Su, Ta, and the Little Green Light

Since infancy, the people of the village always viewed Su as “other”. He was playful and full of joy like the other boys and girls, but he was different. His green eyes were often fixed on things the others couldn’t make out. The first instance happened when Su was about three years old. It was a sunny day, with bits of fog hanging here and there below the skyline, making the day seem even shorter as the sun neared the horizon. The young children of the village were playing a game they made up. Jumping and kicking and catching and lots of happy screaming were involved. Su appeared to be immensely enjoying himself, almost perfectly blending in with the boys with his short, cropped hair and loud high-pitched laugh and scream. He was totally immersed in the game, something his parents loved to see because all too often he seemed to be absolutely captivated by nothing as far as they could tell. He could be engaged at one moment, and then the next as if he’d passed through some portal by his lonesome, as if those big saucer eyes of his could see past what they all saw, into something more mesmerizing and beautiful than what was on this physical plane. It was more than a small child simply spacing out, it was almost as if something invisible to the rest of us was putting him into a fantastic trance. His green eyes would widen, his pupils dilated, it was like he was dreaming with his eyes open, and in that dream seeing the most spectacular sight. On this day, however, it was different. At first, when Su started running off one of the older kids figured he was following a little frog or snake perhaps. Su was very fascinated by the natural world, particularly little critters. But right before the older child’s attention was diverted to a crying four-year-old, she noticed that Su was now looking up, following something in the air unseen to the girl, like an invisible balloon floating along an unseen path in the still air.

Su followed through the shrubs into the trees, something that resembled the light of a green lightning bug, but something so much more gentle and simultaneously beautiful. The tree line stopped, and the last sliver of sun was just starting to slip below the horizon. Su was unaware of all this, the only thing in the entire world was this little orb of green light. As if someone or something had taken a tiny vapor of fog, and instilled in it wonderful, glowing energy. Su giggled as he pursued the little light as if they were both playing a game of tag. He was now convinced he’d won as he leaped up and out at his friendly opponent, wrapping his arms around it. In Su’s world, there was only the light, and the lack of contact of his feet touching the ground brought Su right out of this world, back to the physical. He’d run right through the woods, off the edge of a cliff.

Then confusion hit as he saw the sun rising from the place he had been playing the game with the other children the night before. Ineffable, practically inconceivable visions flashed through his head and vanished, like a fleeting dream. He saw several shadows coming into focus, urgently running around the village. Strange for this early time of day. He heard a shout, followed by several exclamations and the shadows growing larger, being illuminated and clarified by the first light of the morning. Su’s father was running towards him, with a look somewhere between anger and relief. Shouting and crying incoherent words, Su’s mind was still on the night before, what he saw, what he now knew… He was brought back by his father’s words: “... we’d found y-you’re sandal at the bottom of the cliff… and no other trace of you… we’d thought an animal had gotten to you…”. This further confused Su and as he looked down he saw that he had only one sandal, and a vague memory of embracing a warm, green light over empty space, and the feeling of soft nothingness beneath his feet, along with the slow slip of a sandal off his sole.

Several years later the second instance happened. He fell asleep early one night, looking up at the stars. Before he knew it he was rising. Not entirely waking, although it did feel similar, he was actually floating up from his bed, from his body, up to the clouds. It was like a dream, but he felt lucid. It felt like he was swimming upwards, towards the sky, although he wasn’t sure exactly where he was going. Before long the stars had gotten much bigger, and soon he was swimming through space, enjoying this astral plane immensely. On and on he went, old ideas of the world dissolving with him as he saw the infinite expanse around him. He seemed to be accelerating through space as planets and stars became more sparse. After hours of this travel, hours that flashed by in a moment, Su was confronted by this pulsing, revolving collection of green lights. It didn’t speak to him, yet he could understand it. You can call me Ta, he heard in his mind. Ta said that Su had lived many lives and Ta showed him many things he’d never be able to describe. One of Ta’s many glowing and flowing lights began to shine brighter, and a certain familiarity with the light welled up within Su as if they had met before. Su saw that they were friends, close relatives of the cosmos. He hoped Ta would come back to the small village where Su would have to return soon.

Next, everything was a soft green, then blackness with just a tiny point of light drifting through it, adding an air of friendliness to the vast expanse of space. Then Su was awake, feeling as if he had aged years during his sleep. It was little surprise to Su to find the little speck of green light hovering above his shoulder, pulsing with light ever so slightly. He rushed to his mother and felt as if he was finally able to explain that day when he was three years old, and began to tell her about the light and his previous night with Ta. He asked his mother if she could see Ta or the little piece of Ta that now followed him wherever he went. The mother only softly shook her head and murmured something about how strange it is that Su is just like his grandfather.

Su figured that most people wouldn’t believe him, but he thought surely his mother would listen, she was merely astounded and said that he was too old to be talking about imaginary friends following him around. Before last night Su had always wanted to do something truly great, like become a hero or a renowned scholar, but now the overwhelming feeling of oneness just made him want to have a direct positive effect on the people and the environment around him. He led an increasingly simple life following that day, eventually becoming a farmer, and sometimes teaching the children of the village to read and write, often telling them legends of their land, some of which even the elders of the village had never heard. He felt it was important to pass on the necessity of respecting nature, warning children to take care of the earth that surrounded their village, going so far as to tell them to embrace trees before cutting them down, and thank the Earth afterward. The village never had much of a religion beforehand, but now it began to develop some general spirituality regarding nature and the cosmos that they are all a part of and connected to. Su stressed the idea that as people, we are what we believe ourselves to be, and that we can cast off our bodies and fly if we know that we can. He’d talk about little angelic beings that watched over all of them from the sky, protecting them from danger, and seeking to teach them of their true, limitless way if only they'd learn to release.

Su eventually married, and together, he and his wife had one child, who eventually had a child of his own. Life seemed to accelerate the older Su got, and before long the entire village considered him to be a sort of holy man, spreading peace, and mesmerizing everyone with words about the world beyond this one. He did little in his old age besides telling tales and hiking up the nearby foggy mountain to sit and not think. He seemed quite content, with his old withered smile instilling a warm, soothing feeling in the hearts of many.

Su’s grandson was a curious little boy, who seemed to be almost wholly empty inside, as if in deep meditation, for he was prone to spacing out like Su used to, but wouldn’t do much of anything else. Su swore that in those wide, green eyes he could sometimes see the stars. One day Su was projecting again, something he had been able to master in his old age. He was able to almost instantaneously connect with Ta, as by now he truly understood the interconnectedness of the world, and that there were only barriers as long as he chose to believe in them. He was conversing with Ta, in a way, asking about past lives, and not receiving much of an answer. He received images, tens of thousands of images flashing through his mind within seconds, hard to capture any single one, just gaining the general understanding that his consciousness was connected to something older than humanity itself. While trying to concentrate on such images he saw a man that looked much like himself, an old man, caring for a younger version of his mother, two films side-by-side: one of the old men slowly deteriorating, losing himself, his personality, and eventually vanishing alongside what seemed to be the birth and the early development of Su as a child. He saw what he now recognized as his grandfather, transform into a pure soul, without a physical body, in the form of tiny green light, and his own three-year-old self following said form. The next moment Su’s astral vision was pulled towards the village to where he saw his grandson leaving the field where all the children play. As Su was watching him he saw the boy looking straight up, at a beautiful bright green dragonfly, slowly gliding through the air. He saw the boy enter the woods and start running, all the while looking straight up, so as not to lose sight of the dragonfly. The fly miraculously slowed its flight and neared the ground where the boy was as something donned on Su. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it, he knew he should be worried but he felt such a familiar friendly feeling like the cosmos was trying to tell him a beautifully crafted joke. As Su got a better look at his grandson, he realized that it felt like the boy was making direct eye contact with Su, as if Su was now looking out from the eyes of the dragonfly, something he thought to be impossible. Just as the boy neared the bug, he jumped up, trying to catch it, jumping right off the cliff with his hands cupped around it. Su smiled as he realized what was happening, and happily vanished, never to be seen in the village again. The grandson wasn’t found until the next morning, with green, saucer eyes that seemed changed, yet familiar and full of something they hadn’t had before.