Nearing the planet, he saw what appeared to be a huge circle on the planet's dark, blue surface. It was as slightly different a shade of blue as the special place on the hill was a different shade of green... Slightly brighter, slightly... moving... Yes, it was moving, as if alive. It WAS alive! The circle was actually a huge group of people, standing in a vast indigo desert. He landed in the exact center, on a very soft, pillow-like pad.
The people were arranged in a long line that spiraled around him. Jimmy saw a small, blue man at the front of the line, and noticed that all of the others were blue also. They were about Jimmy's size, with long, thin arms and legs, and short, round bodies. Their heads were large and quite round, with not a trace of hair. Their eyes were very large, round and so dark blue, that they were almost black. Their noses were flat, with long bridges that rose nearly to the tops of their heads. They had small mouths with full lips. They looked intensely curious about their visitor.
Their clothing was a dull, blue-grey garment that looked like an oversized vest and hung loosely down to their knees. Many of the people wore a belt over their vest, with pouches on the belt. Some carried tools. The man at the head of the line took a step forward, saying "Va dan tande kuma se... Kuma se tande va." Jimmy didn't understand a word of what he'd said. The man continued. "Kuma se Elnara... Va se Hoo-monns... Va Jee-mee... Kuma Thoor." Jimmy was able to recognize two words: "Humans" and "Jimmy", but nothing else. "Could you say it again?" Jimmy asked. The man reached out and touched Jimmy's hand ever so gently and repeated: "Va dan tande kuma se." Immediately, Jimmy knew what the words meant: "Va" meant "You". "dan" meant "no". "tande" meant "understand". "kuma" meant "me" and "se" changed the word "kuma" to mean "us". The first sentence was plainly "You don't understand us." The rest meant "We understand you. We are Elnara. You all are humans. You are Jimmy. I am Thoor." Thoor then stepped past Jimmy and the next person, a woman stepped up and touched his hand and spoke to him in words he had never heard before, but he clearly understood the meaning. She said "When we don't touch, we..." Their hands parted briefly. "... dan tande kuma va se." Jimmy remembered that the last words meant "... not understand you us." He then understood that touch was a vital part of their way of learning. When they touched him, he could learn their language instantly.
Without touching, he only understood the words that he had already learned. Now that he knew this, he reached out to the people, as the line gradually stepped up to greet him. Each person taught him something about themselves, their world, their way of life, until he knew everyone as if he'd known them all of his life.
A long time later, the last person, whose name was Doorah, came up and asked Jimmy if there was anything else he wished to know. "I can't think of anything else, but I WOULD like to tell you about my world." Just as Jimmy started to speak, Doorah, put her hands on Jimmy's head and said "Just think, Jimmy. It's so much faster!" He began to think about where he came from... his home, his family, his pets, his friends. When he began to think about the hospital, she suddenly pulled back, with a horrified expression on her face.
"What happened, Doorah?... Are you OK?... What happened?!!" He realized that they were no longer touching and approached her to touch her hand. She recoiled, with a hurt look, as if he had hit her. Jimmy recalled that throughout all that he had learned about them, he had never heard about any sadness or anger among them. When she touched his thoughts, she was completely unprepared for his bad feelings. He realized that he mustn't let them touch his thoughts again... just his hands, so they could speak to each other. He wanted to say that he was sorry, but there was no word for sorry.
He wanted to touch her, so she could understand him. He shouted "VA DAN TANDE DOORAH!... Tunda kuma...Touch me." Doorah regained her composure and reluctantly reached out to touch his hand. "This place... this hospital... It's not a good place! You stopped being happy when you went there."
"Doorah, It is not a bad place. They make people healthy there. There ARE some people that aren't healthy, yet. They aren't happy yet. When they get healthy again, then they will be happy again."
"I didn't understand about that. I didn't understand... pain, sad, angry." With the words pain, sad and angry, she didn't really say them, but rather mirrored the feelings back to him, exactly like he had felt them in unhappier times in the hospital. Doorah continued, with a flurry of questions. "How do people get not healthy? How does not healthy make not happy? Why does Kumani let people not have happy and healthy? Is Kumani not happy with those people? Does someone else hold their happiness when they don't have it? Are there places where happiness is not there? Are there times when their happiness stops?" At this point, Jimmy interrupted her. He now understood that on this world, happiness was a constant, like gravity. Doorah was trying to understand something completely beyond her experience. As for the matters of illness and injury, there were neither in this world.
Jimmy tried to explain injury first. "If a person fell off of a high place, he would be hurt." He remembered the time he fell off a fence and banged his knees. Doorah looked surprised."Didn't Kumani catch you? Why didn't you slow down? Kumani always catches us and we slow down when we go down from high places."
Jimmy then tried to explain illness. "There are little things called germs that get inside people and make them sick." He said, remembering the cold he caught last winter.
"Why do you let them inside you if they make you sick and make your happiness stop? Why would anything want to do that? Why would Kumani let them do that? Why do you give them your happiness? Do they give you something when you give them your happiness?" Jimmy understood that there was no illness here either. It was impossible to explain one thing without raising a new bunch of questions.
"Doorah, please... One question at a time! I'll try to explain." He remembered other times when he got hurt. There was the time when he tripped over his toy truck in the dark and cut his toe. "When someone bangs into something he doesn't see, he can get hurt."
Doorah and Jimmy went on, in a nearly simultaneous mix of explanations and questions. "Kumani shows us things when we didn't see them before. Were those germs getting out? " She asked, referring to his bleeding toe.
"No, that was blood. We have blood inside us. When blood comes out, it means we're hurt."
"I think I understand more now, because while I touched your head and felt your thoughts, I think I was not happy. I felt happy again when I stopped feeling your thoughts. While I touch your hands and only feel your words, I am still happy, but I still do not understand about those not-happy things."
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Chapter 3
Jimmy... Ji_IMMMMM_mee... Time to wake UH-up!" he heard, suddenly. And just as suddenly, he was back in his hospital room, in his stiff-pressed gown, on stiff-pressed sheets, in a stiff pressed mood! If he'd been any angrier, he might have taken a swing at the nurse! It was time to take another bunch of vitamin pills, with a little cup of Ephedrine with Attarax! He despised the taste with every tastebud he had(and others he was glad he didn't have.), but it helped him breathe better and the nurses wouldn't hassle him with it until dinner time. He had learned a trick to make it less icky-tasting. He'd open his mouth as wide as he could and stick his tongue out as far as he could and tip his head back as he popped the stuff into his mouth so that it ran down the roof of his mouth instead of his tongue. Then he would have a big glass of water right behind it, without wasting any time to let it touch his tongue! It was tricky, but it worked.
When he was done with his medicine, he ate his breakfast as fast as he could. Then he went out into the corridor to race wheelchairs until somebody caught him and told him to stop. Then he went to the playroom and looked out the window and saw the pigeons flying and he wished he could fly too. This time was different because he remembered flying last night. He closed his eyes and remembered it until he was almost there again... but not really. He tried to close his eyes tighter to remember harder, to make it more real, but it didn't work... he was still stuck in the play room, in the hospital... and he still couldn't fly.
He played with the blocks but they were too dumb to have fun with. He played with the plastic army men and blew them up with an "air-to-ground-anti-personnel" alphabet block. He read the comic books, but they were old and he'd already read them before. He went out into the corridor and snuck into the elevator, but there was a doctor in there and he made Jimmy go back to his room and told the head nurse on him! "DOCTORS ARE RATFINKS!!!" he yelled, meaning every bit of it! The nurse made Jimmy go to his room and stay in bed until lunch (and there was nothing good on TV!). Jimmy watched about 20 minutes of some soap opera. Sandra was angry at Trent for running away with Suzanne, who killed Sandra's sister, Naomi, in order to marry Doug for his money, that he lost to loan sharks... Then Jimmy switched the channel and watched Sesame Street for about half an hour, but he already knew the alphabet and could count way past 20 in Spanish and English. After Sesame Street, there was some boring stuff about dead presidents and how they did some REALLY boring stuff with other countries' kings. Jimmy watched for a little while, because of the funny looking men they showed, wearing big moustaches and weird spiked helmets. It was really funny, how everybody walked really fast and jerky, more like windup toy soldiers than real ones.
After what seemed like forever, Lunch came. It was: A dry ham sandwich on white bread with mustard, A glass of orange juice, with a paper straw that got mushy in about 20 seconds after the first sip, Some dry french fries without any salt at all, A tiny bowl of alphabet soup that wasn't bad for dipping his sandwich and french fries in. He did so and after all the broth was soaked up, he scooped up the letters and vegetable bits with his spoon. A little carton of milk that he gulped down in 7 seconds (The hospital record was 6, by Miss Eubanks, his favorite nurse.)! A cup of ice cream, that he ate first, because everyone knows that's the best part, and besides it would melt if he saved it for last. Jimmy ate everything because he was hungry and they wouldn't let him have any snacks!
After lunch, he got up and went out into the corridor and raced wheelchairs with Roland (who needed one, until his leg healed.). The nurse told Jimmy to get out of the wheelchair and stop making so much trouble. So Jimmy got out and went to the play room after he rode the wheelchair back to where it belonged. In the play room, Hody, the hospital social worker was making cornhusk dolls with a bunch of girls! (Jimmy didn't like girls very much, because he had three big sisters. Hody and Miss Eubanks were ok, though.) He went in and sat down with the girls (in a wide space, so he didn't have to get too close to one.), because he liked to hear Hody's stories about when she went to Africa with the Peace Corps. Before long, Jimmy accidentally bumped the girl on his left and she started crying because the paintbrush slipped when she was painting the face on her doll. It was an accident, but she said it was on purpose and the rest of the girls lied, saying they saw him shove her. Jimmy got sent out and didn't get to hear anything about Africa!
Jimmy was so bored, that he almost felt like crying. As a matter of fact, when he thought about the unfairness of being stuck in this place, where people got in trouble for things they hadn't done and almost everyone was sick or hurt and you couldn't go where you wanted, he couldn't stand it any more and he cried. It was so embarrassing... crying like a baby, out in the corridor where everybody could see you crying... "Big boys don't cry!" he kept telling himself. "Only babies, sissies and girls cry!" Just then, Miss Eubanks was kneeling down in front of him saying "Hey Jim, ya ok?" She was Jimmy's favorite person in the whole hospital. "Yeah, I'm ok...", he lied. He wasn't ok and she knew it! Jimmy knew it too, and he also knew he couldn't lie to her. Miss Eubanks could read him like a book. He tried to talk, but all that came out was a choked, squeaky, little croaking noise.
When he was done with his medicine, he ate his breakfast as fast as he could. Then he went out into the corridor to race wheelchairs until somebody caught him and told him to stop. Then he went to the playroom and looked out the window and saw the pigeons flying and he wished he could fly too. This time was different because he remembered flying last night. He closed his eyes and remembered it until he was almost there again... but not really. He tried to close his eyes tighter to remember harder, to make it more real, but it didn't work... he was still stuck in the play room, in the hospital... and he still couldn't fly.
He played with the blocks but they were too dumb to have fun with. He played with the plastic army men and blew them up with an "air-to-ground-anti-personnel" alphabet block. He read the comic books, but they were old and he'd already read them before. He went out into the corridor and snuck into the elevator, but there was a doctor in there and he made Jimmy go back to his room and told the head nurse on him! "DOCTORS ARE RATFINKS!!!" he yelled, meaning every bit of it! The nurse made Jimmy go to his room and stay in bed until lunch (and there was nothing good on TV!). Jimmy watched about 20 minutes of some soap opera. Sandra was angry at Trent for running away with Suzanne, who killed Sandra's sister, Naomi, in order to marry Doug for his money, that he lost to loan sharks... Then Jimmy switched the channel and watched Sesame Street for about half an hour, but he already knew the alphabet and could count way past 20 in Spanish and English. After Sesame Street, there was some boring stuff about dead presidents and how they did some REALLY boring stuff with other countries' kings. Jimmy watched for a little while, because of the funny looking men they showed, wearing big moustaches and weird spiked helmets. It was really funny, how everybody walked really fast and jerky, more like windup toy soldiers than real ones.
After what seemed like forever, Lunch came. It was: A dry ham sandwich on white bread with mustard, A glass of orange juice, with a paper straw that got mushy in about 20 seconds after the first sip, Some dry french fries without any salt at all, A tiny bowl of alphabet soup that wasn't bad for dipping his sandwich and french fries in. He did so and after all the broth was soaked up, he scooped up the letters and vegetable bits with his spoon. A little carton of milk that he gulped down in 7 seconds (The hospital record was 6, by Miss Eubanks, his favorite nurse.)! A cup of ice cream, that he ate first, because everyone knows that's the best part, and besides it would melt if he saved it for last. Jimmy ate everything because he was hungry and they wouldn't let him have any snacks!
After lunch, he got up and went out into the corridor and raced wheelchairs with Roland (who needed one, until his leg healed.). The nurse told Jimmy to get out of the wheelchair and stop making so much trouble. So Jimmy got out and went to the play room after he rode the wheelchair back to where it belonged. In the play room, Hody, the hospital social worker was making cornhusk dolls with a bunch of girls! (Jimmy didn't like girls very much, because he had three big sisters. Hody and Miss Eubanks were ok, though.) He went in and sat down with the girls (in a wide space, so he didn't have to get too close to one.), because he liked to hear Hody's stories about when she went to Africa with the Peace Corps. Before long, Jimmy accidentally bumped the girl on his left and she started crying because the paintbrush slipped when she was painting the face on her doll. It was an accident, but she said it was on purpose and the rest of the girls lied, saying they saw him shove her. Jimmy got sent out and didn't get to hear anything about Africa!
Jimmy was so bored, that he almost felt like crying. As a matter of fact, when he thought about the unfairness of being stuck in this place, where people got in trouble for things they hadn't done and almost everyone was sick or hurt and you couldn't go where you wanted, he couldn't stand it any more and he cried. It was so embarrassing... crying like a baby, out in the corridor where everybody could see you crying... "Big boys don't cry!" he kept telling himself. "Only babies, sissies and girls cry!" Just then, Miss Eubanks was kneeling down in front of him saying "Hey Jim, ya ok?" She was Jimmy's favorite person in the whole hospital. "Yeah, I'm ok...", he lied. He wasn't ok and she knew it! Jimmy knew it too, and he also knew he couldn't lie to her. Miss Eubanks could read him like a book. He tried to talk, but all that came out was a choked, squeaky, little croaking noise.
Chapter 2
It was twilight and Jimmy was running through the wet grass, toward a small hill that he remembered well. He knew that at the top of the hill, there was a special spot where the grass wasn't quite the same shade of green as the rest. He ran faster as the hill came into view. The hill... The MAGIC hill was just ahead! Jimmy ran faster still, because he knew that he had to reach the special spot before the sun had set completely, or the magic would be gone for another day.
As he came to the foot of the hill, he reflected that only he knew about the special spot and the magic it contained. It was for this reason that he held in his growing excitement and made no sounds that might give away the secret. Almost silently he ran up the darkened, grassy slope. When he couldn't see the sun for a few moments, he thought he was too late and the magic was gone.
As he reached the top, he saw that the sun had not set, but that it was just another hill blocking out the sun. Jimmy looked hard at the grass beneath his feet for the different shade of green that would show where the special spot was. He searched the grass on his hands and knees, nervously trying to find the spot before the sun's light faded completely to the darkness of night. As the remaining light faded away, it became harder to tell the grass apart and soon it would be imposs...
He found it!!!
There was just enough time to stand up in the middle of the spot, in order for the magic to start. As he stood there, the magic was beginning. He looked all around. It was night now and the city was far away.
The air was warm and crisp and exciting. There was perfect silence, except for the sound of the blood rushing about in his head. He gradually became aware of another feeling... almost a sound. He was looking up at the stars when he heard the call.
The call was almost like a woman's voice, but not really. The sound was almost like a flute, but it wasn't really. It was almost like the sound of a ringing, crystal bell, but the were no spaces of silence between rings. It was music without rhythm, instrument or measure. It was singing, without words, voice or rhyme. There were no words but it was certainly calling him... not by his name, but by who he REALLY was on the inside. It was calling to him and he knew that he must follow it to a distant star.
As Jimmy looked up at the stars, he saw more stars than he had ever seen... ever seen in pictures... ever imagined! There were so many stars, that he could see round about himself by their light. They seemed so close, it was as if he could reach up and touch them! He looked straight up, looking for the exact star that the call was drawing him to. The call grew stronger and seemed to fill the entire night sky. Jimmy thought that others might hear the call, but then he knew they wouldn't, because the call was for him only.
Jimmy stretched out his arms, up to touch the stars, stood on his tiptoes, up on one tiptoe, stretching harder, harder, higher... "Just a little bit more..." he thought. "Maybe, if I jump..." No sooner had he thought it, than he began to feel his weight slowly slip away. He was up on his toes, then the grass was the last thing his toes touched as he lifted off, diving upward into the starry night sky.
He looked down to see the hill fall away, far below his bare feet. He looked down, and saw the lights of the city spreading out around the hill, then getting smaller and falling away, far, far below. He saw the lights of neighboring cities, like webs covered with dew, spread out on a piece of black construction paper. The webs were connected with long necklaces made of diamonds and rubies, he thought, as he looked at the highways between the cities. These too, fell away from his sight as he flew higher into the night sky. He kept going up as he saw the sun coming up over the ocean, though dark, dark night still covered the city he left behind.
He kept going up as the sky grew darker. As it grew darker, the stars grew brighter and clearer. As the stars grew brighter and clearer, He flew faster and higher! The sky was blacker than Jimmy had ever seen. He took one last look down to see the world like a big, blue and white ball, clinging to a black velvet curtain. As the Earth grew further away, it seemed smaller and smaller... until it disappeared completely!
Jimmy looked around and saw the other planets... Mercury and Venus on the right. Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and Pluto were to the left. He not only saw the planets, but all of their moons too! They hurtled toward him as he veered to the left and started going faster. He saw Mars and its moons spinning toward him so fast that he thought he would certainly crash into one of them! Planet after planet, moon after moon flew past him at unimaginable speeds. He was safe, though. They came very close sometimes, but always just missed. Jimmy kept going faster as he saw whole galaxies spinning ever so slowly around him.
The stars were no longer just tiny white pinpoints high above him, but different-colored lights all around him. No two stars looked quite alike now, and there were BILLIONS of them! There were stars of every color he could imagine... and even some he couldn't! He heard the call again and began to go faster and faster still.
The sky was so filled with lights now, that it hardly seemed black to him any more. The star-light colors were so distinct now, that no two stars looked ANYTHING alike. The call drew him on. He flew faster through space. Faster, faster, and faster still until the lights began to stretch out, becoming bright lines instead of dots of light. The lines grew longer as he came near them. In fact, they seemed to stretch out to fly past him, as he flew faster still. He looked behind him and saw that the lines did not fly past him, but actually ended at the edge between forward and backward. There was nothing but his feet and empty blackness behind him... No stars... not even plain, white, tiny ones. "Hey! Where'd all the stars go?" he thought for a while. As he thought it, he slowed down a little bit... and the stars came back! They were points of colored light again.
He stopped to look around and then he heard the call, like a voice without words, compelling him again to fly faster. As he flew on through space, he could hear the call growing clearer, stronger, drawing him on... The call was so beautiful that he couldn't resist it. He HAD to find out what, or who it was coming from. All he knew about the call was the direction that it came from and that it seemed to be far away and yet just in front of him at the same time. He wanted-- no NEEDED to get closer to it... closer to wherever it was leading him. He went faster again. Faster and faster as the stars once more stretched out to become colorful lines! The lines then started to grow in number until they joined to become a brightly colored, shimmering tunnel of light! Just as the lines had disappeared behind him before, so did this tunnel. It was like a billion rainbows were woven together in a way he had never imagined possible!
The call began to tell him more than he had heard before. He now knew where he was going. His attention was now fixed on a specific star... A lone blue point in a sea of lines. He looked straight at it and flew even faster toward it.
He flew even faster as the colors began to blend, making the tunnel a brilliant white! The tunnel was so bright, Jimmy had to blink his eyes until they adjusted to the brightness. Jimmy stopped looking around and only looked ahead, where lay the star. Only the star shone now, in the brilliant whiteness of space. He wanted to slow down, so he could see the colored lines again, but the call beckoned him even more strongly than the colors.
He could see the star growing nearer... but so slowly, that it seemed like it would take forever before he reached it, so he went faster until even the whiteness began to run and fade away to utter blackness. The blackness was so complete, that he couldn't even see his hands in front of his face! He only saw the star... and NOTHING else. The darkness went on for what seemed hours, when he began to slow down again... He could see something... It was blue... He heard something... It was the call!
The call was DEFINITELY coming from that star! He KNEW it! He looked around him and saw a bright flash of white, the trillions of star-color lines shrinking back to points of color. He could now just barely make out the many planets circling it... Now he knew not only the star, but the exact planet he was going to. Now he could slow down and look around again. He looked ahead and saw the planet, shining blue, in the black of night. The call was coming from the blue planet, and not the blue sun... and he was almost there...
As he came nearer, he could see vast, blue seas, with huge, white icebergs below him, rising quickly to meet him. For the first time since he left the Earth, he felt himself falling. Finding himself in a perfect diving position, he passed through what turned out to be clouds and not water like he expected. Instead of a wet splash, he began to fall faster! He slowed down, until he was floating, instead of falling. As he passed through the clouds, he saw a dim, blue, twilight world coming up to greet him...
As he came to the foot of the hill, he reflected that only he knew about the special spot and the magic it contained. It was for this reason that he held in his growing excitement and made no sounds that might give away the secret. Almost silently he ran up the darkened, grassy slope. When he couldn't see the sun for a few moments, he thought he was too late and the magic was gone.
As he reached the top, he saw that the sun had not set, but that it was just another hill blocking out the sun. Jimmy looked hard at the grass beneath his feet for the different shade of green that would show where the special spot was. He searched the grass on his hands and knees, nervously trying to find the spot before the sun's light faded completely to the darkness of night. As the remaining light faded away, it became harder to tell the grass apart and soon it would be imposs...
He found it!!!
There was just enough time to stand up in the middle of the spot, in order for the magic to start. As he stood there, the magic was beginning. He looked all around. It was night now and the city was far away.
The air was warm and crisp and exciting. There was perfect silence, except for the sound of the blood rushing about in his head. He gradually became aware of another feeling... almost a sound. He was looking up at the stars when he heard the call.
The call was almost like a woman's voice, but not really. The sound was almost like a flute, but it wasn't really. It was almost like the sound of a ringing, crystal bell, but the were no spaces of silence between rings. It was music without rhythm, instrument or measure. It was singing, without words, voice or rhyme. There were no words but it was certainly calling him... not by his name, but by who he REALLY was on the inside. It was calling to him and he knew that he must follow it to a distant star.
As Jimmy looked up at the stars, he saw more stars than he had ever seen... ever seen in pictures... ever imagined! There were so many stars, that he could see round about himself by their light. They seemed so close, it was as if he could reach up and touch them! He looked straight up, looking for the exact star that the call was drawing him to. The call grew stronger and seemed to fill the entire night sky. Jimmy thought that others might hear the call, but then he knew they wouldn't, because the call was for him only.
Jimmy stretched out his arms, up to touch the stars, stood on his tiptoes, up on one tiptoe, stretching harder, harder, higher... "Just a little bit more..." he thought. "Maybe, if I jump..." No sooner had he thought it, than he began to feel his weight slowly slip away. He was up on his toes, then the grass was the last thing his toes touched as he lifted off, diving upward into the starry night sky.
He looked down to see the hill fall away, far below his bare feet. He looked down, and saw the lights of the city spreading out around the hill, then getting smaller and falling away, far, far below. He saw the lights of neighboring cities, like webs covered with dew, spread out on a piece of black construction paper. The webs were connected with long necklaces made of diamonds and rubies, he thought, as he looked at the highways between the cities. These too, fell away from his sight as he flew higher into the night sky. He kept going up as he saw the sun coming up over the ocean, though dark, dark night still covered the city he left behind.
He kept going up as the sky grew darker. As it grew darker, the stars grew brighter and clearer. As the stars grew brighter and clearer, He flew faster and higher! The sky was blacker than Jimmy had ever seen. He took one last look down to see the world like a big, blue and white ball, clinging to a black velvet curtain. As the Earth grew further away, it seemed smaller and smaller... until it disappeared completely!
Jimmy looked around and saw the other planets... Mercury and Venus on the right. Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and Pluto were to the left. He not only saw the planets, but all of their moons too! They hurtled toward him as he veered to the left and started going faster. He saw Mars and its moons spinning toward him so fast that he thought he would certainly crash into one of them! Planet after planet, moon after moon flew past him at unimaginable speeds. He was safe, though. They came very close sometimes, but always just missed. Jimmy kept going faster as he saw whole galaxies spinning ever so slowly around him.
The stars were no longer just tiny white pinpoints high above him, but different-colored lights all around him. No two stars looked quite alike now, and there were BILLIONS of them! There were stars of every color he could imagine... and even some he couldn't! He heard the call again and began to go faster and faster still.
The sky was so filled with lights now, that it hardly seemed black to him any more. The star-light colors were so distinct now, that no two stars looked ANYTHING alike. The call drew him on. He flew faster through space. Faster, faster, and faster still until the lights began to stretch out, becoming bright lines instead of dots of light. The lines grew longer as he came near them. In fact, they seemed to stretch out to fly past him, as he flew faster still. He looked behind him and saw that the lines did not fly past him, but actually ended at the edge between forward and backward. There was nothing but his feet and empty blackness behind him... No stars... not even plain, white, tiny ones. "Hey! Where'd all the stars go?" he thought for a while. As he thought it, he slowed down a little bit... and the stars came back! They were points of colored light again.
He stopped to look around and then he heard the call, like a voice without words, compelling him again to fly faster. As he flew on through space, he could hear the call growing clearer, stronger, drawing him on... The call was so beautiful that he couldn't resist it. He HAD to find out what, or who it was coming from. All he knew about the call was the direction that it came from and that it seemed to be far away and yet just in front of him at the same time. He wanted-- no NEEDED to get closer to it... closer to wherever it was leading him. He went faster again. Faster and faster as the stars once more stretched out to become colorful lines! The lines then started to grow in number until they joined to become a brightly colored, shimmering tunnel of light! Just as the lines had disappeared behind him before, so did this tunnel. It was like a billion rainbows were woven together in a way he had never imagined possible!
The call began to tell him more than he had heard before. He now knew where he was going. His attention was now fixed on a specific star... A lone blue point in a sea of lines. He looked straight at it and flew even faster toward it.
He flew even faster as the colors began to blend, making the tunnel a brilliant white! The tunnel was so bright, Jimmy had to blink his eyes until they adjusted to the brightness. Jimmy stopped looking around and only looked ahead, where lay the star. Only the star shone now, in the brilliant whiteness of space. He wanted to slow down, so he could see the colored lines again, but the call beckoned him even more strongly than the colors.
He could see the star growing nearer... but so slowly, that it seemed like it would take forever before he reached it, so he went faster until even the whiteness began to run and fade away to utter blackness. The blackness was so complete, that he couldn't even see his hands in front of his face! He only saw the star... and NOTHING else. The darkness went on for what seemed hours, when he began to slow down again... He could see something... It was blue... He heard something... It was the call!
The call was DEFINITELY coming from that star! He KNEW it! He looked around him and saw a bright flash of white, the trillions of star-color lines shrinking back to points of color. He could now just barely make out the many planets circling it... Now he knew not only the star, but the exact planet he was going to. Now he could slow down and look around again. He looked ahead and saw the planet, shining blue, in the black of night. The call was coming from the blue planet, and not the blue sun... and he was almost there...
As he came nearer, he could see vast, blue seas, with huge, white icebergs below him, rising quickly to meet him. For the first time since he left the Earth, he felt himself falling. Finding himself in a perfect diving position, he passed through what turned out to be clouds and not water like he expected. Instead of a wet splash, he began to fall faster! He slowed down, until he was floating, instead of falling. As he passed through the clouds, he saw a dim, blue, twilight world coming up to greet him...
Chapter 1
Jimmy was a sad little boy. He got tired easily and people worried about him for this reason. He had to spend a great deal of time in a place that he didn't like being in. His parents told him "It's for your own good, Jimmy.", but that didn't make staying there any more fun. He would find things to do, but the people who worked there would say "Please play elsewhere, Jimmy." or "Don't touch, Jimmy." or "Go back to your room and play, Jimmy.". Jimmy didn't like hearing them say things like that, because it hurt his feelings and anyway, he was BORED, B O R E D , B-O-R-E-D!!
In the daytime, he would look down, out the window and see people and dogs running down the street and he wished he could run. He saw cats walking along the rooftops and he wished he could climb and walk on top of buildings too. He saw pigeons fly by and he wished he could fly.
At night, he would look out the window, but looking up, instead. He saw the stars--how far away they were. A teacher once told him that each star was really a far away sun, and most of those suns had planets around them. There were millions of stars... Billions... TRILLIONS!... of stars out there and nobody had ever visited one! Jimmy thought "If there are about 9 planets around our sun and about a thousand stars close enough to see their planets and only one of them has life on it, let's say 1 out of 10,000... and there's about ten trillion other stars out there we can't see up close, then there could be a billion planets with life on 'em! Jimmy asked his nurse how many planets have life on them and she said "Just one, child. Just one precious, blue jewel in God's crown." Jimmy thought that was a funny way to say it... calling the Earth a jewel in a crown, when it wasn't stuck in anything. it was floating in space. It didn't make sense that God would only make ONE planet with life on it! Why would God make so many stars with planets we can't see or go to. Why, unless He didn't want us to know that we're not alone! Jimmy couldn't prove it, but he was sure there HAD to be other planets with life on them, and some with people! Every night, he thought about these things a long time...
In the daytime, he would look down, out the window and see people and dogs running down the street and he wished he could run. He saw cats walking along the rooftops and he wished he could climb and walk on top of buildings too. He saw pigeons fly by and he wished he could fly.
At night, he would look out the window, but looking up, instead. He saw the stars--how far away they were. A teacher once told him that each star was really a far away sun, and most of those suns had planets around them. There were millions of stars... Billions... TRILLIONS!... of stars out there and nobody had ever visited one! Jimmy thought "If there are about 9 planets around our sun and about a thousand stars close enough to see their planets and only one of them has life on it, let's say 1 out of 10,000... and there's about ten trillion other stars out there we can't see up close, then there could be a billion planets with life on 'em! Jimmy asked his nurse how many planets have life on them and she said "Just one, child. Just one precious, blue jewel in God's crown." Jimmy thought that was a funny way to say it... calling the Earth a jewel in a crown, when it wasn't stuck in anything. it was floating in space. It didn't make sense that God would only make ONE planet with life on it! Why would God make so many stars with planets we can't see or go to. Why, unless He didn't want us to know that we're not alone! Jimmy couldn't prove it, but he was sure there HAD to be other planets with life on them, and some with people! Every night, he thought about these things a long time...
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