That flash. It was so bright. Maybe I'm dreaming. Coma?
Simon's mother had died instantly in the car crash, but his father had remained in a coma for three days before finally surrendering his last breath. That breath that spoke one word to Simon, "Adventure." Simon hardly knew what to make of that. He knew his father spoke of adventure often but rarely lived it. So Simon pursued adventure in the only way he knew how, through books.
He thought of those books now and tried to recall if any had mentioned stars dancing like the ones he stared at now. Some moved in curved lines, others seemed to move in zig-zag patterns, while others seemed to have no direction whatsoever. One, in particular, caught his eye as it appeared to be getting bigger. It was no longer moving side to side like the other stars but just kept growing.
He felt a soft breeze as the star grew to the size of a football. It startled Simon with its sudden proximity and he managed to roll away from the star just as it landed on the ground. The light from the star disappeared as soon as it touched the ground. Simon sat up with wide eyes and looked at the place where the star landed. In the soft glow of the orange sand, there was a black ball with two tiny shining black eyes. The bird shook the sand from its long hair-like feathers and hopped from the depression it had made in the sand. That's when Simon noticed that the bird's stomach lit up like a lightning bug, but much brighter. Its face and build were similar to the chickadees he had just seen outside his aunt's house. However, it was much larger and black as night everywhere except the belly. It tilted its head to the side as it examined Simon.
Simon stared back at the bird, "Can I help you?" His voice was timid, unsure whether or not he was dreaming, in a coma, or if this could actually be real.
The bird turned and pulled a long strap with its beak from the sand where it had landed. It pulled on the strap until a brown bag emerged from beneath the sand. Once the bird had removed the whole bag, it turned and looked at Simon again, head cocked.
Simon stared back, still uncertain.
The bird nudged the bag towards Simon with its beak. Then looked at Simon again, expecting something from him.
"Is this for me?" Simon whispered.
The bird nudged it again.
Simon waited.
The bird dropped its head and shoved the bag against Simon's leg using its whole body and took to flight, back to the sky to join the stars. Simon could have sworn that the bird sighed as it took off, but perhaps that was just the air under its wings.
Simon looked at the bag. It wasn't much bigger than a loaf of bread. He lifted the flap and looked inside. The first item was a canteen that felt like it had water in it. He opened it and smelled. It smelled like water, so he took a small sip to test it. It was water.
OK, nothing too crazy yet.
The next item was a rolled-up leather hide. He unrolled the hide and saw images branded into the border of the leather. The images looked similar to the bird he had just seen. The rest of the leather was blank. Simon wasn't sure what this was for, so he decided to roll it back up and save it for another time.
The final item was the most peculiar. It was the back half of a wooden toy deer.
Half a toy? What in this world could this be good for? Maybe I should just throw it away...then again...
Simon examined the toy looking for something that might tell him what it was for. He was so fixated on the half toy, that he hardly noticed the sun rising in the distance until it was obscured by a figure.
No comments:
Post a Comment