Blood Red Moon
"Papa Show us something scary.” Pleaded Cindy, my step-grand daughter, a bright and beautiful seven year old with long flowing locks of auburn hair,
and a cheeky, dimpled smile that reveled Shirley Temple. In fact, she always dances and sings along with her favorite You Tube videos, songs like
Bruno’s (the kids call ‘The Monkey Song’) viral hit music video.
Her little brother, my step-grand son Rafael, was eagerly fearful with anticipation of what he might see. Rafael, a four-year-old Dennis the Mennace
type boy, trying to stand tall with his older sister and their cousin Clair.
Now Clair, a thin six year old girl with long angelic blond hair and a smile that makes it hard for Papa (That is what they call Grandfather, which
would be yours truly), to say No, but with will power, not impossible for me.
As they stood there, I slowly rotated my swivel rocker towards the laptop sitting on a roll top desk, I stop short of facing the laptop and swung the
chair swiftly back towards them, Cindy and Rafael that is, for Claire was not present, and simultaneously leapt from the still moving chair, and with
a “Boo” with hands up, fingers shaping claws, and a volume adequate to cause a surprised reaction from my granting the wish to see something
scary.
Raphael stumbled back having trouble maintaining balance, mouth open and contorted and wide eyes that reflected the room light with the effect of the
reflection being a full moon. Cindy jerked back startled but recovered quickly and in a stammered tone retorted, “Papa, I meant a scary video.”
I was in the act of a self awarded attaboy, and thought about this.
Now I got an idea, and improvising, without hesitation, yet softly spoke the words that would start the tale.
“You know I’m a werewolf, don’t you?
Rafael faded back and whimpered “Are werewolves real?” Your not a real werewolf are -you Papa? I’m scared!” while his full moon eyes got even
bigger.
Cindy, noticeably unaffected replied, you are not. Papa” and turning towards her little brother on the right, closest to the hall leading out of my
room, with a nice view of Seattle the house standing up on a hill, with other residents below, the neighborhood a little calmer than some, but
reaching miles in all directions.
Next, I loaded a slideshow I hade made with one of the pictures being a photo of me blended with a wolf. Just the head attached to a nice suited
torso and cropped at the waste. Rapidly moving to find the one picture before the grandchildren lost interest, I grabbed it and proudly displayed it
in full screen on my monitor for all to see. Drawing the kids’ attention to it, I continued the story. “See!” I exclaimed excitedly with dark
emotion, “this is me the last time…” then suddenly looking down toward the floor, with sad demeanor, I continued, “The last time I turned into
a werewolf.” I paused. Ever so slowly I raised my head with shoulders low for that I’m a victim too look a killer on trial might deploy, my eyes
raising as a beautiful enchanting sunrise, looking for sympathy, they met Cindy’s and I followed through to end my fear giving days with the
ultimate blow of disappointment they would soon feel afterwards.
“But don’t worry, it only happens on a blood red moon.
As you might surmise, the grandchildren suddenly had more questions.
I will continue with Cindy’s response.
“No, …is this real…are their really werewolves Papa? You’re just trying to scare us. They aren’t real. ///Rafael, don’t be scared, it is
not real Papa’s just scaring us…” This inquisition without opportunity to respond continued for a bit longer and I had to think quickly. There
it was. A book of fly-fishing flies with a piece of fishing line sticking out of the closed bi-fold opening. I remembered looking at then earlier and
that the piece of line was cut about 4 or 5 inches and unattached to a fly hook. I picked up the book of flies and pulled the loose piece of fishing
line from it.
“I can prove it,” I declared with coming triumph and glory in my voice. “This is a hair from last time I turned into a werewolf,” I told in a
defiant tone challenging anyone to say otherwise and walk away without a bruise, black eye or worse.
Cindy took it from my offering hand, rolled it between her thumb and forefinger for a moment, bent it, tugged, pulled, and then looked at me.
This isn’t real,” she sharply voiced with undertones of threat back at me.
“What is in that box?” she inquired, pointing at the flies’ wallet I had just reset on the desk. “You can’t open that. Did you see how I
pulled out the hair? It cannot be opened until the blood red moon.”
Now Rafael was out of there. He goes to grandma and tries to tell her about me being a werewolf and the blood red moon and how the box can’t be
opened in his still developing use of language, And while Rafael was busy getting grandma up to speed on things, O toyed with Cindy a bit longer.
In her list of questions and again now asking the question I wanted to answer, She asked, “When is the next blood red moon?” at which point I
stopped her. Now, I know that on the 15th April 2014, there will be a red moon due to an eclipse where the earth is between the sun and moon. Also,
it is rare and there will not be another this century. Today was the 10th April 2014.
I raised my arm at the elbow and spread my hand palm out and concurred with my hand, “5 more days!” The dread in those words was chilling.
Cindy again questions my sincerity, “Your just, making this up. There is no such thing as a blood red moon!”
Anticipating this, I was now going to prove all this was true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Typing search words into the address bar of my laptop’s Os’s Browser, I then hit the enter key with a confident finger punch. Up came a list of
results and I looked at one that seemed like a source from an Ivy League College, especially to a 7 year old trying to make sense of the validity or
fantasy of my story.
There it was in black and white. Everything about the red moon, the only one this century, or for the rest of this century, I can’t say now for
sure, but the reaction was priceless. Cindy too now ran out of there to Grandma and said, “It’s true! Papa is a werewolf and there is going to be
a blood red moon in 5 days!”
As I expected, I spent the rest of the evening watching and intermittently intervening with my woman, her daughter Cindy’s mother and an Aunt
consoling little Rafael for he was truly scared, or was he just enjoying the attention? It was hard to tell.
The next evening when I arrived home from work, once again little Rafael was still scared. A friend who had been over to do some yard work for me was
also there.
Keeper is his nickname and acknowledging this as his preference, Keeper is what we all call him.
As the evening progressed, I finally brought up the blood red moon to Keeper and now that he understood the story, told me he was wondering why Rafael
was going around all day timidly asking about the blood red moon to anyone who would listen and I believe he somehow wanted to really believe it was
not real, but with the imagination of a 4 year old, the chances of this happening are nil.
Continued Next Post...
edit on 14-4-2014 by imd12c4funn because: correction