The Dream Factory

The Rules of Life

The Rules of Life 

When I was young I used to watch them for hours. I'd climb the silvered boughs and push my way up through the polished leaves of the Angel tree in my parent's garden to see them. At the top where the endless sky stretched over the roof of the world I'd lie in the soft canopy and nestle deep down into the buttery scented flowers. There in the late afternoon sun I'd sit and drift to the hum of the bees and the bathe in the warm mist of the cut grass drifting in the air while far above the rocket ships crawled to and fro on their endless journeys to distant places, so far from where I watched. High in the sky the tiny ships raced leaving thin trails of white behind that would turn into drifts of gossamer and form vast cobwebs in the thin cold air all those miles above, so close to the edge of our planets atmosphere. 

I didn't tell anyone I went into the tree to watch the ships and no one ever commented on them. I wondered where they came from. I'd been to an airport with my father and seen the huge aircraft with their clunky wings and howling engines take off and climb so gracelessly into the air. They weren't the same. I knew that.  

The rocket ships were thin and graceful. They flew far above the aircraft, skimming over the curvature of the earth, their coppered skins flaring in blazes of reds and pinks in the sinking sun as I watched them disappear over the horizon. 

And the clouds. When I spoke to them to tell them I was watching, they would stop their frothy white scurrying over the metallic blue sky and twist and turn into shapes that would make me smile and laugh.  

One day in the meadow by the river, one of the copper rockets had landed. As I walked out he stood and watched me. He was tall like a willow tree, with sad wide eyes and skin that shimmered like water in the breeze. He smiled at me and handed me a flower and ruffled my hair. And I showed him the little fish in the river fighting their way upstream to spawn.  

We waded waist deep through the waves of the long grasses, floating thick with orange poppy heads to his gleaming ship. He climbed up the steps, turned and waved, the ship trembled and the air shivered around me. Silently like a ghost it took off and shrunk into the sky, then far up turned and spewed out its spider's web. I watched as it raced away, to a point of light and then, to nothing. 

I took the flower home, put it in a jar and taped a glass cover tightly over the top. It was a flower I'd never seen the like of before. I went and looked in the big books in the library. It wasn't in any of them. It was special. 

Then I was torn away to go to school. Long days spent in the classroom replaced long days wondering through the fields, climbing trees and watching. They filled my mind with the rules of life, how to be logical, how to distinguish fact from fiction. To know that things that only you saw probably weren't really there. And when the bell rang I'd run into the playground and stare at the sky and watch the ships and talk to the clouds. 

And as each year went past I'd stand alone, watch and wonder why there were less ships. And over time the clouds became greyer and the sky's always seemed darker, the days shorter and colder. 

I'm older now and the years spent sitting in the Angel tree with its gold cupped flowers and warm summer breezes are a distant memory. 

The clouds no longer listen to me. I look up, wait and hope. They just creep up and scuttle quickly past.  

The ships, I don't see them anymore. I feel they are still there but not for me to see. 

I still have the flower, in its jar. After all these years it is still as bright and as radiant as if it had been picked yesterday.