Fact and Fiction

Avi says again that the moon does not shine. She has been quizzing me. Do I know what the moon is made of? Do I know why we say the moon shines when it doesn't? It is simply the easier way of talking about the moon, she responds to herself.
And I think, How static we are, even as we advance. That we know, as fact, that the moon does not shine with its own light. It does not shine. And yet we look up on a clear night and say, How bright the moonlight! We know it does not shine, but we look and we see through the eyes of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, through the eyes of settlers and tent dwellers and tribespeople. We see the moon as it appears in fairy tale picture books, captioned in rhymes that dance and laugh just beyond the reach of logic.
It does not shine. And yet we look up and there it hangs, shining.
We learn and learn, and our fictions persist. Perhaps it is because science and storytelling share a goal -- to explain, to make sense. We imagine fact and fiction as opposites, but they are sisters, conjoined twins forever inhabiting the same space. For what is fact, when it can be proven and not seen? That is, what is fact, when I have not been to the moon? And what is fiction, when the moon hangs shining impossibly in the air?