With trembling limbs he staggered up the rest of the hill. He was nearing the top of it stumbling here and there almost dropping his precious load. Had he held him as a mother coddles a child he wouldn’t have made it even a quarter of the way. Fortunately, he wised up and slung the ailing boy over his right shoulder allowing his back, not his arms, to bear the load. And yet, determined as he was, he made his way up the mountain knowing that it would all be over once he made it to the top.

A cool breeze brushed away the smoky haze forming at his feet like a brush that sweeps away a collection of pebbles from off a surface. The wind dried his sweat drenched brow that by then was beading down and stinging his eyes. The last few feet he had to walk up was the hardest. He’d come to a level ledge where the crest lay just a short distance away. But it was steep. And he’d endured more than any normal man could have. The boy slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes went in and out of consciousness, letting out an occasional moan.

His need was dire and the man’s faith was to be tested for something that was not his own. His son’s life was at stake, the mercy of an old belief blossoming into what was this hasty decision to climb.

And so it was he made it to the top with his legs buckling like a twig under the weight of a foot. He laid the boy down on a soft surface of grass and collapsed right beside him. On his back looking up at the sky, clenching his son’s limp hand, he waited for the cloud to visit the summit. Off in the distance he saw what must have been it. A cloud, the surface of which appeared more tangible and ‘real, for lack of a better term, than any he’d seen. It floated like a surreal hope over to the top of his mountain spurring him to rise up. He grabbed the boy once more with a renewed vigor and stepped over to the cloud. With confidence he left the land and walked onto the cloud and into the white hard mist that like stairs led upward through some vaporous interior and onto another surface atop the cloud. Swirling puffs of smoke broke off from the cloud, into the air and back into the cloud like water poured out of a glass in spouts, into another and back into the original.

Atop the cloud the sun shone ever so brightly. The horizon violently opened up as if it were a package that had been ripped open. But the man found himself in the shadow of something of towering greatness. And turning he beheld its fantastic source. It was a gigantic castle of stone, adorned with a tower, turrets and windows. All of which was surrounded by a thick forest and a resplendent garden, to where the grand structure was perched atop the hill of the cloud.

“This must be it.” The man though to himself. And so he made his way to the castle in tow with the ill-stricken boy. The man approached the door that towered over him and clenching his fist beat on the door as hard as he could. Naturally, his small hand was not large enough to produce a vibration in the wood that could sound off. However, in spite of this fact the pounding quietly echoed through the castle as if its acoustics were perfect. The knocking was answered by thunderous steps and then the door opened. Before him stood a giant of a man sporting a long gray beard and long braided hair.

“Yes, may I help you?” The giant asked looking down at the man.

“Are you Ra-uch the cloud god?” He asked, to which the giant produced a bellowing chuckle.

“I don’t know about being a cloud god. I am Ra-uch though.”

A look of concern came across the giant’s face as he noticed the boy slung over the man’s shoulder.

“And what ails this young lad? Here, here, bring him in.”

The man entered with the boy as Ra-uch directed them into one of his rooms where a soft reclining couch sat.

“Here, sit him on this.”

The man carefully placed his son on the enormous piece of furniture and leaned against the arm rest.

“The boy is sick.” The man said. “He is my son and I was told you could help him.”

“By whom?” The gentle giant asked with a playful look as if he knew the answer but wanted the man to explain for his own good.

“It’s a legend that goes back to the ancient times. Though meeting you now I confess it’s hard to believe your that old. The tale goes something like this…”

The man went on to quote a poem the material of which I won’t reveal here since most of my readers, no doubt, are too modern and sophisticated for such nonsense. And I am sure it reveals a secret about the world most of us missed in our youth and to tell the secret would either fall on deaf ears or bring unwarranted despair to the few receptive to it. Anyway, the poem said something of Ra-uch and his ability to heal all ills and sicknesses even some unto death. And this was the part stressed by the man.

“What is your name, man from below?” The giant asked.

“Ragnar.”

“And your son?”

“Luousis.”

“Well Ragnar, since you have been so diligent, Luousis will be made well. I promise you.”

This overjoyed Ragnar, and with a single tear streaming down his face he asked the god when the task would be fulfilled so that he could see the paleness leave his son.

“Oh no, I am sorry but it isn’t possible for you to witness this. You must leave at once.”

This perturbed the earth dweller and he asked why.

“That is just the way it is. I must work unseen by all.”

“How long must I wait to see him again?”

The giant closed his eyes and sighed a deep sigh as if he’d breathed in the conflagrated world and exhaled only its goodness.

“There is but one way back here and I am afraid it takes less effort than you may be willing to expend. You must fall into the sky.”

“Fall into the sky?” Ragnar gazed at Ra-uch with incredulity.

“Yes, one day, a day you nor even I can say when, upon looking into the sky you will fall into it just as one falls into the sea. And you will be drowned until you see your son who will raise you up out of it.”

And yet before Ragnar had the chance to further probe the sky god on this, he spoke out. “Enough!” With a thunderous voice and cocking his head back and breathing in deeply, Ra-uch blew forth the wind, the same that one feels on any blistery day. It carried Ragnar out of the castle, off of the cloud and down the mountain to the foot of it.

Ragnar laid there for hours, confused and despondent. He longed to climb the mountain once more and return to the cloud and its castle in order to be with his son. But the cloud was gone and Ragnar believed the words of the giant. He knew he couldn’t get back that way again, realizing the way he’d initially gone was provided more by the giant’s mystical graces than his own climbing abilities; another line in the ancient rhyme he’d buried in his heart.

Ragnar then got up from where he lay and sorrowfully walked home; for where else was he to go? The days passed and with them went the overwhelming gloom he’d harbored. But even still, day after day, Ragnar would lie on the ground outside and stare into the sky for hours hoping that that was the day he’d fall into the sky and be reunited with his son.

The days turned to months and then to years until Ragnar had grown old and weary. But even still he never forsook the routine of waiting to fall into the sky. By then the passion that was a routine turned to a cold ritual. And yet he still believed the words of Ra-uch though his practice of it was stale and repetitious. A part of him doubted the fact he’d actually ever see his son again, but another part deep within him hoped and dreamed so much that everything was nothing more than a dream to him. The only reality he found was in staring into the blue sky and in seeing every cloud go by fancying that this was the one where his son resided.

And it was on a particular day when the aged Ragnar was performing his daily task of meditating on the heavens he felt something unusual happening to him. He felt a queasy sensation erupt in his stomach as one does when falling from a height. It was at this very moment Ragnar saw everything around him, the grass of the field, his house, the trees, everything terrestrial fade into the blur of motion. He was falling into the sky! And all was blue save the sights at his feet and the white clouds above. Like a reverse gravity, he dropped and dropped into the abysmal hearth of heaven. But instead of slowing as he approached the clouds above he continued with the same speed slicing his way though them like a knife through butter. And here was where the transformation of what Ragnar was used to seeing into the magnificently foreign spectacle of what he saw afterward occurred. There is an old song that described the clouds being rolled back as a scroll. Naturally, this seems silly to one who has never witnessed it. But to Ragnar it was neither an idea nor a hope but a fantastic reality. What he saw can only be compared to that of an observer that stares at the reflections on the surface of a lake or pond and when facing away and seeing the objects that are making them is surprised by their clarity. Here and there, Ragnar recognized places he’d been and things he’d seen, but could not produce their names. It was the prime paradox of knowing what one did not know. But all it takes is one thing to set the dominoes of memory in motion and it was this one familiar sight that did this.

Far off, Ragnar spotted a boyish man, or a manish boy, which one he could not tell. Though it is of no consequence since the identity of the person was immediate, it was Luousis his son. Ragnar raced over to him, since by then he’d stopped falling, but was in an intermediate state of floating. When Luousis saw his father, he too faced toward him. They met in the sweet lull of ground and sky or some otherworldly stew where the carrots, potatoes, and beef were trees, clouds and grass. They embraced one another like no other pair of father son could. And the boy spoke to Ragnar.

“I knew you would make it. I suppose the journey was just longer for you to get there.”

“Oh no. I had to wait until I fell into the sky.”

This puzzled Luousis and he said.

“Wait?” You couldn’t have. There are no short roads here.”

“But you got here so quickly your self.”

Luousis smiled as if he’d just witnessed the most delightful and benign ignorance.

“I’d been on the road here well before you had. I just started earlier. Or at least when I was ready. The fact that my arrival precedes yours is in no way an indication that I was ‘here before’ you. Time works a little differently here. Any knowledge I have of this place is more like intuition and less like experience, or something like that. It is all hazy now. But, I feel like I just got here my self, and yet I couldn’t have could I?”

“Anything is possible my son.”

“Yes, except this one thing; the floor we once called earth is now the sky, and everything we once called right is now wrong, and everything we thought was true is false. What held us to the ground now pushes us away from it. Remember that old story you told of God and the earth being His footstool? Well, now we are away from His feet and nearer His face. You always do things backwards when attending to the lower portion of your body. You bend down. But when you place a hat or a crown upon one’s head you reach up. Well we have finished clothing ourselves and now hats and crowns are the only attire we will attend to. We have reached up and never again will we reach down. Gravity is now symmetry.”

Ultimately, Ragnar and Luousis ‘walked’ off into the golden sunset where awaited an infinite number of adventures and conquests in the forest, over the mountains and through the skies of where they now dwell. We call them stars, but they know better; they are gods that dwell in the house of God.



The End