Down to Earth

Tears of joy streaming down everybody's face. He's finally here. The child they've been hopelessly and desperately praying for!

They loved him dearly and fiercely. They took amazing and dangerous care of him. They kept away all that could hurt him or kept him away from all that was natural and good for him. They planted safety in his soul that he was scared to death. They hushed his tears and saved many more for him to come. They provided everything and took away everything.

Trying to crawl down his cradle, his parents would rush towards him "oh, little angel, we've got you, we've got you." They would always carry him. They wouldn't bare the idea of placing this piece of heaven on the floor.

They held him high, higher than he should be.

He was one day old, five years old, ten years old, going to be fifty years old and still carried by his parents. His place was there, over their shoulders, looking down on and upon all that's around him. Everything seemed so tiny and trivial. His feet never hit the ground. He felt softness from all direction, especially, under his body. He felt light. He felt high, as if flying, but he knew nothing about flying, it wasn't something to discover or achieve. He was actually flying on his parents' shoulders. "He's never to step down, not even a bit" they'd always utter to themselves, and he'd smile quietly feeling the grace. He felt unique, for, definitely, there was nobody else at his sight level. He was alone and satisfied. They drew a totally different world around him. He'd look at people from up there, see how down there they are, how small and unreachable. No, he was unreachable. Everything about others wasn't clear. Their smiles were cuts in their faces, their tears were filthy liquid running down their cheeks, and their movements seemed low, savage and weird. Their words were whispers that failed to mount up to his ears, their figures were too hazy to conceive. He wasn't really that far above, but he was really really that far above. Others saw him near, yet he never was. These others included his parents. He was unique, alone and satisfied.

Days passed by, years too, and he kept flying higher and higher in his place. People his age tried to approach him, but he never felt he needed these little creatures down there. He loved being on his own. People started fading away, voices weren't heard anymore, he even stopped trying to talk to anybody. He was blind, deaf and mute. He was isolated, yet unique, alone and satisfied.

He grew older, so did his parents, and as they grew older, they grew weaker. And he grew closer to the ground. Day after day, he felt his body moving downward with his parents' fragile vulnerable aging shoulders. They cried blood over their child. Soon they'll leave and he'd be devastated, left un-carried. Their hearts ached, yet their bodies ached more. Their desire for holding him till the end of time was more delicate, way more delicate, than the power of time that has beaten them and took away all their strength. He wasn't sure what was taking place around him, I mean, beneath him!

His heart and soul sensed strange emotions passing through them, he couldn't even grasp what they meant. Days now ran faster, heavier and merciless. The parents cried their everything out, their hearts, their eyes, their souls and their minds. They almost lost their sanity. Could that be? Couldn't they see all that coming? They refused to see it. They challenged it. They were defeated. They lost. They kept going down and he was being brought as down with them. They fell to their knees, he felt something solid underneath him. It felt grotesque, breath-taking. They laid on the ground. They passed away. He laid next to them, fully awake, fully senseless. Blind, deaf, mute, and legs more helpless than his parents' corpses. They held him up to cloud nine and pulled him down to the core of earth. He failed to get up, lost every contact with the outer life. Now, he knew he wasn't special, he wasn't above others, he wasn't flying. His wax wings melted. He wasn't who he thought he was. He wasn't what he's been living to be. He wasn't anything but the illusion his parents made out of a human being!

He looked them in the eye, felt unique, alone and satisfied like never before.