Moons

Dungaree lays his daughter back down in bed. He kisses her on the head, and softly closes her door. Once outside, he stretches with his hand on his back, and looks up at the silver moons. The South Down Village is a cliff one, with domiciles built into the rock faces high above the rushing waters of the endless jungle sprawl. Ropes and bridges zig zag hither and yon, but one gets used to the climbing. Anyway, the only safety afforded when living in the jungle zone is to be off the ground and out of the trees. Even then there is very little to be had.
Once, when Dungaree’s father had been a little boy, some of the village’s youngest and strongest men went down into the jungles to carve out a living on the surface. Of the ones who made it back, only a boy called Knees was able to talk, and they were all covered in cuts, bites, and clawings.
Dungaree can hear the animal noises drift up from the rushing rivers below. Howling and screaming monkeys. Bellowing bull boars, and yelling birds. Occasionally a tiger or a panther. On the bloody horizon, a couple of titanic freighters are blazing their way through the skies. Ships of steel and plastics with massive engines pulsing blue light. On their way to the desert zone probably, and then off world. A long time ago, before his daughter was born, Dungaree had worked on an interstellar. The hot between decks, checking dials and watching the epic cooling shafts. Their cargo was mostly petroleum for plastics, and clays for ceramics. Headed back and forth between the mines on the slave planets.
One at a time, the lights in South Down click off. Dungaree goes back inside and climbs into his hammock beside his wife. In the distance, a jaguar coughs his roar. The sun falls off the earth and the moons shine silver on the cliff faces. Everyone sleeps.

End