|
Writing Machine
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Is that an existential question?
Posts: 1,863
|
The Shimmering Distance
This one is just for gohn---I want you to know gohn that I just don't write guy bashing stories. I tell this one to my 2 year old son when he's in bed at night, just off the top of my head, verbatim. It took me 20 minutes to type down.
THE SHIMMERING DISTANCE
One night, when his world slept, a little boy felt the moon and the stars shining down on him. The vastness of the open sky was mystery and promise to him; they beckoned to the small boy’s great heart.
And so he made his wish.
“I want to see everything. To know everything that happens in the world…”
The boy smiled at the winking stars, grateful as only one who had no doubt could be, and then laid his head down to rest.
It was a night of wonder…
He dreamed of giraffes, with their elegant necks and their graceful gait. He watched them eat leaves off the trees, so high above the ground. His spirit seemed to romp with them as they gamboled, their small feet stomping, though he himself made not a single sound.
Giraffes seemed very sure of themselves, even though they were so full of inches and feet that he would easily trip over…
The night was over before he knew it, and there was so much more to his wish.
So when night came again, he hurried. He washed his face and brushed his teeth. He kissed his mother and father sweetly. He said his prayers and slipped beneath his covers.
He dreamed.
There were apples here…
They seemed such pleasant things, apples did; round, colorful and good to eat.
The boy hadn’t known that their mothers dug so far beneath the ground with their feet, their arms stretched high to embrace the sky. He had not known that their fresh, green leaves captured the sunlight, or that their roots drank up water and minerals in the soil and it was all done together for food.
He hadn’t known that they dressed for spring in delicate, sweet blossoms where honeybees danced, exchanging the pollen for each tree.
He felt his spirit dance with those blossoms when they flitted on the wind.
A day in the life of an apple tree was such a wondrous thing when you were a little boy floating on a dream…
Every night, the boy dreamed, and every night he saw something marvelous.
But as did all things, the boy grew, and his mind was directed to other concerns.
The path to adulthood wound before him, and though he had the dreams, they would often only be like faded memories when he awoke, too difficult to catch because he believed he had so much more important fare to concern him.
Still though…
One night, the lad did not come home. He had roamed too far and he and his fellows had exhausted themselves and options for it. So they sheltered with a friend, unthinking in all but their need to rest.
With sleep a foremost need, the dreams came back to the boy strongly, as it was a strongly compelling reason for the dream.
The dream was of his mother.
In the dream, he watched himself kiss his mother goodbye, promising her he would be home in time for their dinner together. And he watched her when she received his message stating that he would not be home because he had so much more studying to do.
This had been a lie.
She believed him though, and kept to herself her disappointment and loneliness.
His mother went about her work then, cleaning that one single dish, remembering sadly when there had been so many more.
The house that she kept in such order – a reflection of how she had kept her family’s life – echoed hollowly and he feared that his spirit would be heard in such awesome stillness.
The family his mother had so tenderly cared for all those years were quickly leaving her to a solitary and empty past, and there seemed to be nothing left for her troubles save sorry excuses and the whisper of dreams with no power to see better for her…
The boy suddenly woke, tears like fresh dew in his eyes---though he was not sure if they had sprung from his, or his mother’s sorrow.
He had dreamed that moment of his mother’s and he had no doubt of that moment’s trueness.
The boy cautiously eased himself from the excuse he had convinced himself of, taking instead what he had seen to heart.
And that heart---was taking him home…
Time passed and the boy grew to manhood. He paid heed to his dreams often enough when his waking life could spare time for a distraction.
He always spent the weekends with his mother, where the dreams were usually the strongest.
Life had other plans for his dreams however, and decided they should be more than just far away experiences.
That night, he dreamed of a tepid summer night, dreamed of the rain as it beat onto his windowpane. He dreamed of it falling, drops of sparkling crystal, liquid diamonds, into the awaiting arms of trees illuminated by shocks of light reflected from houses on the streets.
Suddenly, tentative steps onto the loamy forest floor behind the house pique his attentions. The wind blew a warm welcome, and the trees swayed, beckoning the newcomer to join them in nature’s revelry.
So, she did.
Throwing down her blanket, she whirled round and round and the sky dressed her in its royal watery best.
He knew her.
He had grown up with this girl who had always seemed so distant, frugal and gray. He had seen her as no great beauty, and so hardly saw her at all.
Ah, but Nature knew where true beauty, true passion, lay. So when Nature called her own out, the girl became the woman that truly existed.
And the woman drew others…
Wrapped in his own blanket, he stepped cautiously into the fresh, shimmering distance of dream made reality.
Their eyes locked.
She moved towards him unerringly and without bashfulness, helping him remove his own blanket.
Within moments, he was dressed fittingly, and she led him into a dance that would last for the rest of their lives…
The years went by then, a full life permitting very few diversions from it.
He was married, finished with college. He got a job and there were children soon after. There were bills to pay, choices to make, promises to keep.
Late nights at the office and economic concerns kept him from the stars and the night sky. The daily life demanded more attention than he had for his dreams, though his wife made sure that he, along with their children, found time for the woods and the rain.
Together, they still danced.
It was adult sensibility that told him there was no such thing as wishes on stars, though he did not scour that belief from the bright souls of his children.
Instead, he told them tales about giraffes and apple trees and the thoughtlessness of youth. He told them about a grandmother’s great devotion, and of sweet, romantic love. He told them about how things were always going on all around them and that all they had to do was focus on any given thing, and something would happen.
He taught them to always live in the moment, because that moment was living in them too…
…And so eventually, the little boy’s moment came once again.
After the heart attack, there was so little he could do for himself. He could wash his face and brush his teeth. He could kiss his wife and say his prayers. But his mind had forgotten so many things to the point where he was as small child.
At times, this concerned him, until the light of love from his wife’s eyes and the stars shone down on him, filling him with assurance and warmth.
After his youngest grandchild turned eight and the man became bedridden, his own boyhood returned when he looked up into a clear, starlit night and the wish recalled him.
He had wanted to see everything, and still did---at least until he could be with his beloved wife again.
Things never stopped happening he knew.
Everything---except his heart…
The stars remembered though, they remembered his wish and felt the love and gratitude of a spirit that had lived well.
So he rose, up, up, up---far beyond the tallest giraffe, so full of inches and feet. Up he rose, as the tallest apple trees gave breath to his ascension. Up he went, past the regrets of youth, and beyond the need for glittering royal trappings.
Up he went, beyond the world, where night began and joined with the day and all light became one until it diffused and single points of light shone on their own once so the process could begin again when the night held sway.
There he sparkled, shining down on all that happened, all the time, always and at a thought. He would take it all in and bide his time, perhaps touch, in a small way those he remembered…
Somewhere, a little eight-year-old boy washed his face and brushed his teeth. He looked up into the sky and thought of giraffes and apple trees and his grandma’s diamonds made of water.
Grandpa had told wonderful stories, and the little boy hoped someday to really see such things himself.
Looking out his window, he felt the moon and the stars shining down on him and made a wish of his own…
“I want to see everything. To know everything that happens in the world---just like grandpa…”
…And high up in the sky, a brilliant winking star heard the little boy, and shone down to touch the child’s dreams…
__________________
Old enough to know better, young enough to think I can still get away with it.
|
It's a nice story to tell to your son. Alot better than telling him about the one when the husband, who just watches tv all the time gets eaten by monsters in the basement. 
