– The Third Moon

The third moon was the one that fascinated Regine and her friends.

The smallest of the moons, it had no commercial value. For it had neither the mineral resources of the second moon, nor the recreational possibilities – its low gravity and spongy vegetation making it a natural playground – of the first.

The quality that the third moon had was that it was weightless. Or, to be more accurate in the conditions of space, it had no mass. It was real, physical, composed of matter, and yet it had no more weight than a reflection of itself. It had, therefore, no gravity. It was neither drawn to the planet and the other moons by gravity, nor did it draw them to it. It hadn’t the gravity of a butterfly.

How was it there? What held it there? Why was it there? It was there. That was the beauty of its mystery.

It had a second strange quality: if any material was taken from it, that material rapidly acquired a mass appropriate to its composition. And any object that landed on the moon rapidly became weightless. The scientific implications were enormous.

But Regine and her friends were not concerned with scientific implications. They simply observed and contemplated the mystery of the body that hung in space, a form without mass, a presence that took no part in the physical relationships of the universe, which sometimes reflected, and sometimes glowed, which some called ‘the moon that is a window’ and some called ‘the moon that is a poem’.

Regine called it by no name. She observed and contemplated and waited, for the word to come that was the name of the third moon. And from that word, she knew, would come a new vocabulary. And from that vocabulary, a new language. And from that language, a new life.