The Moon's Curious Dream

 When the moon went to sleep one day, she was met by the most curious dream. The universe was spinning around her slowly and at the very center of it stood a little girl with a flower.

    'Why do you have that flower, little girl?' the moon asked in her dream.

    The little girl twirled the flower slowly in her hand, and looked up at the moon through lashes almost as long as her nose.

    'I have it to wield symphonies with. It is my conductor's baton. And when I wave it in the air, the stars all begin to sing to me,' she said.

    'What do they sing?' asked the moon.

    'Whatever I'd like; whatever my mood,' the girl said with a shrug. Then she leaned close toward the moon and whispered, 'Listen.'

    And so the moon heard the stars burst into a symphony that contained all the songs the moon had ever heard.

    'What do you think of my symphony?' the little girl asked.

    'It is... loud,' the moon replied, for all the sounds one has ever heard was quite a chaotic cacophony.  

    The little girl looked up at the moon again, her head tilted to one side.

    'Well, then, perhaps you might like a quieter number.'

    The moon nodded as though to say perhaps this might be so. The little girl raised her flower and sent the stars into another symphony, the softest music the moon had ever heard — which was to say she hardly heard it at all.

    'What did you think?' asked the girl.

    'It is very... quiet,' replied the moon.

    'You are a choosy one,' the girl said, and then folded her arms. 'Well, then, if one is too loud, and one is too soft, then perhaps there is no symphony that you would like to hear. Be gone with you, moon.'

    The girl raised her flower and as she waved it, the moon found herself back in her orbit gazing at the stars at the beginning of night. Then the stars began a symphony that was not a dream at all. It was the most perfect music the moon had ever heard. She smiled at the wonder of the stars and their song, thinking little of her dream. But then, out of the corner of her moon's eye, she thought perhaps she saw a bit of the center of the universe where it looked as though a little girl was waving a flower and smiling.

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