By: Ethan Goffma

Son: Father, our black cat is invisible at night and so an excellent hunter. Yet he has a white spot that can give away his position as he lies hiding, waiting to pounce. Is there some biological reason? Does it somehow improve the cat’s chances of survival?

Father: It’s a symbol, son, that for every Yin there is a Yang, that life proceeds through opposition, that history ebbs and flows, that nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Son: Father, the moon is beautiful at night, but why is it there? What’s the reason it exists at all, orbiting our planet for all of history?

Father: God put it there, son, to guide humans at night, to inspire us, to comfort us during the worst of times. It shrinks, disappears, and reappears every month to remind us of the cycles of life, that for every winter there is a summer, that however bad it is now a better time is coming, but also during happy times that grief will return. The moon is both mystical and temporal, keeping humans grounded in reality yet filling us with awe. It takes away our emptiness and makes life meaningful.

Son: Father, why do you call yourself a scientist? You sound more like a mystic. Why are you peddling superstition?

Father: You will understand, son, when you are older. Or perhaps you will never understand until you’re dead. This is a test and I have no idea how you will do. That is the profound dilemma of the father.

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Ethan Goffman is author of the short story collections The Church of the Oversoul and Other Stories (and Realities and Alternatives, the poetry collections I Garden Weeds and Words for Things Left Unsaid and the flash fiction collectionDreamscapes. Ethan has extensive nonfiction publications on the environment and transportation issues.