It takes Jasmin years to remember how to be alone again after her children are grown, removing all the coats she’d accumulated one by one. How did she get to be wearing so many of them? A lifetime of coats. Sensible dark woollen coats, heirloom fur coats, bulky padded winter coats. Spring coats thrown over shoulders just in case of rain. Coats made of ‘should’, coats made of ‘ought to’, coats made of duty and obligation and responsibility. Heavy, cumbersome coats.
She peels them from her body and stuffs them in the spare room until she’s removed enough to feel a silvery tug, pulling at her. It pulls her down to the beach and along the pier, it pulls her onto the silver-gold path that stretches across the water to the full, rising moon. The water is shimmery under her feet and Jasmin feels like dancing.
What happens when the moon goes behind a cloud and the path disappears?
What happens when the moon rises out of the water? Will the path stop beneath it? Will there be a ladder?
On the moon, Jasmin meets a rabbit who asks her a riddle she doesn’t know the answer to.
On the moon, Jasmin meets the Moon herself, and Jasmin is a child again, asking impossible questions.
The Moon doesn’t answer in words, but Jasmin receives answers nonetheless…
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