A few little stories about the moon at the stern of the gondola.
Fable of the Moon
The moon rose over the stern, like a worn-down stone sickle. The Troupe Master, lost in her own reflection, spoke to it: "You old workhorse, can you still reap the wheat fields in the sky above?" "Better yet, come be my navigator. Just keep an eye on what's behind us when I back the ship in." And so the crescent moon's radiance was invited aboard, to watch over the Actor's course from that day on. The moon came down to the mortal world, hard and dry as a wheel of aged cheese. The Sea of Stars has no damp wind, and the silent vacuum left it too afraid to breathe. "Strange," said the Troupe Master, scratching her head. "When you were doing hard labor alongside the Sun, weren't you wandering through that same vacuum?" "So why does the easier job make you more uncomfortable?" "Saying I did hard labor alongside the Sun... that's nothing but your own interpretation." "When, from your point of view, I was being pulled by a planet and orbiting a star..." "But if you looked up from the ground, I was just as much a free body in the sky." "I wandered without purpose through the cosmic waves of wheat," "rounding up those mischievous, wayward shooting stars," "and herding them back to the homeland nourished by romance." "That is how I once defined my work. Now I grow old," "but what it truly means to be a navigator at the rear..." "That is still mine to decide, in my own time." The moon has no dawn of its own. A lonely old king, murmuring softly backstage. The flower boat drifted over hills and slopes, leaving blossoms behind, taking pearls away. "One day, I will decide: whether I am a passing stranger, or a member of the circus troupe." Perhaps it gave an answer, perhaps it did not. Either way... The light of dead stars still burns with life.