The Northern Lights

Chapter 28. Cosmos.

France, 1981

A generation apart, both a boy and a woman rest peacefully on a park bench somewhere just outside the city of Paris. Clea's vision, though blurrier than she remembers, is still able to capture the distinct puffs of white in the sky, though her frail eyes are unable to see what lays beyond those clouds, the sky, the atmosphere. Instead, they dream of different planets, stars, galaxies. She read that on Neptune, the pressure of the atmosphere was so immense that it rained diamonds. Is that why she stares at the woolly pillows in the sky? Does she also crave clouds from a different planet? From the cosmos?

Her grandson's soft, tiny hand is interlocked with hers. Sometimes, the little boy wants to ask why she blanks out. He wonders if it has something to do with his Grandfather's death, the apparent hero that he never met. For a boy of his age, Eden has thought far too much about the end or rather, what happens after the end. Eden's feet dangle off the bench. As his Grandmother's sore neck looks up to the heavens, his eyes are distracted by the tranquil river that flows from right to left. Ducks hover along the surface, their movement causing a ripple to expand.

"Grand-mère,"

Her mind is no longer travelling between the Milky Way, in search for her husband's soul. Her only Grandchild's voice breaks her reverie. Now, she sits on a park bench, with the distinct scent of autumn pressed against her lips and a cane in her left hand, when did I become this fragile?

Eden notices a flicker of melancholy in her eyes, in clouds reflect off her irises, "Grand-mère?"

"Yes, my aventurier?"

Eden notices the lines around her cheeks when she smiles, points at the lake, "May we please feed the ducks?"

"Of course, take these," from her coat, a plastic bag filled with an assortment of bird seeds crumple and rustle as she hands them to the little boy, "I'll be right behind you."

Carefully, the bag comes within his grasp, and he descends down the hill, where autumn leaves float with their quacking companions on the glossy lake. Within the blink of an eye, her Grandchild is beside the riverbank, tossing seeds with grace. His boisterous laugh fills the air as the feathery birds feed amongst each other. Clea pushes herself onto the feet with her cane, slowly descending down the hill. For Eden, jogging down the decline was but a mere slope, for Clea, it is a mountain.

Eden notices his best friend struggling to come down, paces back up to help her. He locks arms with his Grandma, slows himself down, they share a smile. There was no better time for him to ask the question that had pondered his mind since birth, "Grand-mère, is Grand-père in heaven?"

She feels her cheeks redden, "Yes Eden, I think so."

They reach the bottom of the hill, in reaching distance of the lake, "And where is heaven?"

"Heaven?" Clea takes a moment to stare into the image reflected in the river, the clouds, trees, her Grandson's round face and soft cheeks. Then, for a moment, she sees her lover, standing beside her, above Eden, beaming as he always did. After blinking, the man disappears. She knows where he went. Eden's Grandmother looks up into the sky, into the cosmos, "for me, it's up there."