Remember the Sky

A 15 year old boy is keen to adventure. He always takes his little black book with him, taking notes and making sketches in it. He wonders where ideas come from. They just happen to him. He asks his family and they agree, it is a strange phenomenon, but that no one really knows.

One day he opens his notebook and finds himself planning for a small adventure. He is overcome with a sense of impending purpose - something larger than himself. It leads him out to a crop of woods in his field. He tells himself that he is going to find something. He does. Exactly where he expects to. And it is a mysterious thing about the size of a thimble, heavier than it seems it should be. He carries it home with a sense of wonder and surreality. It almost scares him, the way it seemed to find itself through him.

The little block has no apparent purpose but sits on his desk like a dense star, waiting, almost alive. He recalls the moment he approached it, as if he knew it was going to be there. He feels a little disturbed. He tells his family about it, attempting to act casually but failing to do so. He cannot shake a sense of dread that has been associated with it. How did he know where to find it? What was it? The family thinks it interesting but passes it off as nothing. He persists: he wants to have it checked out by a professional. Someone who can identify what it is. His family, always supportive, are willing; They drive to a nearby shop wherein things like stones and crystals are sold and they promise to have it looked at by somebody that knows more than them. The boy reluctantly parts with it and expects either never to see it again or to be left with a totally unexplainable artifact. It is, after all, extremely weird in its perfection. An absolute cube with shiny smooth edges, found next to a grey rock as organic as any other, set softly in a square inch of dirt. It left a nice little indentation behind, like it was put there.

Finally the phone rang and it was for him. They wanted to talk with him in person. He obliged and made his way to the store with his parents that day. No one else was in the room with them when they told him how strange it was. They asked him how he found it, why he wanted it examined - he told them he didn't know, he just went out for a walk and wanted to know what it was. His hands were clammy. There was a momentary pause and a nonverbal exchange between the individual standing there and the shopkeeper. His parents were almost intrigued. Then the man - the one who had been called in - looked at the boy and told him, "I don't know what this is." The boy was very disappointed. The man saw the look on his face and assured him it wasn't the correct response. "It is unlike anything we've ever seen before." And the boy looked up confused, unsure how to feel. The man who stood tall next to the store keeper said again, "We don't know what this is."

"Who are you?" The boy asked.

"I am with the geology department at the university. I spoke to a friend of mine who had been called by this gentleman here, suggesting I take a look at this. I'm glad I did. This is not normal. I ask again, where did you find this?"

"It was on the ground, in the middle of the woods."

"The woods? What kind of woods, where are they?"

"They're by my house - what do you mean this isn't normal?"

The two men looked at each other and the parents felt like it was time for them to be a little more involved so they gave the man a bit of a glance, asking to be spoken to.

"Do other people frequently go in these woods, son?" Asked the shop keeper before looking to the parents. The boy looked up to them as well.

"Well no, not that we know of - we're pretty secluded out there…" His mother said. There was a moment of silence.

"I'm sorry I, uh-," the tall man shook his head and said nothing for so long that someone else had to speak up.

"Is this okay?" The father asked.

The man gave the trio a stern look and said, "I need to know that you're telling the truth here."

"Of course," the boy said, becoming progressively anxious.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes."

There was a shift in the atmosphere as the tall man adjusted his shoulders. "I want you to know that this is very valuable to me and the university and that we'd like to take it off your hands. I'm willing to offer you a complimentary sum as well as the right to be updated on what we find out about it."

"How valuable?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't. We're going to need to look at it some more. For the time being I'd like to promise you a compensation of $20,000 and a phone call at a later date regarding what we find. I'll need to talk to some people - it's not entirely up to me."

So the three of them shook hands with the two of them and went home. No one was to mention it to anyone until further notice. It was strange to remember the way it had affected the men. Something unheard of had passed through the room. The boy wrote about it in his notebook.

With the tall man heading home, he held the object in his hand as he drove with the other, looking over at it briefly every now and again. It utterly baffled him. When he arrived home he set it on his desk and sat at his chair, studying again. It was of no known material - or at least it evaded classification. He removed a little black notebook and began making notes. Organically, he noticed his thoughts starting to wander. He traced them out on the page. They made jumps uncharacteristic to his usual modes, making associations between things he wouldn't normally bridge. There was something about the stone and its presence that seemed to inspire in him a new way of thinking - of course, the notion of novelty is a powerful catalyst.

Another day passed before the family was contacted again with news of their compensation. It was a substantial sum that momentarily overshadowed the strange reality they had assimilated, which still clung to the hem of their lives like an odor that lingered after a meal, before it emphasized the peculiarity of it all even moreso. Nobody spoke about it outright, but it seemed to infect every conversation they had. There was an incessant and unavoidable subtext about it in every other thing they said. Everyone ignored it but the boy, who diligently tried to remember everything that was said about it so that he could document it in his notebook. It - the stone - seemed to speak through the conversations of everyday life, and the things it had to say were of a special flavor - and already embalmed in the pages of his notebook.

Meanwhile the university continues testing. No one knows what to do with the thing. Someone suggests putting it in a drawer and getting back to it later, another suggests trying to melt it down. The man who initially procured it has an overwhelming reservation against such ideas that he cannot account for. He implores them to let him take it home with him in order for him to study it longer. The rest of his team has just about tired of it and concede. At home, his thoughts take on a subtle digression. They become suggestive, develop an edge to them. He begins to question his thoughts as his own. But who else's could they be? They gradually devolve into a frantic plea for answers, and yet there was a subtle sensation of already knowing them. One night after an especially taxing interrogation with himself he gets in his car and drives.

The same night the young boy and his family find themselves in an argument, prompting the young boy to leave, taking his notebook with him. He reads the passage, brand new. It directs him where to go. As he is walking down the side of the road he sees a pair of headlights coming toward him. They pull over. He stops, contemplates turning around. He cannot. Fear has gripped him, but so has necessity. He opens and reads the newfound line in his notebook. Keep going it says. He does, reluctantly, then stops. A man steps out of the car. The man from the university. He is holding something in his hand. It must be the stone. They stare at each other for a moment. The boy looks down into his notebook. Give me to him it says, so he does without saying a word and the man gives him the stone. They exchange these things without saying a word, the sound of the engine framing the moment. A cool breeze passes through them.

"How far from home are you?" He asks.

"Not far."

"Do you need a ride?"

"No."

The tall man looks down at the notebook, recognizes it as identical to his own. He flips through it. The words are all his own. He stands with mouth agape and cannot tell the boy. He leaves without saying goodbye. He takes the notebook with him, drives away, and never says another word to the family. In some way, the boy understands. There will be another notebook. Whether it will fill itself he doesn't know. He doesn't know if he wants it to. But it will. And he will be its author.