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The Plough And Orion
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4
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Well I lay there for hours as the grass grew cold and wet around
me. I just kept staring up at the dark hoping to see again that giant
lollipop shape. The stars seemed now to be even more enriched than
before, their lustre magnified tenfold, and I lay there trying to guess
where the ship had come from. I fell asleep there in the dew-strewn
grass, in my T-shirt and jeans, and the dreams I had were fresh and
pure. There were snowmen sunning themselves on hillsides as giant,
metal, tennis-racket shapes hovered around them protecting them from
harm. For a while, in my dream, I watched the snowmen and then suddenly
I was one of the snowmen, feeling the suns rays caressing me, but not
melting. I've never felt so safe in my life.
I guess that in a strange way I fell in love with that
spaceship. For months afterward I'd walk up to the top of that hill
every night and just sit there, staring up at the sky waiting for those
lights to reappear. I wondered if maybe they were hovering over some
other dreamer on a hill; maybe in Minnesota or New Zealand. I often lit
fires and once even set off fireworks, but to no avail. The spaceship
did not return.
My friend in school once told me about how he fell in love. He
was on a train just pulling away from a station and looking through the
window he saw this beautiful brown-haired girl. She was sitting on a
bench, just sitting and smiling at the coaches as they passed her. She
smiled and waved at my friend too. And though he only saw her for maybe
five seconds he can remember every last thing about her; the way her
eyes danced below a mass of dark hair, the shape of her ears, the way
she crossed her legs. He never saw her again, but he told me that he
would love that girl forever. No-one he would ever meet could touch her.
She would be his first love and his last.
I guess thats kinda like the way I felt about that spaceship.
Nothing or no-one I ever met would be able to touch me the way the
silent beauty of that ship had. I spent all my time for months thinking
of it and idly making half-remembered sketches of it.
I didnt tell anyone what I saw because I knew they wouldnt
believe a useless dreamer and anyway I felt like I didnt want to share
my spaceship with anyone. I felt kinda privileged that the ship had
chosen me to watch. I wanted to hold that beauty in my heart forever so
that whenever I was feeling low I could stare at the stars and see again
my friends from another world.
And now if anyone ever tells me that theres no beauty in this
world I just smile at them and say nothing. And when theyre gone I just
sit quietly and dream of a July night on a hillside and foreign
creatures I never met.
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