so they decided to have a nap in the car before returning home, but Millie couldn’t sleep.

When they woke up, her mother looked at her watch and saw that it was 7.30am and they had to get her back for work and school and other such things.

But if it was 7.30am, Millie asked, why was it still pitch black? Her father checked his watch, assuming some mistake, and confirmed that it was the correct time, after all, so he turned the key on in the car and looked at the dashboard clock, which triple-confirmed it. It was 7.30am and it was pitch black like it was still in the middle of the night. There were no stars or moons or sun or anything like that in the sky. There was nothing at all.

Perhaps they were all alone.

Perhaps there was nothing left but them.

“Be that as it may,” her father said, checking his watch again. “I still have to get to work. I'll return the telescope and get you something else.”

And they drove back down in to the light of the city, away from the darkness.