The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki

She and her sons had all kinds of cool adventures together, but then all the pale sons started growing up, and the bigger they got, the harder it was for the mom to hold them down to earth, and they started having trouble in school and stuff. Finally things got so bad, they had to have a family conference, and the pale sons told their mom that they had to go back to the moon. It was important for their self-esteem, they said. They had to go back to find their impact crater so they would know who they are. The lady astronaut was very sad when she heard this, but she realized she had to let them go because she wanted her sons to have healthy identities and lots of self-esteem, even though she knew she would be very lonely without them. The pale sons offered to take her with them, back to the moon, but she said no, because she was an earthling and one trip to the moon was enough for her. When the day came, she took all her sons outside on their strings, and she used her little embroidery scissors to cut their strings, and one by one the sons floated away into the bright blue sky, waving to her as they got tinier and tinier and paler and paler, promising to come back to earth, but they never did.