When the Otter Puts the Moon On Layaway

Once upon a time, in a swampy corner of an island that still had some sandy shores, there was an old vintage shop of curiosities.

The badger who owned it no longer had a cell phone or internet. She had chosen a quiet life selling old things the old way, for trade.

Her hours were painted on a board beside the door:

OPEN WHEN HERE.
CLOSED WHEN ELSEWHERE.

An old otter visited on Thursdays. She had one eye. She had seen some things and felt the remaining eye was sufficient for anything else that might come up.

One Thursday afternoon, while the sun was gently setting, she found a full harvest moon rising in a silver platter.

The badger had propped the silver platter in the window between a porcelain cabbage and a duck wearing spectacles.

“How much for that?” asked the otter.

“Six interesting stones.”

“With the moon?”

The badger looked over her glasses.

“Well, I certainly haven’t anywhere else to put it.”

The otter checked her pockets. A shell, a button, and something that had once been a peppermint.

“Do you offer layaway?”

“I could.”

Outside, an old alligator waited beneath a live oak. He was missing a leg and had several scars from an occasion on which someone had almost made him into boots.

“You’ve put a reflection on layaway,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” said the otter. “I’m collecting it in six weeks.”

“The moon isn’t in the platter.”

“Not at this hour.”

He closed his eyes. Sometimes the Otter and her strange way of seeing things was too much for a three legged alligator to bare.

They had known each other when they were younger. In those days, their conversations had been brief and conducted at considerable speed.

Now they generally discussed supper, not as either of them being said supper, or apparel.

The following Thursday, the alligator accompanied her into the shop.

The badger’s eyes widened.

“I’m only here to make sure this transaction is fair.”

The badger examined the otter’s first stone. It had a hole through the middle.

“Very interesting,” she said, placing it in a velvet jewelry box.

She poured three cups of tea. The alligator declined. Badger’s tea was no longer very appealing.

By the third Thursday, the alligator had repaired the shop’s back step. Only because he needed the steps to not be another death trap for him. Not because it benefitted any other swamp creature.

By the fourth, he had found a folding stand sturdy enough to hold the platter.

The otter smiled.

“Doesn’t mean I agree with any of this,” he said.

“Of course not,” said the badger, accepting a jar of his fig preserves in exchange for two wineglasses.

On the sixth Thursday, the otter brought a stone shaped remarkably like an alligator.

The badger studied it.

“Distinguished,” she said.

“Handsome fellow,” said the alligator. He scratched where he used to have a limb, but now was just a pinned under piece of clothing.

The moon was finally paid for.

They arranged a supper beside the water to celebrate its arrival. The frogs rehearsed a song. The heron wore a hat. The turtles requested an early start and arrived late.

There were good cheeses, sliced pears, crackers, and ample bottles of scuppernong wine.

The sky was entirely cloudy. The alligator looked at it and smile.

There it was. The truth.

The otter looked at her empty platter and frowned.

The alligator looked at the otter’s sad eye, the one she still had.

“Cheese?” he offered.

“Yes, please. Wine?”

“Yes please.”

After a while, the heron’s hat fell into the river. One of the turtles retrieved it and wore it for the remainder of the evening. The frogs forgot several verses, which improved the song considerably.

The otter handed the wine to the alligator.

“Would you?”

He worked the cork loose.

“You used to chase me, something fierce,” she said.

“You used to be faster.”

“I still am.”

He glanced at his missing leg.

“An ungenerous observation from the clever but often time erroneous otter.”

She poured him a little more.

“See, that thesaurus wasn’t such a bad gift, was it?”

He smiled. It was true. Ironically. The war of words had started their feud back in the days of One Truth.

Then the clouds began to part.

The alligator noticed first. He leaned forward and carefully tilted the platter.

The moon slipped into place.

“Oh,” said the otter.

Everyone leaned closer.

There was a moon in the platter. Another in the river. Tiny moons shone in the upturned spoons. Some in wine and wine glasses.

The badger put down her cracker.

“The moon, she had babies.”

The frogs were delighted. The turtles began checking their glasses.

The otter lifted her platter, and the alligator steadied its edge.

“Careful,” he said. “You’ll spill it.”

He said this with a heavy and light heart all at the same time.

Life had been hard. Life had been sad and sometimes still was.

But right now, they had the moon in a platter and it had had babies.

He wondered, had their babies had made it through the One Truth war, would they had delighted in the moon like otter, or scoffed at the ridiculousness of laying away the moon.

He let a tear fall. In the ripples were more moon babies.

The otter didn’t ask what had made him tear up.

She had too many reasons to tally up herself if she let herself start counting.

She loved life too much to do that.

Later, when the others had gone, the two old creatures stayed beside the water. The night was warm. Somewhere in the marsh, something small was making a tremendous noise about being alive.

The otter rested against the alligator’s scarred side.

“Good purchase,” she said.

He considered the silver platter, the empty cheese plate, and the little wine left in the bottle.

“Yes,” he said. “I think we did very well despite ourselves.”

And on that sweet Carolina night smelling of jasmine and an earthy bog, they stayed until the moon closed the shop while the crickets sang.