STAR GAZING

By vincent

A little boy's happy play with his sister was interrupted one evening when their mother called for the sister to help prepare supper. Then the boy lay on his back and stared dreamily at the clouds. Suddenly the whole sky went dark, as though someone had flipped a giant switch, and the boy saw that only a lone golden star remained twinkling in the night sky.

He was amazed when the same star put its legs over the dark cloud it had been sitting on and jumped down to lie beside him. Then together they stared at the completely dark sky in silence for some years. The star finally turned to stare at the boy.

'Who are we?' the star asked, but before the boy could reply it said, 'I am surprised you brought me down here and then say nothing all this while.'

'How did I bring you down?' the boy asked.

'You thought I should come down,' the star explained. 'To put it more clearly, you thought of me lying next to you, and you got your wish.'

'But I didn't wish, I only imagined,' the boy said.

'Okay then, you imagined, if you wish.'

'This is fabulous!' the boy said happily, accepting a rainbow sweet from the star and popping it into his mouth. 'But why don't I imagine you speaking the very words you speak to me.'

'So you think you are the only one that has imagination,' the star said in a mock chiding voice. 'The fact is I imagine myself speaking to you, and I do.'

'But when I imagined you lying next to me, I thought I would be burnt for we were taught in school that stars are as hot as the sun.'

'Little boy,' the star replied laughing, 'your fear of getting burnt was just a figment of your imagination. You need all the figments for an imagination to become real.'

'How old are you?' the boy asked the star suddenly.

'I am as old as I would be if I am as old as I am,' the star replied. 'You can work it out if you like.'

'Wow!' the boy exclaimed, punching a calculator that had somehow gotten into his hands. 'That's 4,236,388 million years older than you were ages ago.'

'It's my turn to ask,' the star said. 'Tell me, how did you come about?'

'My mother gave me birth.' The boy replied.

'What's a birth?' the star asked

'I meant she gave me life.'

'Oh. You mean to tell me you've got an extra life? Of course you know you have to first be alive before you can receive anything, including life itself.'

'I was born by my mother!' the boy exclaimed, laughing.

'I understand now.' The star said, laughing also. 'You were born by your mother. So who gave her birth?'

'My grandmother.'

'And she?'

'My great grandmother.'

'Let's go on in that sequence. Who gave birth to the mother that gave birth to the second?'

'I read in a book that the universe – and so first grandma – was formed by the
Big bang.'

'The Big bang?'

'The Big bang.'

'What we both need now is a walk.' The star said.

The boy crouched with the star behind a thick set of flowers and peeped through the gaps at different kinds of Walks going to and fro; some aimlessly, others purposefully, in a sort of garden which he saw by a sign had the curious name 'This Life.'

'See that one walking briskly towards the east,' the star whispered to the lad, 'that's our walk. Now is the time!'

Then the star and the boy leapt over the flowers and went directly for their walk.

'Let us imagine for a moment this big bang theory,' the star stated seriously as they walked along.

Next thing, the universe exploded with a tremendous noise –a big bang if you wish- and the boy was a little suprised to see that he stood with the star on a bare rock floating in nothingness.

'Nothing but rocks,' the star commented.

'I can't believe this,' the boy said looking about.

'You shouldn't.'

When they were lying on the grass again and staring at the sky, the star said, 'Now you know my master.'

'Who is your master?' the lad asked.

'Your master.'

'I can't even begin to imagine...' the lad was going to say he could not imagine what the star meant, but the star cut him off with,

'But I can. I thought I told you that some time ago.'

'What was the most amazing thing you ever imagined?' the boy asked.

'Hm,' the star said, 'that's an intelligent question. You deserve a reward for it. Let's see what I have in my pockets.'

Then the boy found himself walking slowly with the star, hand in hand, through an aisle of what seemed to be a large supermarket stocked high with various good goods.

'What do you want?' the star inquired kindly, but before the boy could think a reply, the star got an old voluminous book off a shelf and handed it to the boy.

'To answer your question,' the star said when he had brought them out of his pocket, 'the greatest and most amazing thing I ever imagined was seeing that book you hold here on earth complete.'

'Isn't that easy enough to imagine?'

'You don't understand,' the star said. 'It all started one day when I was man-gazing. I looked and saw that there was no good tomorrow for any of the men I saw. I wept bitterly when I realized that the only solution for providing them with a good tomorrow was unimaginable. But I went on to imagine it, and to my utter horror- and great relief now- , it happened just as I imagined: the Book appeared here! Then I was assigned to watch over the book. It almost tore my heart apart to see how the book was handled at one point. It was at that point of my sore distress, when I thought I would lose my mind, that I learnt that my belief that my imagination sent the book you now hold here was only a figment of my imagination. My joy doubled after three days. I personally rolled away the stone, if you must know.'

'But what am I supposed to do with this gift?' the lad asked looking reverently at it now. Somehow he understood what he needed to.

'Just believe it,' the star said, matter of fact. 'You'll learn other things when you look. And now let's imagine something again.'

'Like what?' the lad asked.

'Let's imagine that you'll wake up,' the star said, entering an elevator and pressing the number for heaven.

'Where are you going?' the boy asked. The star only smiled and said nothing. 'Ple-e-e-ase, can I come with you?'

'It's not time son,' the star replied. 'Just hold onto your ticket and at the right time you'll board. Fair enough?' The doors closed.

'No,' the boy said and began crying. Then the star walked through the doors of the elevator, enveloped him in a great hug, then jumped back into the elevator, and everything vanished.
The boy was still staring at the empty space where the elevator had stood when the stars face appeared and whispered, 'wake up', and vanished again.

'Wake up!'

The boy opened his eyes and saw his sister standing over him. 'Mom is calling us for supper', she said.

He looked up and saw a lone star in the sky.

It twinkled.

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