A Riddle in Nine Syllables
You are asleep.
In your dreams, you are sitting on a patch of grass on a hill and gazing up at the night sky. The grass is wet beneath you and the sky is full of stars. You wish you could stay here forever and become a part of the landscape, a hill overlooking the city, just so you could watch the sky all the time. You reach upward with your hands and they become gigantic, a pair of giant's hands unfolding into the sky. You grasp a piece of the sky, a cup full of stars, and you bring it down to your lips and drink deep. It tastes like heaven.
You wake up. Unconsciously, during your sleep, you pushed off your covers and crunched them up into a little ball, hugging them close to your body.
In a few minutes, the alarm will start beeping. You lay in your bed, wishing you could sleep for those last minutes, knowing that when it does come, it will be too late. You start to remember your dream, but it fades like breath on glass.
The alarm starts beeping and you push the off switch, then lazily get out of bed, not bothering to make it again. The green numbers on the clock declare that the time is 4:00 AM, a time that is much too early to wake up and much too late to sleep. Getting up this early has become a ritual for you. You put your glasses on and your vision becomes clear.
Then you walk over to the window and open it and ask yourself the same question you have asked yourself for the last nine months:
"Where have all the stars in the sky gone?"
do
In your dreams, you are sitting on a patch of grass on a hill and gazing up at the night sky. The grass is wet beneath you and the sky is full of stars. You wish you could stay here forever and become a part of the landscape, a hill overlooking the city, just so you could watch the sky all the time. You reach upward with your hands and they become gigantic, a pair of giant's hands unfolding into the sky. You grasp a piece of the sky, a cup full of stars, and you bring it down to your lips and drink deep. It tastes like heaven.
You wake up. Unconsciously, during your sleep, you pushed off your covers and crunched them up into a little ball, hugging them close to your body.
In a few minutes, the alarm will start beeping. You lay in your bed, wishing you could sleep for those last minutes, knowing that when it does come, it will be too late. You start to remember your dream, but it fades like breath on glass.
The alarm starts beeping and you push the off switch, then lazily get out of bed, not bothering to make it again. The green numbers on the clock declare that the time is 4:00 AM, a time that is much too early to wake up and much too late to sleep. Getting up this early has become a ritual for you. You put your glasses on and your vision becomes clear.
Then you walk over to the window and open it and ask yourself the same question you have asked yourself for the last nine months:
"Where have all the stars in the sky gone?"
do