The Last Light on the Moon
The Last Light on the Moon
There was once an old man who lived alone on the Moon. His name was Elric Thorne, and for the last 37 years, he had been the solitary caretaker of Lunar Station 9—long forgotten by Earth.
He wasn’t always alone. When the first wave of lunar colonists arrived decades earlier, the Moon was full of hope. They planted crops in sealed domes, built long tunnels lit with artificial sunlight, and watched Earth rise together like it was a nightly prayer. Elric was an engineer then, younger and eager, with grease-stained fingers and a heart full of wonder. His wife, Mira, tended the lunar greenhouse. Her laughter once filled the echoing halls.
But the Earth changed. Funding dried up. New priorities took root back home—Mars, space elevators, and faster-than-light projects. One by one, the lunar colonies were decommissioned. Most returned. A few stayed.
Elric stayed.
He stayed when Mira fell ill and the return mission was still years away. He stayed when she passed and was buried beneath a mound of regolith beneath the Sea of Tranquility. He stayed when the comms array finally gave out, cutting off his voice from Earth. He stayed because someone had to remember.
The station was quiet now. Dust drifted in the artificial gravity like ghostly snow. He would talk to Mira’s old space suit sometimes, propped in a chair across from him at dinner. He would tell her stories about the old days. About how Earth must be beautiful now with its blue oceans and busy cities. He imagined children asking their teachers, “Did people really live on the Moon?” And he hoped someone would say, “Yes, and there was one who never left.”
Each night, he sat by the observation window and watched Earthrise. The pale blue marble glowed with life. Cities blinked like stars. He would whisper goodnight to it. It never answered.
One morning, the station’s power began to fail. Life support went into critical mode. Systems he had repaired a thousand times now refused to wake. He didn’t panic. He sat on a bench in the old greenhouse, now dry and bare, and looked at the Earth one final time.
He recorded a message in his cracked old voice, just in case the signal ever reached home.
“This is Elric Thorne, caretaker of Lunar Station 9. If anyone hears this… tell Earth we were here. Tell them we dreamed. Tell them we mattered.”
And then, the lights dimmed for the last time.
The Moon is silent again.
But somewhere beneath its dusty gray plains, one man’s story lingers—etched in machines, in memory, and maybe, one day, in the stars.
