The Greeks called me Selene and the Romans named me Luna. I am the eye of the night and shining beacon of light. I am the Moon, the great rock that orbits the Earth. For as long as I can remember, humans have done me no wrong. They cast their naked eyes upon me and ponder my secrets; they are fascinated by my dark side. Many years they sent up a spaceship and caused a great ruckus on my surface. How their little feet tickled! As soon as they came, they left, staying no longer than I had completed my full rotation around the Earth. They passed me every now and again on their way to explore the depths of the universe I call home, yet never again did they bother me.

I have many brothers and sisters in the galaxy who orbit other planets, and every once and a while the Sun and I play a wonderful game of hide and seek. But the planets and the stars and the asteroids bore me. The planets are too busy racing one another around the Sun and asteroids are constantly colliding with everything in sight. (Do not get me started on the stars. They are too bright for my liking and have quite the affinity for being seen. The word vain hardly does them any justice.) Earth and I are enough but there is another entity whose company I much more enjoy.

The Ocean is different. She is vast and perplexing with her body full of life; the beginning of life on Earth blossomed from her depths. Without her, the humans would be nothing-- nothing more than dried-out bags of bones. For as long as I have known the Ocean she has always had quite the temper. Quick to anger does not begin to cover her irrationality. She felt too much and she felt too hard. Whenever she gets the inkling, she will send a flurry of hurricanes upon the humans simply because she can. Near the Earth’s center, it is an all-out battle between her and the Sun. (The Sun is truly full of himself. He has eight planets revolving around him and it all just goes to his head. Not to mention that he provides the warmth that made Earth habitable in the first place. Trying to deflate the Sun’s ego is left solely to Polaris because the humans look for her as their North Star. She is much bigger than the Sun.)

At the equator, the Sun and the Ocean are the closest. It is pandemonium. The Ocean will coax the Wind to join her cause and together they send mighty waves with a mixture of rapid air to chase the Sun. They never catch him, but that does not deter the Ocean. She is stubborn-- and that is what I love about her. Once the Ocean has made her mind up about something no force in the universe can change it. Her newest declaration is her hatred for humans.

“They used to worship me!” the Ocean exclaimed. She was thrashing her waves against a rocky cliff somewhere in North America. “Now, they are taking more and more. And where is my respect? Gone! Just like my reefs.”

“Do not act rashly. Perhaps… a warning? That would surely scare them straight.”

“A warning… hah! I have given them warning after warning and they know that, yet they continue to treat me so horribly. You do not know what it is like to see your animals and plants dying off. I have an island of garbage! All this oil, plastic, trash, and chemicals-- and there is nothing I can do about it! I sit here and watch.”

Her surf reached the cliff’s plateau and the humans perched there looked upon us in awe. The Ocean sent a furious wave against the rocks and the spray slapped them in the face. Still, they stayed. What poor little fools they were.

“It is all their fault!”

“Please,” I begged, “take pity on them. They know not of the depth of their actions.”

“They most certainly do! They do not care and that is what hurts most. You do not understand.”

I was closer to the Ocean now and the closer I came the higher her tides rose. They reached towards me as they always did, beckoning me to caress them just this once. I stopped. She gave a disapproving grunt. We were already too close. “You know we must stay separated.”

“Why?” she questioned. “There used to be a time when you and I had it all.”

“You know why.” Sighing, I watched the Ocean lap against the shore.

Her word churned in my head as I thought back to us before mankind. It was a love unlike any other with no consequences. The Ocean would follow me on my orbit around the Earth and together we would chase the Sun beyond the horizon. (We never caught him but the game was fun nonetheless.) She would extend past her boundaries and wash over the frozen lands just to grasp me. That was then, but now our love has consequences.

“That was a long time ago. It is different now. We have the humans to think about. You know what would happen if we come any closer.”

The Ocean slammed against the rocks in another fit of anger. Still conscious of the humans on the cliff, I retreated further into the night sky and her tide receded. Raging, the Ocean created a whirlpool within herself. “Why do you deny what we have? Forget the humans. Forget the consequences. Let me love you!”

The Wind decided to join us then and together they brewed a tempest on the coast. An alarm sounded and the humans on the cliff began to scatter.

“Please, please, you are scaring them! Stop it!”

The Wind chuckled in delight as if they were enjoying themselves. “What a lovely little storm we have created. What fun! What mischief!”

“Get out of here!” Turning to the Ocean, I pleaded, “Please! Listen to me-”

The Wind interrupted me with their song as they whipped around the Ocean. “Here comes the Moon to keep the Ocean at bay. Here she comes to stop the Ocean’s spray. Here comes the Moon to ruin our little play. ”

Ignoring the Wind, I urged the Ocean, “Be rational!”

“I am the Ocean! I am the life force of this planet. How could I be more rational? It is you who should be rational. You want me to take pity on the humans? Well, how about you take pity on me first!”

It was all too much. Luckily for me, the Sun was peeking his head over the horizon. My time over the Pacific Coast was up.

The Ocean sent a surge to the shore in anger when she saw the Sun. “This is not over!” she stormed.

I withdrew into the sky and with me, the Ocean’s tides fell. The Wind-- who had exhausted themself in the flurry-- trailed underneath me. They cackled and whistled a wistful tune.

On my next night off, I decided to entertain myself with my brothers, Deimos and Phobos. They were both absolutely depressing as to be expected. (The Greeks did a perfect job of assigning them roles as Gods; they were dread and fear, respectively.) I did not listen long to their somber speeches and instead prodded Mars. He was his usual loud, boastful self but not after long he too began a heated anti-human tirade.

“You sound like the Ocean,” I remarked when he was finished.

Grumbling, Mars shook about himself. “I do not know how she and Earth do it. The humans send those little robots onto my surface and I just about lose it. The damned thing sings to itself! It is bad enough I have your brothers yapping to me about how terrible everything is. Add that robot to the equation and my stroll around the Sun is ruined.”

“You think the humans are bad?”

“Bad does not begin to cover it. You have seen what they have done to the Earth. They have ruined her natural beauty! She is not half the planet she used to be. Now they want to come to me and ruin my handsome assets. Never! I will make sure that no humans ever set foot on my surface.”

Maybe there was more to the humans than I had thought. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, for they were one of the newest additions to our solar system. Hearing Mars speak awakened something inside of me. Was it a burning hatred for humans? No, I do not think I could ever hate anything. It awakened a new way of thinking. I had been approaching the human issue-- and my love for the Ocean-- from the perspective of the Moon. I was closeted and sheltered in my space because the humans had visited me once and never again. I could not understand the Ocean’s hatred because I had a different experience than she did. Only one time did the humans step foot on my surface; they used the Ocean every day. Moreover, she received no thanks and instead destruction. The destruction that made Mars, the great Red Planet, fearful.

It was then I realized that humans were selfish. They set foot on my surface only to impale me with the flag of some minuscule country and establish their dominion. They depleted the Ocean of her resources and had the nerve to get upset when she retaliated. They truly believed that Earth and the rest of the Universe was theirs for the taking. It all made sense to me.

All this time, I had been pitying the humans when the truth was right there in front of me. “Forget the humans. Forget the consequences.” That is what she had said to me. “Let me love you.” All this time, I let the Ocean chase me with the notion that we could not be together. I told myself that it was the right thing to do because it would keep the humans alive. The sad truth of it was the humans could not care less whether we-- the planets, the satellites, and the stars-- lived or not. As was evident by their treatment of the Earth, it was all a big game to them. Destroy one planet and jump to the next. All this time, I had been conserving mankind’s existence when all they brought was trouble and grief everywhere they went. All of that was over now. Forget the humans. Forget the consequences. I wanted the Ocean.

Mankind was never meant for our Universe.

They take and they destroy.

They never give back to the systems that help them preserve their wretched existence.

That is not how the Universe works.

There is a balance.

A push and a pull.

There is no balance with humanity.

It is all push, no pull.

A wretched existence without balance is no existence at all.

No words were spoken as I descended upon the Ocean. I suspected she knew, maybe she did not, but she accepted me nonetheless. Somewhere in the Atlantic, her waves were overtaking the cities built along the coasts and in the Pacific, she was swallowing whole islands. The Wind joined and carried the Ocean over the continents as she continued to rise. Her tides swelled higher and higher. Across the world, the humans screamed out prayers. Their suffering created a magnificent melody for the Wind to chorus along to; the dulcet tones of their screams were mere background noise to me. I had one focus.

The humans sent missiles into the sky to deter me and the Ocean-- my sweet Ocean-- flooded their bases on my behalf. I watched their civilizations crumble to the ground. All this destruction and the Ocean was brighter than she had ever been before. The glint along her surface was enchanting. Her billows crashed against one another, for they no longer had an obstacle to stop them. There were no more boundaries. We were free.

This was all she had wanted and to think that I was the one who had held her back. Never again. The Earth was her domain. She was the life force.

I loved her. It did not matter that the humans now ceased to exist, for my whole existence was right below me.

Her breeze was the first thing I felt. Every memory of the past came rushing back and I knew that this was the right thing. The Ocean met me halfway. Suspended in the open air, we embraced. One kiss was all it took. The Ocean’s vast waters engulfed the Earth, but the planet did not protest. Perhaps this was the way it always meant to be. This was a new beginning. The world was once again ours.