the spigot of the moon

 

 

one time i had a dream that the key to lunar travel was connected to the cold water spigot of the bathtub.

the handle of the old spigot had become worn out after much use. the plumber came and installed new fixtures. he claimed that they were antiques with an elegant provenance. they had  swans as the spouts and bronze globes for the knobs. the sphere for the hot water was a map of the world and the cold water knob was a map of the moon. he wrote out a bill from a pad that he kept in his overalls' front pocket.

that evening i was going to take a bath. when i turned on the cold water, by adjusting the position of the moon, clear water began to pour out, just as i expected. then, something strange happened. white water lilies and green lily pads started to pour out and float around in the bathtub. this was both unprecedented and unexpected.

 

what happened next was completely unforeseen. a lady in a white gown tumbled out of the spout. this was followed by soft music from the pipes. she stood up. her dress was soaked and she kept looking around. it was like she didn't know whether to be amused or to be lost. she was laughing and then covering her smile and saying "i don't even know how i got here." i told her that she came through the pipes but she wouldn't stop giggling. "i'm so lost." although very beautiful, she was completely playing the fool. this irritated me. no one can be that silly.

i told her my name is alfred. this made her laugh harder and blush. i asked her if she came from the moon. she said yes. she had been up on the moon in her pool with her friends and then she had been pulled, like a tide, down to earth. it was a good thing we had oxygen down here, she said. now, normally, i'd want to ask a lunar being all sorts of questions but i could tell there was no point, because she wasn't going to answer my enquiries. she started to pick up some of the lilies and kept saying "look at these. it's so wild." and "this is so crazy." her movements were very casual and yet mysterious.

 

she looked at me, with my plaid bathrobe, and said "you could wear the lilies like a crown." and burst out laughing. i have to confess that i wasn't very amused. she spread out her arms, slightly bent, with sleeves down to her thin wrists, and held up a string of green lily pads.

 

"you could be a frog with all of those." i said. she rubbed the back of her neck. maybe it was sore because she tended to slouch.

she frowned. "a frog? i came all this way and get called a frog?" she pouted. then she saw the moon sphere as the cold water knob. she became very excited. "so, this is what did it?" she asked. she dipped her hands in the water and then rubbed them across the moon globe.

i explained to her about the plumber and the old fixtures. she ran her index finger down the underside of the neck of the cold water swan. she seemed sad or at least serious for a second. she looked directly at me.

"alfred," she asked, "where did he get these pieces?" my previous explanation, i thought, made pretty clear that i didn't know where they came from. i was beginning to realize that she wasn't really very bright and i would be repeating myself often. the clock in the hallway chimed seven thirty.

she heard the clock and seemed melancholy. she told me she had to go back to the moon so that it would shine. one day, when everything was ready, she would return and take me back with her. until then, i should find out as much as i could from the plumber about the spouts -and avoid baths at 7 in the evening. she held up the chain to the stopper and waved good bye with a giggle. she gave the chain a pull and opened the drain. she flowed away, feet first, with the water and the plants.

the music stopped and the tub dried out.

i didn't want to even know what happened when you turned on the hot water.