Week 2 Story: See the Moon, tibi

("Tibi" fruit preserves, from stock) 

See the Moon, tibi 

I am currently with my daughter Zoe on a stroll after she got upset because of a situation with her brother. Allow me to explain how we got here. My son Bo had gotten a package in the mail from his pen pal that lives up North. They had been trading jellies and jams for a few years now, all made from the local. This was a special package, however, because Bo's birthday was last week and he had asked his pen pal for a jar of tibi fruit preserves. If you didn't know, tibi fruit does not grow down here. You can only find them in the North, where the abundance of lucifer flies pollinate the low-lying plants. Not too many people have tasted tibi, but everyone has heard of it. With juices that run a deep, regal purple, the look of jelly made from tibi is astoundingly memorable. The first time I came across it, I was not impressed by the taste. But the look? The look I will never forget. 

It was not the taste, or the look, nor even the exclusivity of the fruit that had caused Bo to ask for a jar of tibi spread. He simply knew how proud his pen pal was of the location-specific produce. After all, there are not many things someone from the North can be proud of ever since the discord began. Bo knew that reading a request for tibi fruit would put his pen pal in a chipper mood.

All of this is beyond the view of Zoe. Children, while often much smarter than adults, are not in tune to cross-region produce availability. Zoe simply saw that Bo had received a clear jar of the richest looking purple nectar she had ever seen, and wanted some. This led to her snatching the jar from Bo and opening it despite my protests. I managed to retrieve it before any preserve was compromised, which of course did not go over well with Zoe. I figured- and I still do- that Bo was entitled not only to be the first to try his tibi fruit jam, but to also have discretion over whether or not to share. It was about the time of day where Zoe has jam-filled sandwhich, and if Bo declined to offer some of his birthday gift, she would stick to the usual betrix juice. To be honest with you, I always thought that betrix juice tasted worlds better than any other fruit, let alone tibi. As we approach the end of our cool-down, I am noticing that the entryway has garnered an addition. 

Sure enough, we are close enough to see a peanut butter and tibi sandwich. Plated, and with the crusts torn off. 

Author's Note:

I wanted to really just use this piece as an exercise. Both of the messages remain consistent: the grass is not always greener, and there is always more to the story. But I wanted to try writing this (with new characters, obviously) in a first-person direct address. I think if done properly (I need to work on a lot here, and would begin with tense work) the direct address offers a unique way to connect with readers. I also wanted to bring the story's perspective down. Instead of writing about the origin of the moon's faces, I picked the wildly trivial concept of jelly to focus the story on the intended message. The same applies with the setting- both the large scale perspective and local environments are left very vague. The reader is not sure what sort of building the narrator lives in, let alone where the "North" is. The general and unclear mention of discourse can help keep the subjects in a real-world psyche without showing too much bias or otherwise distracting angles. 

Bibliography:

"The Man in the Moon" from Laos Folk-Lore by Katherine Neville Fleeson.