I took my guitar out onto the porch as the sun went down to wait for the Moonlight Boy.

I tuned the low strings to bright reds and oranges, the high strings to muted purples and deep, dark blues.

There was a warm spring breeze whispering through the remains of the still day.

I sat on the porch, idly picking patterns on the steel strings, waiting for the Moonlight Boy

It had been a month since I had last seen them. They would only appear on the last night of a waning moon, when the sky was almost overcrowded with stars, as if all had come through the darkness to see him.

As the moon rose in the sky, smiling towards the western horizon, I began to hear the music of the Moonlight Boy.

I first heard their refrain at the end of winter, as the night began to give way to the day. It drifted across the sky on a chill March wind.

A month later, I had been out on the porch, much as I would be every month afterwards, playing my guitar.

That’s when I saw him.

Like a star, they were best seen out of the corner of one’s eye, fading when looked at directly. They flickered in and out of view, but their song was everywhere.

I never said a word to the Moonlight Boy, and he never said anything back. All we had was our song, our interweaving motifs and rhythms, drifting across the darkness as the moon made its way across the night sky.

The stars our audience, the whisper of the desert sands our applause.

My life is peaceful and joyful, but it is not without its moments of loneliness.

So I cherish the time I have with the Moonlight Boy, as he sits in the corner of my vision as I accompany his music, as he accompanies me.

The moon began to meet the horizon, and a faint orange glow began to light up the sky.

The music would fade, and I would catch a glimpse of the Moonlight Boy’s face. They looked sad, and hopeful, and a hundred different shades of emotion I couldn’t begin to fathom as the shadows began to play across their body.

I turned to face him, and he was gone.