Eric--Part Two

Splog # 14

Two

   Eric walked slowly to the table, the book of influential people still in his hand, and stared at the eye which seemed to be staring at him. The center of the eye was actually a yellow sun with very thin rays emanating through what would be its white part. Under the eye, in black block letters, was written "The I C History of the World". He put down the other book and picked up the "eye book", as he thought of it. It was about eighteen inches square and at least three inches thick and quite heavy as he held it in both hands and flipped through it. There were pictures on every page, small and large, black-and-white and color. There were fold-outs of maps, charts and even more pictures. There was a geography section in the back, covering ancient times to modern, and cross-indexed to the text so that he could see where things he was reading about had happened. As he was pouring over the pages, his parents approached from different sides of the store. Sensing their nearness, he raised his eyes with a look that said, "I know it's more expensive than we were planning on, but it would be very worth while and also would make me really, really happy at the same time." So there was no question of not buying the book. And now here he was.

   He was wondering whether to just start reading the book as he would any other. Possibly, a book this comprehensive would warrant only a chapter a day, with time to reflect on what he had read, and also time to read shorter books in between. He liked reading about all different kinds of things and didn't know if he wanted to spend the whole summer with history.

   Eric looked up in contemplation and noticed that stars were starting to appear above him. There were only a few at present but he seemed to be vaguely aware of a pattern to them. There was one way out over the water in front of him. When he looked at it, he could see, from the corners of his eyes, one far to his left and one far to his right. He turned his head to be sure his eyes weren't playing tricks and sure enough there were three stars in the sky but they didn't seem randomly placed as stars always are. Straight ahead and extreme right and left...He tilted his head back to see what other stars there might be and there was a very bright one directly over him. Four stars. And all in some kind of geometric pattern, seemingly with himself as a sort of nexus. Of course the part about him was only a coincidence, but he wished he had an astronomy book to check out this phenomenon. He didn't recognize the placement of any of the stars. He didn't see any other stars so he could pick out constellations. He looked again at the four stars, got up out of the folding chair he had planted so carefully a couple of hours ago with the sun shining over his right shoulder, put his book carefully down on the seat so it wouldn't fall into the sand and surveyed the entirety of the sky. There was a fifth star - and it was directly behind where he had been sitting. So there were four stars, one in the south (where he knew he had been facing as he sat on the beach), one in the east, one in the west and one in the north. Plus one directly above him. And there were no other stars in the sky. He gazed all around, making a slow circle, trying to find other stars. Stars that would be sensibly scattered haphazardly throughout the sky. But ordinary stars there were none. Just five fixed points of light that couldn't be stars but were there - up in the sky - and behaving very unstarlike.

   With no way to solve this mystery, Eric decided to go home and have his parents take a look at this celestial oddity. They would probably have a simple explanation. One of them would be aware of some astronomical happenstance that was occurring at the present time. So he carefully wrapped his book in the beach towel that was hanging on the back of his chair and, taking his knapsack from under the chair, he gave it a good shaking to disinter any loose sand. He then packed his precious book in the knapsack, buckled it closed, wriggled his arms through the straps ("That's one heavy book," he thought as the knapsack settled on his back), folded his chair, knocked some sand off the legs, put it in its carrying case and headed home across the dunes.

   The sea fog was starting to rise and, as he headed between the star in the west and the one in the north, he expected that the stars would begin to fade. But every time he looked up, they were as bright as always. They didn't twinkle or glitter, just shone with a small steady light. The mist and fog didn't obscure them, put them out or even dampen them slightly. And, whenever he stopped to take a look around the sky, all he could see were the five stars. No other stars appeared. He tried to remember whether the moon had been out around this time last night, but could only recall a gibbous moon from three or four nights ago. That had been in the east and much later at night. He glanced toward the east but only saw the one star.

 

   Trudging over the dunes, with the fog getting thicker and his breathing getting heavier, Eric figured he couldn't be more than five minutes from home. He took a glance at the strange stars, excited to show them to his parents, when he stopped and looked again.