The Weather on the Moon

Two tortured men haunted by two lost loves scour the Midwest for respite, seeking release through drugs, alcohol and homebrewed mysticism. Prabhu is a scarecrow-maker barely clinging to his last vestiges of sanity. Having inherited his parents' old farmhouse, he stews in a toxic brew of isolation and anguish. His prolonged mourning for the death of his fiancée cripples him socially, creatively and in nearly every facet of human functionality. He hides, he regresses, he stares...
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Two tortured men haunted by two lost loves scour the Midwest for respite, seeking release through drugs, alcohol and homebrewed mysticism. Prabhu is a scarecrow-maker barely clinging to his last vestiges of sanity. Having inherited his parents' old farmhouse, he stews in a toxic brew of isolation and anguish. His prolonged mourning for the death of his fiancée cripples him socially, creatively and in nearly every facet of human functionality. He hides, he regresses, he stares slack-faced into spectral visions of once-upon-a-time. Prabhu receives a letter laden with mystery and misspellings from his father's old friend. They meet for food and palaver, and Prabhu gains knowledge that ignites a voyage to America's heartland. Rick is a snake salesman searching for absolution in the autumn of his life. Doing penance for a neglectful fatherhood, only his daughter's forgiveness will set him free. When she falls victim to a fatal accident, Rick loses all hope of a prosperous future and begins to drown in a sea of booze and regret. Finding no reprieve in religion or the empty condolences of vague acquaintances, Rick tumbles hard into despondency. These two threads of narrative run parallel for a stretch before irrevocably intertwining in a journey through grief and guilt. Rick's inability to cope with the sudden tragedy of his daughter's death leads him to Prabhu's doorstep, where he hopes to find answers in spiritual back roads and self-destructive alleyways. Through Prabhu's necromantic experimentations with his scarecrows, the men scramble to reconstruct their lives. They cross state lines and traverse the dark expanses of memory in hopes of resurrecting the dead. Across the fast food freckles and infinite corn stretches of the Midwest, Prabhu and Rick clank eastward in a broken down old pickup, maintaining a precarious allegiance in their impromptu exodus. Prabhu carves scarecrow skulls while Rick keeps his blood-alcohol level at a satisfactory minimum. They aren't buddies. They aren't pals. But their conflicting personalities and analogous circumstances ferment a peculiar and strained road relationship. As they barrel ever closer to a vague destination, the friction intensifies, reaching its apex deep in the Cuyahoga Valley. ¬THE WEATHER ON THE MOON is a tale about love and loss. Full of bloody knuckles and bittersweet nostalgia, it explores the connection between love and meaning, the folly and wisdom of elevating human relationships to supreme divinity. How do we fare when our gods become ghosts? Rick and Prabhu present two outcomes of the same entrapment, the same uncompromising faith in the ephemeral.