Stargazer

All he wanted to do was just sit in the park and merge with the stars. And a child, her balloons and her mother...

With a sigh I stretch my legs forward, lean further back on the park bench and gaze yearningly at the star spotted blackness above. I feel as if a blanket of stars has been gently wrapped around me. I want to shut out the earthly noise of kids playing and balloons bursting and parents laughing, while I try to merge with the stars. I imagine waking up in the middle of the night, in an alien place, where all around there is only blackness and stars. So many stars, all around that I would soon feel I was one of them. The thought doesn’t stay long, however.

"Mummy, see what I’ve got," cries a small girl clutching the strings of two balloons in her right hand. Her mother, (who is probably to my right judging by the direction of the girl’s stare and the direction she ran), seems not to have heard her. So the little girl screams out again imploring her mother to look at her new possession. This time the mother hears her. "Oh, darling, isn’t that wonderful."

The little girl runs fast, the balloons gently bobbing in the cool breeze. She runs past the merry-go-round, smiling and breathing hard. The wind blows through her golden hair and she jumps and skips over stones and twigs. Running faster, to proudly show off her new treasure to her mother, she pays no attention to the kids playing with a ball, pays no attention to the girls playing with a skipping rope, she just runs on. As she comes running to where I am sitting, the mother leisurely ambles to just a few feet to my right. I look away from the little girl and her mother and cast my heavy eyes once again to the wonder above me. I am desperately trying to wake up in an alien place and become a star. Oh, but the accursed thought has escaped.

Escaped like a balloon slipping away from the vice-like grip of a little girl.

The little girl running fast, finds her feet fumbling for stability, as for some inexplicable reason she seems to float up with an expressionless bewilderment on her face. She lunges forward and lands heavily on her stomach. The balloons escape. My gaze is startled away from the white-spotted darkness and I look at the little girl sitting, sobbing near my outstretched feet.

I am as surprised as the little girl, who looks at me through her tears. My wooden calm can’t be much help. I sense a certain confusion in her mind. Ambivalence; should she run after the balloons, that treasure that she loved so dearly, the treasure her mother was waiting to see, the treasure that...or should she sit and cry, bemoan her tragedy, her fall?

"You heartless monster...Oh! How could you?" The mother charges down the few feet separating us. She waves her hand at the sitting, crying little girl. "How could you?" The little girl stands up now and waits for her mother’s protective embrace. Still condemning something I must have done to cause her daughter’s fall, the mother arrives at my outstretched feet to join her daughter.

"Are you hurt, Sweetie?" she asks the little girl.

The little girl nods and rubs her knee. I look at her knee to judge the damage I would soon be alleged to have caused.

"Oh, you poor pie, let’s go home and..."

In a series of quick movements, I get up and kneel down before the standing little girl. The mother is startled at seeing the monster at such close quarters. Ambivalence; should she scream or hold her emotions in abeyance until something actually happens?

The little girl looks at me guiltily.

Without a word, I tie her shoelaces.

They edge away slowly, quietly.

I return to the bench and with a sigh stretch my legs forward, lean further back and gaze yearningly at the star spotted blackness above.