Once upon a time,
There was a brother and a sister who liked to play beneath the stars at night. They would lie near a shining lake as still as glass, its mirrored surface reflecting the night sky full of stars and dancing lights. The brother and sister would dream of the moon and imagine that a man lived on it, making cheese. They argued over what kind of cheese the moon itself might be made of.
One night, the dream they shared of the moon turned into an idea in the brother's mind, and he turned the idea over in his mind until he had the plans for a flying machine. It took gears and levers, steam and hot air, and a mighty balloon made of special material, but in the end a magnificent machine was made.
The brother and sister set forth together in the great machine that carried them past the trees and past the clouds and up and up until suddenly they were flying through the dark expanse of space. Much time passed, and the children grew weary of their journey, until one day they bumped against a solid thing. They looked out and saw that they were on the moon.
"Let's not taste it here; let us bring it home and eat it together," the brother said, feeling the need to put his feet on familiar soil again.
The children didn't linger on the moon but instead took a piece of the moon with them in the great machine, pushing off of that mysterious and frightening surface to make the long journey back home.
With their feet firmly planted on the ground, the brother and sister tasted the moon together. One said it tasted of soft cheese with hints of fruit, and the other said it tasted of sautéed mushrooms in cream sauce, but both of them only took one small bite before a deep sleep overtook them. It was the sleep of death, the sleep that once you fall into you will surely not rise from again.
The children's father found them lying in the grass the next morning, the bit of moon that was left still clutched inside the boy's hand. No matter how hard he tried, neither of his children would wake, and becoming more and more distraught, the father cried and pulled at his hair as though he would go mad. He had overheard his children playing outside, talking about going to the moon. He had known his son had built the great machine, but he had never imagined that it would work.
The sun shone brightly that morning, and the father looked up at its brilliant rays through the strands of his hair, and an idea came to him. An idea that would change the course of the world, for better or for worse, he could not know or say.
"If the moon puts you to sleep, my darlings, then perhaps the sun will wake you up." He climbed into the machine, taking the fire tongs from the hearth and a jar of water, before flying the machine up and away from his sleeping children.
The man did not know what time passed, for all his thoughts were on his sleeping children. To him it seemed but a blink before he was within reach of the sun, the flying machine barely withstanding the heat of its blaze. Shielding his eyes, feeling the skin on his face begin to crack and peel, the man reached out the tongs and caught a piece of the sun that had broken off and was floating through space towards the machine. Carefully he put it into the jar of water, flinching away as it boiled the water, making it spill out of the jar. All that remained when the water was gone was a small rock, the light of the sun fading from its depths.
The man hurried away from the sun, relief flooding his body as the heat ceased to scorch his skin and hair. By the time he knelt beside his sleeping children again, skin was peeling from his face and his entire body burned with pain, but the man did not notice. He leaned over his son with a small piece of the stone and slipped it between his lips, not daring to add more. He did the same for his daughter and then sat back on his knees, his fists clenched anxiously at his sides.
A light as bright as the sun shone suddenly from within the children, its rays piercing the day around them so that the rest of the world seemed dimmer for a moment. The man covered his face with his arms, blinded by the light, until it faded enough for him to peer at the sleeping children only to find that they were no longer sleeping at all but sitting up, sunlight fading from their eyes.