A Curious Moon

By Rachel Allen

The avatar looked like a Moon Jellyfish suspended in midair. Pulsing. His silk shirt billowed, a parachute, illuminated by moonlight. Chad scrutinized the setting. Was moonlight too indulgent? And a full moon? Granted, from Player Two’s point of view, it was a visually compelling tableau. The innate beauty in violence is all in the nuances. Further downhill, he screeched his car to a halt, and this turn, Chad allowed himself the pleasure of watching Player One’s arms and legs jerk like a marionette. He flicked the joystick on his controller. The tires peeled out and smoke filled the night sky so freshly dark the stars were still dressing for the evening. Here he was, waxing poetic again. Unchecked, his pride inspired bouts of lyricism. 

A character who can fly? Cliche. Chad programmed one who floats with a carefree elegance. Think Super Mario Brothers circa 1993. A lazy Icarus, too ambivalent to touch the sun. As Player One crashed, a wave of nostalgia hit Chad’s veins. He pressed escape. Started the level over. Were the physics realistic? He studied the angle of Player One’s body as he smacked against the windshield before rolling down the hood. Chad orchestrated the glass to first crack, then, after a momentary pause, shatter. The acoustics of disaster delighted even more than the visuals. As the scene continued, the NPCs mingling in the bike lane crunched over errant shards. 

The player was then provided two options: halt their car and return or divert the storyline to a good old fashioned car chase. Chad preferred the thrills of the latter, those bewitching red and blue lights flickering as he raced towards freedom. Accelerating, he sped his death missile downhill regardless of obstacles, living or imaginary. Morality was boring. A middle class concern for granola liberals and pearl clutching housewives. Hit and Run was a game. A game Chad predicted to be a best seller.

During spring break, he lurked the underbelly of gaming SubReddits. Chatted with fans feverish for bloodlust. Thirsty for hyper-realistic graphics. Body horror, they called it. Demanding loose, wiggly guts, decapitations, dangling limbs. Blood spatter analysis videos and articles on the physics of pedestrian deaths littered his search history. The Beta suggested players preferred male drivers, especially in a scenario including a fatality. Men, statistically, were thrill-seeking risk-takers and seventy percent of vehicle fatalities were in their big, strong capable hands. Players could choose from three shades of angry male driver: Yellow Fever, Bahgdad Brown, or Midnight Black. 

Chad tapped his fingers along the keyboard. What players yearned for was a compelling story. Stakes. Simple but high. Any trope would suffice. How about true love? Single people are dispensable. He programmed this character a girlfriend. No, a wife. Blonde. Men dug blondes. With lopsided tits so big she’s unsteady on her feet. That’s how they got into this mess. The wife fell in the street. Tripped on her stilettos. See, now gravity is the true villain here. Oh and it’s her birthday. No, no, their anniversary. A man and wife out to dinner celebrating their wedding anniversary, the moon as full as their love. While crossing the street– in a crosswalk no less– a car plowed through these ill-fated lovers. 

He grinned, rubbed his hands together. Was this how God felt? Powerful, omniscient, dangerous? Watching his creation wander the earth. A boy, magnifying glass in hand, scorching his ants one at a time. Wait, good point. Only one should survive. Let him die a hero’s death. Isn’t that what men want? To die a hero? 

***

Whenever I write the truth I imagine I’m a six foot tall white male. I fantasize that I row crew, flex a chiseled jawline, and possess an unparalleled ability to make a woman cum. The privilege seeps into my storytelling abilities. Colonizes my tone. I write with an authority that can be believed. I’m not the first to toy with Simulation Theory. The Matrix beat me to it. Not to mention Rene’ Descartes, and the Hindu philosophy of Maya. Then there were the Aztecs, of course. See, what I mean? You may not know if any of this is true, and yet, here you are, guzzling every statistic I wrote down in my tiny Brooklyn apartment. 

We can all be gods. 

On August eleventh, my father died crossing Pacific Coast Highway. Let’s try this again. On August eleventh, a teenage girl plummeted her car into my father while he and his wife were crossing Pacific Coast Highway. He pushed said wife out of harm’s way and saved her life. Cause of death: internal decapitation. The court retains a video recording in case proof is necessary. 

What no one will believe is that August eleventh was not their anniversary. It’s too juicy of a detail. And it’s difficult to say, “thank you for the condolences and the flowers, but actually, they were simply dining out on a Thursday.” Their anniversary would have been in November. But by then, the memorial–the flowers and cards, the photos and crosses, any recollection of him– was stripped, not just from the corner of Pearl Street and Pacific Coast Highway but from the very memory of this bohemian artist alcove. 

On August eleventh, there wasn’t a proper stoplight and flashing hazards installed for safe pedestrian crossing. The City of Laguna Beach constructed those safety measures in hindsight. Plausible deniability. Today, when sandy tourists press the crosswalk’s bright yellow button, they will hear a robot’s dystopian warning, Cross with caution. Cars may not stop for you. But will they know safer roads aren’t paved with asphalt but with flesh and blood?

On repeat, I dream about a moment I never witnessed. My father’s death scene has transformed into my own personal version of Espresso. A stubborn pop song whose refusal to die has reincarnated, reluctantly, into a lullaby. A video game of my psyche’s creation. Some nights I insert myself as a character, replacing his wife. During these sacred sleeps, my father and I step into the faded crosswalk, laughing. His dark brown hand holds mine– his palm rough, his grip gentle. Our fingers intertwine as if folded in prayer. On cue, I gesture towards the outrageous orange moon, distracting us from the inevitable. Some nights, flirting with dialogue, I scream goodbye as he pushes me from the path of the speeding car.  

Cosmic poetry is an act of beauty, isn’t it? 

On August eleventh the heavens conjured a spectacle as if admitting a magnificent creature was being ripped from this earth too soon, but if the Fates couldn’t be reasoned with, they may as well put on one hell of a show. 

On August eleventh, there was a full moon. Not an average full moon. A supermoon. The fifth consecutive supermoon in a single summer. A celestial phenomenon which only occurs once every thirteen years. A literal Blue Moon. At 9:36 PM, the precise moment my father floated above Pacific Coast Highway suspended in that transcendent kingdom between life and death, Saturn rose, burning bright, holding court. Jupiter, Mars, all flaming suns assembled, wept. A meteor shower descended. 

Pacific Coast Highway was littered in a wreckage of stardust.

Rachel Isaacs Allen is a Punjabi-Irish writer, an Aquarius, and an educator from Southern California. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn and is an MFA candidate at St. Joseph’s University’s Writer’s Foundry. A 2025 Barbara Germack Fellow, Rachel is an editor of The Foundry Review. She is a founding member of TBR: An Emerging Writer Reading Series, an MFA adjacent reading series for emerging and independent authors. Her writing tackles regional identity and performance, and explores the relationship between Celtic and Hindu Mythology. Find Rachel’s flash fiction in Across the Margins and her creative nonfiction essays, travel diary, and newsletter at champagnewishesandcurrydreams.com.