An uneven and gloomy current of sorrowful faces flowed away from his resting place, treading slowly - as if they might accidentally step on the husk of the man underneath with their intentionally polished, closed-toe shoes.

She remained standing and unmoving, hoping her stillness could persuade today's occurrences to linger in the future. The courage to lift her heavy feet off the ground came once she heard the buzz of streetlights and the loud but equally faint sounds of crickets making their shrill chirps.

A familiar sensation took over as the moon assumed its position in the jet-black sky. Her father always told her that he'd relish to be buried on the day of a New Moon. After he drifted into silence and joined the endless night she delayed putting him to rest until the beginning of the month. He used to say it symbolised a rebirth of sorts, a fresh start. So, although she didn't fully believe this 'hippie astrology crap' - as she would often call it - there was always an element of peace to it, and she wanted to honour that, even in the end.

Being aware of these spiritual and emotional connections to the moon, connections that her late father continuously mentioned from the time where she still played with dolls to the age she left for university, she was acutely conscious his odd and morbid request fell within a time when the Moon is directly, almost poetically, fitting for the day. The thought of this made her giggle, as the Moon was positioned directly betwixt the Earth and the Sun. Almost as if he was not completely gone however not completely here either.

This distinct notion delivered in her a feeling she was desperately seeking to justify: ‘he isn't gone' the thought struggled against her sense of reasoning and prevailed. Somewhere inside of her there was a voice kicking, screaming and trying to claw it's way out, she refused to listen to whatever it was attempting to declare. Closed off in a dark space, deep in the back of her mind, is where it remained for the time being. She had, with her father's strange beliefs, somehow convinced herself so completely that he was, in fact, still present, still here, a place between the earth and the sun, he was a New Moon, invisible but still whole.

At dawn, the sky was ocasionally a shade of vermillion which reminded her of an irregular saying - 'red sky at night, shepard's delight. Red sky in the morning, shepard's warning'. Each day, when her eyes refused to close and her brain flooded with thoughts, there would be a singular moment, during this scarlet hour that everything ceased, her body relaxed, brain slowed, the night had passed - she breathed in a breath of relief. It was one of the few things she remembered from her mother, who was from the midst of the British farmlands. She would always show her, morning or night, the crimson-covered view.

Night's on the other hand, now made her stomach constrict with nerves, eating up her insides. Usually the sheet of dark, moon-iluminated fabric calmed the world around, the surroundings that enclosed her house. Winds stop humming, lights halt with their flickering, cars cease to rumble, people quit pratteling. Yet the last of these awful and gut wrenching days, the clamor and commotion seemed to grow in volume as the minutes ticked by. A pandemomium of incoherent sounds filled her ears in agony, violently occupying her already overfilled mind. Anger seemed to take over every single inch of her body, she could feel it tingle even in the tips of her fingers and toes.

Anger directed towards everyone, everything. Her father, a crazed astrophysicist, who maintained a belief in the phases of the moon and the power of the universe. Anger at the damn sky that was so beautiful and fascinating he couldn't help but rotate his head towards it every time something moved. Anger towards her mother, who packed her bags as hurriedly and expedious as possible, minimizing her luggage with fear of greedinnes taking away the only opportunity she felt she had to run away, abandoning her with the only other parent that was available, now alone. Angry with herself for not channeling the strength she percieved to have. Stomach contracted and blood boiling, tears filling her eyes to the brim. Each time there was no spilling, controlled by the surmount of internal vexation and rage. Nowhere to direct it, nowhere to unload. 'Why me? Why is this happening?' Fury jammed as questions.

She found herself, almost floating, in a dream-like sleepwalking state, sauntering and trudging towards her fathers grave hoping to repent her wrath, to place it somewhere - anywhere. Discovering, anew, the toombstone - desperately - simillar to a vein packed, smoked out junkie on a search for substances. It read, freshly engraved, no dirt collected, a clean patch of grass: 'John Moreau 1969-2015'. An amazing man, she thought, how unfair it is, so thoughtless, her resentment to have led her here. Emotion overtook, she looked at the sky and there it was, a Waxing Crescent. A thin silver strip. No warning. Zero preparation. He was no longer between the earth and the sun. She felt so utterly powerless and only one query played over and over again inside her head. 'My father. Why him?'

Life moved around as normal, no one stopped or halted, looked or listened. Her friends came round, cooked her comforting food, cleaned her messy and neglected house, asked her how she was feeling, what she was feeling and if she was feeling at all. Conversations with the people around her expressed themselves in inconsistent waves, often when on a talkative high, there was only a singular subject mentioned. A subject that made her appear slighlty lunatic, sort of crazy but beyond understandable to anyone who dared to listen. The what-ifs haunted her, chasing her down like prey. Her friends helped with distractions during these times. She had great friends, a content group of four, no limitations, too little boundries, full of love and tenderness.

'Dal' they all say with a worrisome tone, 'you need to eat, Dal' repeatedly. 'Dal' growing concern each time her name was called. She hated it, despised hearing her own title with such little regard for the rest of her, the remains of what she is without the loss and grief. Hearing her name profoundly reminded her of her father, it was he who had named her, 'Dal Skye Moreau'. The word 'dal' - a korean designation for the celestial body we see in the night sky - the moon. Her father named his daughter after the moon, how profoundly ironic she amused.

Once her close companions opened the gates by asking how she was feeling, they either flooded or persisted closed. When unlatched, even if only slightly ajar, she couldn't help but tell them time and time again: what if she had been there, if she had caught him before he left, if she called earlier, convinced him to stay, talked to him, kept him occupied. Quitely she prayed at night, bargained with the universe, with herself, convinced that she could have done something, tears streaking down , and he would still be here, next to her. Proposed swaps, 'take me instead' she pleaded, knees grounded and hands folded. This usually happened at night, generally looking out though her opened, big glass window. This time, as she stared at the veil of the universe and began her nightly routine of vigorously imploring for her father to be brought back, there it was, sectioned the same way as she felt, with a missing part of her, the moon, in half.

During the following days she found herself accompanied only with his books, journals, magazines, newspapers, drawings and sketches, research papers, notebooks - you name it, scatered everywhere, exactly as he left it. No windows had been opened yet the room looked as if a hurracane had violently passed through it, leaving no corner untouched. Sorting through her fathers memorabillia brought back flashbacks and memories she didn't even know she held stored. Lots of tears, lots of blubering. Emotionally curling up over the ground, on the sofa, under the table. She did this a lot, many many hours of daylight, spent in the dark, sleeping on her fathers bed or looking at his pictures. At this point she didn't eat much, didn't shower often, mostly she wasn't awake for long at all. His narrow, two story cottage style house smelled of a mixture between food - his cooking was utterly and wholehartedly awful - and his strong cologne that she always described as 'pimpish'. He would always laugh, belly out, mouth wide, spraying it all over himself anyway. He’d make her the most awful burnt - no, scorched! chocolate chip pancakes in the morning, and she always ate a stack with such pleasure and determination. Unsure if she would ever gain the courage to break it to him that those splodgy, charred, charcoal and dry attempts of breakfast were not edible in the slightest. She never did say anything, never mentioned it or mocked him because his happiness meant more to her than anything else - even if she had to excuse herself to throw up on occasion.

She sits for a couple of days, solemnly, tears taking over and then she questioned herself, not the universe, not any higher being, she reflects on her own, what the purpose of living without him is and those doubts arose further, turning into snowballs of fear of feeling like this forever. The terror of never being okay again, dreading not being able to smile or laugh anymore. That voice she buried along with her father, the one kicking and shrieking, howling to be let out has been set free from its cage and it consumes her heart, mind and soul like a plague with no cure. She gives in to the disease for there’s no more fight left inside of her. There’s no more strength.

She stopped marking the days, blending them all together moving, almost motionless, through them like a thick fog that never ceases to break. That night was no different than the previous. Gut wrenching and toe curling mixtures of agony that she felt each time the sky darkened. Then, out of the corner of her eye, a poster laid fallen between his oakwood desk, of the phases of the moon. Her father had lots of them laying around, this wasn’t uncommon, each with the names, ammount of days, interesting facts but this one, it felt more personal, it looked more intimate. From what she could see in her scrambled fetal-like position, it was covered in his handwriting.

For the first time in hours, days, weeks or maybe even months, no certainty on any timelines, she got up. She fumbled her long unused limbs and carried her heavy body to the other end of the room where the desk was lazily positioned against the wall.

There it was, on the poster, dated the day he died, notes for an article he’d been writting over the course of years, titled: ‘Day & Night by John Moreau’. A book about the lunar rhythm and its effects.

One particular phase, the last one, called a Waning Crescent he had noted that this was a ‘final silver’ that signifies rest, surrender and closure.

And right there, right then - it happened.

She realized, he was gone, truly and bodily passed. She didn’t drain all of her tears, scream out the pain - Dal sat, with the poster and with herself, realizing that he would always, eternally be with her. Through the moon, every stage of it. By her side and at each phase, she will feel and recall a different part of him.

The turmoil of grief inside of her settled, and she breathed as if for the first time, taking in a different side of the big silver lantern in the sky.