It has been an immeasurable number of years, and the aged and isolated Mortimer Cain still sits on his back porch, on his rocking chair, gazing upon a single, particular star.
To the ever empty beach before Mortimer’s seaside home used to frequently come a young man, nearly a boy, who would always get close to the shore, even on the windiest and coldest evenings, and sit in the sand and look upwards. And the boy always brought with him a radio.
The frequency of the boy’s visits and the strange determination he often displayed in coming out in the cold rain or in the biting wind, eventually one day brought Mortimer up and out of his rocking chair to walk down his steps and across the sand to the spot where the boy sat, to inquire.
At first, Mortimer said nothing. He only looked down at the boy, from behind, and, seeing that the boy was indeed gazing upwards at something, he then gazed upwards with him. Only he saw nothing—just the sparkling black emptiness. Yet it appeared to him that the boy was seeing something definite.
When Mortimer came around to face the boy, the boy only glanced at the aged stranger and then returned his gaze to a definite, particular something upwards. Mortimer could see in that moment a deep longing in the boy’s eyes. The boy had his hand on a radio, and he was tuning it, making it to go through static and stations, music and voices. And while the boy did this, he was looking upwards.
Mortimer found his own attention again being drawn upwards. But he knew not to look up again, however; for he would only see meaninglessness in that dazzling tapestry that Man had been pondering for centuries. He wanted to know what the boy saw up there, what could possibly exist up there in the empty blackness, what could possibly create such longing.
And so Mortimer asked him.
For a few moments the boy did not respond, and again the old man saw the chasm in the boy’s eyes, a chasm which yearned deeply to be filled. A chasm similar to what Mortimer saw in space. Deep space in the boy’s eyes, but sparkling with meaning, truth and beauty. It once again pressed the old man to look up, to see what could possibly be up there.
But old Mortimer would not. He didn’t want to see the space above after seeing the space in the boy’s longing eyes. There would be nothing up there until he could see what the boy was seeing. For this longing expressed in the boy’s eyes told of something beautiful and otherworldly, something magical enough to fill the void above with life. If he could know what that was, he then would look; as only then would the endlessness come alive.
Mortimer was about to give up and return to his porch and chair, as the boy clearly was involved with the tuning of his radio and his staring upwards, and appeared to not be up for conversation at this time. Would he ever be? Mortimer wondered. If the boy wished not to speak, or, possibly, if he was mute, he should respect it, and certainly he should respect the boy’s privacy and matters; although, it remained disconcerting.
But then the boy suddenly spoke.
He spoke of a girl named Sarah who he knew and who existed on a particular faraway star. The earthling eye could pick it up on even the most unclear and dreariest of nights. The boy had never been to this star, not even in the best of his dreams, and he had never seen Sarah with his eyes, but he knew her. And he knew she lived on that star. The boy could not remember ever being with Sarah, yet he knew he had been with her before. And she of course had never spoken to him in words, but they spoke in other ways. His name was Isaac, and he knew what Sarah knew, and she knew what Isaac knew, and perhaps that was why they longed for each other through all the depths of space. And some nights, when the universe was quiet, he could hear her across it … on his radio.
Mortimer, in his new reverence for the boy, and in his awe, did not comment. After this they spoke no more. They did not even bid each other farewell or goodnight. Mortimer only returned back to his porch and he got himself seated back into his rocking chair, and he sent himself upwards, calmly, into the newly intriguing universe above.
Nights passed and the aged fellow would alternate his view between that of a particular star in the eternity above and that of a particular boy at the shore with eternity in his eyes. However, a growing discomfort swelled inside him, from thoughts of the great distance between the boy and that star. He wondered if the boy would do this beyond both their deaths, so that even in those realms beyond the body’s reach, he would still find that boy visiting the beach and tuning his radio while gazing upon that same star, with a distance between the boy and the star that no dreaming boy could cross. Indeed, this was becoming a new discomfort for Mortimer. How long would the boy yearn?
One certain night came, though, when the old man witnessed the boy dragging an aluminum rowboat across the sand, towards the shore. He watched the boy bring the vessel into the quiet water, and watched him get into it with his radio. The boy took the oars and then rowed out into the blackness until he vanished.
The old fellow never saw the boy return.
And years have passed, an immeasurable number of them. Mortimer Cain still sits there on the back porch of his seaside home, gazing up at the star, wondering if Isaac had ever made it.
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This story has an engaging fable-like quality. Seems to me that Mortimer is to blame for his own isolation.
Thank you David