Fazes of the Moon

Gustav fiddled with mundane rabbit ears on an otherwise tricked-out Philco Seventeener. He’d added a variety of signal-boosting components to enhance reception on the old TV set. Gustav, you see, wanted to hear what the Moon had to say.

The Moon used to whisper. Late at night in a chorus of familiar voices, it was a childhood friend. Gustav grew up, married, widowed. And the Moon went silent as Nancy became his confessional in the dark.

The Philco was picking up old mixed transmissions: Chachi jumping a shark. Dorothy kissing Blanche. Joey marrying Phoebe.  Broadcast signals break, they blend, they bounce, but aren’t destroyed nor deteriorated. These seem to be the voice of the Moon. Lost sitcoms reflected off its surface and scattered across the atmosphere. Yet, somewhere there underneath Mr. Belvedere, Laura Palmer, and B.A. Barracus was another voice just as familiar in the dark.

He called out “Nancy?”