It is harvest season and the seventh year of our friendship. After this year, they say that our friendship will last the rest of our lives; they say that we will never lose one another.

I’m not a social media person. I get addicted to fantasies of my own concoction too easily and so I’ve tried my best to avoid TikTok. I’ve never had Instagram. Or Twitter. I barely touch Facebook and when I do, all I see are political ads and my great aunt’s xenophobic posts.

"Little Moons" is featured in "Tales From The Dream Zone," an anthology of weird and wonderful stories. The book cover is directly drawn from the imagery in "Little Moons."

I BUY A BASIL plant for the summer. The plant had stood alone, perched on a barren shelf at Trader Joe’s—lush, a tempting canopy cloud of green. I do not expect it to last the summer, not weeks of leading hiking and camping trips for middle-schoolers throughout the High Sierras of California.

My girlfriend has built her house on the salt flats. The salt flats lie bone white and glittering in the mountains, thousands of feet above the cold roaring sea. She told me that a hundred years ago, the flats were a clear blue lake, salty enough that small stones would float on the surface.

On the first day, I wake from a dream of mermaids pulling me deep into the sea, down, down, until I am floating under a long black rock. I have to go back up for air, I tell them. The black rock is like a ceiling, it is the sky. Flash of red and gold scales. Arms wrapping around me, tugging. A pull towards darker waters. Not yet, they say. Come. Come.