Memoirs of a Human Looking at the Sky Pt. 2

When the boy woke up the following morning, the first thing he did was pull on a pair of pants, pull the medal out from underneath his pillow where he hid it last night, and drop it deep into his pocket. He thought for a second. The ninjas hadn’t snuck in last night and stolen his medal. He fished it out of his pocket and studied it. It looked real; it’s sleek silver finish reflecting the yellow early morning light. The child ruled out the possibility that they had replaced the medal with a duplicate. In fact, he was beginning to doubt that he had seen any ninjas last night at all. He returned the medal to his pocket, ate breakfast, got his drawing pad, and left for the hill.

School had let out a while ago, and it was an exceptionally beautiful summer. By far the most beautiful the boy and ever seen. Although he was young, he was not too young to appreciate the golden sun, radiant warmth, and the blue sky. The sky was what interested this boy the most, and he spent a lot of his time each day fascinated by it. When he got to the hill, he smiled. There was no one else around. The hill was secluded, separated from the park by a stretch of tall, thick pine trees. The hill overlooked the river, a wide powerful current, which separated the land that the boy was familiar with, from the Beyond.

The Beyond had always fascinated the boy. He had flown over it in large planes with his family. He knew that other people lived in the Beyond. In fact, the Beyond had an actual name, the boy just chose to think of it the way he thought of it. The Beyond was fairly vast, a huge expanse of hills and valleys. Smatters of forest spread throughout the Beyond, and in the far distance lay the Mountains. They were grand jagged peaks of dark rock. At their base giant forest of trees covered the ground, however at this distance it just looked like smudges of green. At their peaks, snow gave the allusion of a white blanket covering the ground.

He loved the Beyond, he loved the Mountains, but, as I explained earlier, he loved the sky the most. Blue beyond comprehension, it baffled the child. Looking at it on a cloudless day it almost seemed like an optical illusion. It seemed two-dimensional as if a giant can of impossibly blue paint had been spilled across an expanse of paper. However, when clouds dotted the sky, there was no mistaking the depth of it. It seemed to go on forever, a vast expanse of blue. The clouds were enormous, humongous and white. They curved in and out, stretched thin in some places, and bunched up as thick as a mountain in other places. The boy’s father has explained to him the nature of clouds. How they are formed, and the different types. The boy’s first plane ride had been a bit of a killjoy. Despite the obvious excitement of being in a flying piece of metal, the boy was disappointed to see that the sky was still above you, and that when you flew through a cloud, you could hardly notice the thin wisps of fog comprising it.

However, the boy had long since decided that above where the planes flew lay the sky as he observed it. A great expanse of blue with giant mountains of clouds. An endless expanse.

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>I read your book, Mr. Shwang.
>You did?
>Yes. Dreams of Our World, Our Perspective, Our Fellow Humans, and Our Imagination.
>How did you like the section on tax evasion?
>I found it enjoyable and quite insightful. However, that wasn’t the section that interested me the most.
>Took me months of research.
>What?
>The section on tax evasion.
>Oh yes. Listen, I was more interested in the section you wrote on the creative development of children. How children learnt to see the world.
>Yes?
>Well, a recent series of events in the government has led to the creation of a sub-division inside of the SAFE. It’s called the DCC, or Department of Creative Control.
>Okay…
>Although I’m technically a secret agent, I think it’s right to be truthful with people, so I’m going to be frank with you. The purpose of the DCC is to attempt to control the creative processes of our nation’s children in hopes of making all of our citizens obedient and law abiding, whilst at the same time repressing any notion of individuality to create a conformist streamlined population of human drones.
>Sounds good.
>Wait, what? You’re okay with this plan? Most people object completely.
>Sounds okay to me. Law abiding, obedient citizens. Sounds like a swell plan.
>Oh…okay. Okay then. Great! Fantastic! I’m so glad that you’re okay with it.
>Where do I come in?
>Well, this is where we need you…
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