9:51pm

“Why are you sad grandpa?” the boy asked looking into a face he had always known to be impenetrable and constant.  He watched trying desperately to understand the tear he saw slipping down a wrinkled face.

“I am not sad boy.” Jim’s grandpa comforted him by brushing his cheek with the back of his hand. The cheek so soft and new, the hand dry and aged beyond what it was meant to be.

“Go inside Jim, I want to stay out a little bit. Be in soon.” Gramps watched his grandson awkwardly run to the front door of the house as only a four year old can, after Jim let himself in and closed the door Gramps looked back to the sky which had held his eyes before the tiny intrusion.  Another tear formed.

The stars above grew brighter than the street lamps. One by one each began to move. One by one, until all shot across the sky, filling the night sky with streaks of light. Until it no longer felt like the stars were moving but the earth itself.  A fear grew in gramps heart but was forced back by the light of the stars which grew until that light enveloped everything. A last breath passed still lips.

9:52pm

“Mommy, Mommy!” Little Jim’s voice was stressed in the way a mother knows it’s time to really listen.

“What is it honey?” she asked comforting her little man with a hand on the cheek.

“Gramps! I found Gramps sleeping out in the yard! Mommy I can’t wake him, mommy he’s sleeping in the yard.”

Jim’s sad and confused eyes conveyed a wealth of innocence which is the currency that life is traded for.

Copyright S Williams 2012