Clockwork Phoenix: Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

THE MOON-KEEPER’S FRIEND by Joanna Galbraith

Mohammed Muneer’s Twenty-Four Hour Tea Service was a rather long name for a roadside teahouse but Mohammed had liked it from the moment he’d conjured it. Painting the words neatly across an old wooden plank, his hand had cramped twice before he’d finished the first coat. He thought the long name would catch the attention of drivers. Make them slow down. Give their stomachs ideas. But the sign was too elongated for those who were weary so they drove straight on past him and stopped further down. Outside the burger joint with the squat name of Munch, lit up in pink neon by the side of the road.

On top of the teahouse was a small crescent moon which Mohammed Muneer polished each morning after the Fajr. Humming Nahna Wil Kamar Jeeraan in three different octaves, he burnished it vigorously until his fingers shred skin and sweat hung like a necklace across the brow of his forehead. The manager at Munch often watched on bemused. Eating jam doughnuts, belching black coffee, shouting between mouthfuls: “You should go neon, mate. More glow for less grind.”

Mohammed Muneer’s tea house rarely saw visitors even though he served tea in gold-lipped tulip glasses and offered ruby-inlaid nargiles from which to smoke tumbak. Even though he made sweets as fragrant as spring: churros glazed with rosewater, pistachio baghlava, rice-flour cookies sprinkled with crushed poppy seeds.

Road weary travellers, it seemed, simply weren’t interested.

Their tastes were much simpler, their guts far too staid. Cheese-and-bacon fingers. Fat plastic tubs filled with mousse. A Munch burger special with extra egg and thick beetroot. Who needed tumbak when you could smoke Bensons? Three puffs in the parking lot beside the dry spinifex grass. Butts flicked in the air like butterflies with torched wings.

Alas, for Mohammed Muneer, the townsfolk were no better.

Narrow in mind, if not in their girths, the very idea of something edible even being called a pashmak had them crossing the road promptly without checking for traffic. They crossed even faster when Mohammed Muneer was about. Waving them over with his wide, beckoning arms, apron to armpits, smiling so hard the tips of his moustache tickled the lobes of his ears. They’d rather risk their lives on the fast metal of the highway then engage with a man who didn’t serve milk in his tea.

It hurt Mohammed Muneer to be so scorned but in some small ways he was actually quite fortunate. The townsfolk were slobbish. They ate with their mouths open. They also had a rather perverse inclination for walking through dog poo instead of around it, so though he felt sad he was actually quite blessed.

There was only one local who ever visited his tea shop and that was Reggie Macklewaite, the town’s sort-of handyman. A softheaded fellow who wore lime velour tracksuit pants; he liked to help Mohammed Muneer wherever he could. Fix cracking pipes, empty clogged cisterns, sweep earwigs from gutters and the treads of the stairs. He used to come round every morning with his tools in a supermarket trolley until Mohammed Muneer told him he could sleep out the back, in a shack he had furnished with a bed and a basin.

Now it was true that poor Reggie Macklewaite hadn’t always wanted to be a handyman.

Indeed, he’d dreamed of being a pilot until cruelly advised to aim lower. “Stick to what you’re good at,” his teacher had said grimly. “And if you’re not good at anything then just be damn good at that.”

It wasn’t, however, that Mohammed Muneer’s tea shop never had visitors. (Reggie aside; but he was more of a fixture than a bona fide guest.) It was just that his visitors weren’t the usual types. Arriving at dawn from far-flung lands, they’d stagger through his bead curtain, eyes stung from no sleep, and collapse at his tea counter, feet shredded and sore. They would speak in strange tongues. Use their hands to make gestures. Tell tales that made no sense except to each other. Like the Argentinean fisherman who had lost his way at sea. Thought he was tracking a Patagonian Toothfish across the Southern Ocean, chasing the whites of its terrified eyes until one night he discovered he was tailing the moon instead. Or the pretty young girl from the Mekong Delta who carried a stash of hairy cherries in the cone of her hat. Said she’d wandered for months with a grain of rice in her eye that wouldn’t wash away no matter how much she tried.

Usually when such visitors arrived it was Reggie who would welcome them.

First offering them a seat, as he had been taught, and pouring them a tea: ginger root, lemon rind and honey from hived bees, specially blended by Mohammed Muneer to rejuvenate weary souls. Then he would listen as each of them asked him the very same question that had haunted every one of them separately since their journeys had begun.

Did Mohammed Muneer realise he had the moon on his roof?

Reggie always found the question to be quite absurd.

Of course he did.

Everyone did.

No one, not even Reggie, could miss the sickle-shaped ornament that spun on his roof. Shimmering rose-gold in the dawn rinse of the sky.

But Reggie was a gentle fellow not out to fool others.

So instead of calling them ridiculous or laughing in their face, he would simply lean over the counter (being very careful to tuck in his own personal moon which tended to appear rather regularly on account of his low-slung pants) and say with a wink: “The moon on his roof, eh? Well y’ don’t say. I’ve heard that the sun shines out of his arse too.”

It was a lonely life for Mohammed Muneer, despite these strange visitors (and Reggie, of course.) A life most men would have despaired at. Grown hairs on their palms. But Mohammed Muneer accepted it without gripe or growl. For Mohammed Muneer believed he was more than a simple tea shop owner and if anyone (other than his stray, passing travellers) had cared to look closely they would have noticed that his spinning rooftop crescent was no ordinary ornament. That what lay cradled in its gold-plated curve was no strange adornment, no waxed pearl or satin button or lost tooth from a baby. It was the very moon itself, come down from the sky to rest on Mohammed Muneer’s rooftop during the light hours of each day. Weary from the night spent travelling the skies, casting a light one million times greater than its own actual size. For the moon was, in truth, no larger than a juniper berry and as delicate to touch as a silkworm’s cocoon. Easily worn out by its nightly travail it would sleep through the day until evening came once more. Then it would rise to the sky to shine once again, as a whole or a part or sometimes not at all, depending on how tired it was, how well it had slept.

The fact that the moon rested on his rooftop was known by no one else but Mohammed Muneer himself. A secret so small it could fit in the palm of a man’s hand as it had in the past and would do so in the future.

Insha’Allah.

He told no one of its existence, not even his strange visitors, for he feared were it to fall into the wrong human hands, it would be its undoing. It would be its very end.

It never bothered him though, the idle banter of his guests; swearing they’d seen the moon sitting on top of his roof. For he knew they might talk until their teeth ground to gum but there was nobody about who would pay them any regard. Apart from Reggie, of course, but Reggie was much better with his hands than his head, so though he always listened he seldom understood.

Now it wasn’t as if the moon had always lived on Mohammed Muneer’s rooftop.

Since the beginning of time it had worn many guises:

the jewel in a queen’s crown;

a polished fountain stone;

the centre piece of a mosaic in an ancient Persian garden.

Every time it changed guises it had changed for one reason; because its keeper had been lost or had moved on in some way.

The queen with the crown, dethroned in a battle.

The gardener from ancient Persia dead amongst the pomegranates.

Whenever such an event happened, which inevitably it did, the moon would be forced to seek out a new keeper; for the moon knew very well that it could only ever have one—a person whose sole responsibility was to shield it from harm.

Now it wasn’t as if the moon consciously chose who its keeper should be. It just gravitated towards those folk it could sense had pure hearts. Who would sacrifice themselves and expect nothing back. Who had been born on the nights when the moon had been full and whose souls compelled it to shine brightest when it hung over their heads.

Sometimes, once found, the moon would reveal itself to its new keeper. Other times it did nothing at all. Just slept in their presence with a deep, abiding certainty that should it suddenly require protection this mortal soul would provide it. Indeed the only reason at all why Mohammed Muneer even knew about the moon was because he’d spied it one morning while polishing his gold crescent. He never breathed a word though, just raised his fingers to his lips. For Mohammed Muneer was a wise man. He had a good heart. He knew the moon was precious, too precious for this earth.

As host to the sleeping moon, Mohammed Muneer rarely left his tea service in the hours that it lay resting on his roof. However, once a year at the beginning of summer he would leave for the big city to see the doctors about his arrhythmic heart—a condition he’d inherited along with bowed legs. How he hated leaving his teashop for the choking grind of the city but every year Reggie, bless his own perfectly beating heart, would offer to keep things running until he returned. And every year Mohammed Muneer would thank Reggie with a bowl of sugared almonds, while explaining that he’d really much prefer to keep the teashop closed. Whereupon Reggie would clap his short foreign friend in the small of his back and say “alrighty mate” invariably throwing Mohammed Muneer’s capricious heart into even greater chaos.

Mohammed Muneer was only ever gone three days. And every year he was assured by the doctors that his heart seemed fine—as fine as a heart that chose its beat from whim instead of necessity could ever really be. And every year Mohammed Muneer would drive back home feeling restored and confident that he could shelter the moon for another coming year.

But not this time.

Driving west with the remains of the day, Mohammed Muneer could see from the sky that something awful was unraveling around him. Gone was the cobalt blue of summer: the Indian yellow of the sun. Both had been swallowed, or so it seemed, by a blood-orange beast with cindering breath.

Roads had been closed by burly policemen. Fire engines screamed past, their lungs cranked up high. Radios shrieked warnings of firestorms out west, as if the raw, blistering sky wasn’t warning enough. But Mohammed Muneer knew the back route, down by the dams, so he drove like a desperate bugger, crouched low in his car. Praying out loud that he would make it in time, though deep in his heart he already sensed he was too late.

Arriving in town, Mohammed Muneer saw that Munch was already gone. Nothing remained but a grim twisted melt of gristle and plastic: a super-size imitation of a Munch daily special. Some of the local folk had gathered around, licking their chops and rubbing their hands. They could feast on the remains for days before the crows came to town.

Mohammed Muneer left them to scavenge (for it is what they did best) and trailed down the black road in search of his tea house. His head slung low, shoulders defeated, he was afraid to look up though he knew that he must.

In sight of the point where he knew his tea house should be, he peered between his fingers to find his worst fears confirmed.

His teahouse was gone and there in its stead was a fierce, roaring dragon with tangerine-coloured breath. This monster, it seemed, was swallowing his shop whole.

Mohammed Muneer dropped to his knees.

He was too exhausted to holler, too shocked to weep tears.

Praying out to Allah to save the sleeping moon, he was surprised when he heard a voice rising out of the flames.

“Bleedin’ heck!” it bellowed and then: “Bugger me.”

Mohammed Muneer looked up aghast, to see Reggie crouching on top of his roof, moving slowly, defensively, against the copper coloured winds.

“Come down,” he shouted. “Come down, my good friend.”

But Reggie could not hear him, or perhaps he chose not to, for he had his mind on the gold crescent and nothing else would do.

The crescent was spinning wildly, fanned on by the flames but Reggie was determined to save it for his one friend, Mohammed. He knew how much it meant to him, this glimmering rooftop ornament. How every day he would polish it so it gleamed in the sun.

Reggie clamped his hand firmly on the ornament’s base so it broke easily away in the palm of his hand. Then, smiling triumphantly, he waved it high above his head.

The smile did not last long however; nor did his jubilant wave.

The crescent moon was hot.

Viciously so.

It seared the big man’s hand so he yelled from the pain before flinging it skywards. The ornament spun high, slicing the air as it twirled, but gravity dictated that it must eventually descend. Hitting Reggie once on the head and then the small of his back as it tumbled its way back down to the fire. Reggie lost his balance too and tumbled from the roof. Straight after the crescent moon, straight into the fire.

Mohammed Muneer heard a thud and then heard nothing at all, just the sound of white-hot teeth, roaring as they ravaged.

“Reggie,” shouted Mohammed Muneer but he heard no response.

“The moon,” he said again mournfully, his voice lost to the air.

Mohammed Muneer turned his head away, he could not watch any longer. He had seen too much already. He could bear the fire no more.

Crouching amongst the dirt, he buried his head in his hands and wailed.

Suddenly the tea house shuddered violently, shaking the grass and the dirt below Mohammed Muneer’s feet. He stared at the ground, too afraid to look up.

He noticed a great shadow looming across the earth. Creeping towards him, unable to stop. Soon enough, he feared, it would cross over his skin.

He looked up to face it.

What else could he do?

But instead of confronting a fire monster, as he had thought that he might, he was greeted instead by a sight most peculiar.

A sight most spectacular. A sight worth a song.

It was Reggie slowly rising out of the jaws of the fire beast, cast in silhouette by the fierce light behind him. Lifted, somehow, by the seat of his pants, so he hung like a coat hanger up there in the sky.

Mohammed Muneer gazed on in wonder at this great floating man as he hovered above the land, a giant balloon in the breeze. Swooping and soaring in the early evening winds, with a broad, beaming smile and wide, gleeful eyes.

“I can fly,” shouted Reggie, joyfully waving down at Mohammed Muneer. “They said I never would but look at me now.”

Mohammed Muneer said nothing; he just waved back with both arms, wearing an expression both elated and extremely confused.

How could Reggie Macklewaite just have risen from the flames?

The answer soon came to him in the shape of the moon; slowly rising out from behind Reggie—from Reggie’s pants to be exact. Wriggling its way free from where it had been hiding since it woke to find itself falling out from the gold crescent. Tumbling from the ornament’s nook as it struck Reggie’s back, rolling straight into the rear of the man’s rather low-slung pants.

Admittedly, it wasn’t the most elegant place the moon had ever tried to seek refuge but it was moody and dark and strangely reassuring. Here it could hide safely while it properly woke up before starting its steady climb to the great sky above.

And it was a fortunate thing too it had rolled where it had because when Reggie had fallen he had hit smouldering wood unlike the gold crescent which had landed in blue flame.

“I’m a bird,” shouted Reggie again, stretching out his arms, blissfully unaware of the moon in his pants.

Eventually, the moon began to tire. So it could continue its journey into space, it brought Reggie down, dipping him twice more, for it knew how he loved it, and then tenderly depositing him in the fork of a gum tree.

Gliding free, it rose up behind him, drifting higher and higher, a little white pearl against night satin. The moon had saved Reggie as had Reggie the moon, though the big man would never know it.

“Did you see me?” Reggie shouted breathlessly.

“Yes I did,” replied Mohammed Muneer and he said nothing more.

He just gazed at the moon until it disappeared into the heavens, leaving nothing behind but the brightest of lights which shone down on Reggie still sitting in the tree, then down further onto Mohammed Muneer, who understood now that the moon never belonged to him—but gave thanks that he had the good fortune to be the moon-keeper’s friend.