The Moon Has Terrible Footwork
The moon takes human form to enter an amateur boxing tournament, hiring a retired champion to teach it how to lose fairly.
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How it begins
The stranger in Iris's gym weighed sixty-eight kilograms until she asked him to step off the scales.
Then he weighed the building.
The floor groaned. A crack traveled through the plaster above the trophy cabinet.
"Sorry," he said. "I forgot which way was down."
Iris folded her arms.
She had been retired for three years. In that time she had trained accountants, a retired butcher and one bride who wanted to punch the wedding cake. None had damaged the foundations before warming up.
"Who sent you?"
"The sea."
"Does it have a surname?"
He looked genuinely troubled.
His skin held a pale light. Not reflected light. Light from somewhere inside him, like a lampshade with excellent posture.
Outside, a car alarm began to wail.
Iris went to the window. Harbor water was climbing the road in a shallow, determined sheet.
A man in an observatory jacket splashed toward the gym, carrying a tablet above his head.
"Please tell me he's in here," the man called.
The stranger raised his hand.
The water rose another inch.
"Keep that down," the man said.
Iris opened the door. He came in dripping and shut it with the careful resignation of someone who had already had a very long night.
"Daniel Ross. Coastal observatory."
"Iris Vale. Increasingly damp gym."
Daniel looked at the stranger. "You can't just leave your orbit."
"I arranged cover."
"You hung a lamp."
"It was a large lamp."
Iris stared at the pale man, then at the darkness over the harbor. For the first time in her life, the sky looked unfinished.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Lessons."
"In boxing?"
"In losing."
That quieted her.
The stranger studied the photographs beside the ring. In the newest one, Iris held a belt above her head while a trainer supported her left elbow. Everybody in the picture was smiling except her.
"I've watched you," he said. "You always get up."
"That isn't the same thing."
"No," said the moon. "I hoped you might explain the difference."
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Outline and characters
- Iris finds a luminous amateur waiting in her closed gym.
- The moon asks to learn how to lose without surrendering.
- Daniel arrives after the harbor rises during a sparring session.
- They restrict training to safe tidal windows and grow close.
- Iris discovers the tournament promoter wants to exploit the cosmic spectacle.
- The moon copies her old habit of winning through injury.
- Daniel shares the human cost of the disrupted harbor.
- Iris withdraws from a lucrative comeback to protect her trainee.
- A supervised exhibition lets the moon accept a clean defeat without celestial retaliation.
- Iris and Daniel reopen the gym with a less punishing idea of ambition.
Characters
- Iris Vale, 33. A retired boxer hired to train a celestial amateur
- Daniel Ross, 36. An observatory technician trying to keep the tides predictable
Series possibilities
- The gym receives a training inquiry from a mountain that wants to learn how to move.
