What would you do if they told you your world was finished; had been for a long time. That everything you once knew to be true was actually a lie. That life as you knew it, that the people you had come to love were all but a faint memory. Again.
It’s happened three times now.
Light streams into the open area so forcefully it’s nearly tangible. The sky is a vivid blue, like a great ocean with birds for fish and butterflies for tadpoles. That’s the first thing I remember seeing that day, the sky. It proved to be such a forceful antithesis to the terrible sky to which I had closed my eyes not that long ago. A dark sky, the kind under which many good people died. A sky under which I had believed I would die.
But, as I was saying, the sky to which we will lend our focus was, indeed, blue. No one was dying this time around, not yet anyway. Rather, the ground seemed to regain something under that blue sky—perhaps the gentle breeze that rustled the leaves into a rhythmic movement or the scent of fresh dew was responsible for fulfilling an inexplicable gap in the hearts of those who rested there. This mysterious entity . . . it surrounds our lives from when we are children tucked into mothers’ arms until we wither, and in our elderly age grasp tightly the hand of our loved one as we watch the sun set for the millionth time with the desire to do the same tomorrow. Looking back I’d now say it was something that I once thought to be lost forever, for it had eluded me for so long. I’d say it was hope.
Funny how many things skies can tell us.