Two Fields in Bloom

In a field of small exploding suns, I hold my son. He asks me what all those little suns are called.

"Marigolds."

"Why are they called that?"

"I don't know."

A trick of the light – a flaw in our sight – makes these flowers appear as they do. Their display was never intended for us, but it still captivates. Well, I suppose almost nothing on Earth is "intended" for us anyway – assuming that anything at all is.

Just like the flowers, now the sky is a rainbow blaze hovering on the edge of night – but this similarity I see is just an artifact of the human mind. A desire to find patterns in the midst of a stimulus maze. This is not some subtle message from some distant, shy deity.

The marigolds speak with a crowd of quiet tongues. When a breeze passes by, rustling their radiant feathers, they reply, gently:

"Shhhhhhhhhh..."

like the sound of a phoenix in flight.

I snort at the silly pretension of this idea, and relay it to my son, standing right in front of me, barely to my waist, his head between my hands.

"SHHHHHHHHHHH!"

He accepts my idea with relish, although not in the intended way. He breaks free from my hands with a finger to his lips, shushing the blooming supernovae that had just so rudely shushed him.

While he is distracted, I instinctively reach my hand to my pocket, thinking to look up the answer to the question of the marigold name. But my pocket is flat. I hadn't brought it with me, on purpose. I had left it behind – on purpose.

A flash of irritation, of anxiety – it may have shown on my face just now – quickly gives way to a wave of relief.

My son walks back to me, already bored of disciplining the local ecosystem. We watch in silence as the vibrant colors of the sky march off into the void. As the marigolds become harder and harder to make out in the familiar, terrestrial field below us, one by one they are replaced – mirrored – in the dark, endless field above.

I point out some constellations. There are far more available than I can properly cover in one evening, so I stick to the ones we're unlikely to see again anytime soon. Out here, we are far away enough from the candle of civilization that we can properly enjoy the darkness of our always-dying, always-resurrecting world.

What is the point of this small vacation? Was there something I was hoping to achieve, the two of us out here together? Will I have regrets if I fail to make the most of it – whatever that means? Am I missing something? Is there something I should be doing?

Like a nervous tic, my hand starts straying back towards my pocket.

No.

I pull my hand away. That excuse isn't here right now. I focus again on the night sky.

There's so many of them.

All at different stages of their lives.

All destined for the same fate.

Blooming, wilting.

Pollinating the spaces

in between.

There is no plot to this moment at all – no climax towards which we must be building. There is no punchline, no tension, no moral.

I breathe in, and then out. Deeply, slowly.

There is no plot to this moment at all – no climax towards which we are building. There is no punchline, no tension, no moral.

For the first time in ages, I let my mind go blank. A warm light rushes in through the crevices to fill the space my worries usually occupy. The light seems to match the light from the stars, somehow. It's a welcome comparison.

I look down at my son. He notices, and despite the darkness, our eyes meet easily. We stay that way for a time, lingering.

Then we both look up again.

This is nothing more, and nothing less, than a moment with my son.

Together alone, in an endless field of exploding suns.