A Word of Advice

A Word of Advice

The optimism of naivety filled the room with hot, excited air. The graduates smiling from ear to ear, their dreams coming true. The students walked nervously to the stage to receive their diplomas and continue to the next stage of their lives.

Their mothers and fathers wiping away tears as their children, who had only just taken their first steps, walked away from them, never to return like they did when they ran off the school bus on their first day from school. With the electric excitement in the air, a melancholic cloud accompanied it, in the back of the room, a reminder that one can never truly relive the past.

Sitting near the melancholic memories was an old man, well into his seventies. His weathered face showed years of laughter and tears, his eyes told a thousand stories of the lives he lived, in his head and in his body, once a young dreamer and now a nostalgic old man, dying only to relive the naive optimism only present in the mind of the innocent believer.

As the young men and women went to get their piece of paper that would ultimately guide them in life, their smiles were the smiles of young children, innocent and kind, so optimistic for the future. The old man thought of a time when he had the same smile, a lifetime ago. As the ceremony continued the man began to reminisce on his past, his fading memory blurring parts of it, but the important parts remained, well-kept and dusted in the neat bookshelf of his mind.

The Night Light

A young boy, still full to the brim with unrealized potential, looked out his window at night, enthralled in the sight. His hands were pressed against the cold single pane glass, though they did not feel a thing.

He was absorbed in the world outside his.

The stars shone with a new curiosity, twinkling gently on the fresh snow. The truth of the night sky had not been realized yet. The boy knew not of the solar system or the big bang. He knew not of astronomy or airplanes. His impression was untainted by the void an adult would call knowledge.

The night sky the boy saw was not the night sky his mother saw when she awoke to the sight of her young son pressed against the windowsill in the dead of the night. The night was dangerous to her, but a catalyst to the boy’s curiosity. Every night for the next five years of his life he would dream of the night sky, its infinite possibilities. The wonder that filled him that night initiated his avid curiosity into the future and ignited his obsession with the future.

From that day on, the boy would only dream of the future, and what the infinite possibilities of the night sky would hold. In his mind, it was only right. He would pass his days thinking about the night sky, opting to look out the windows and wait for it instead of participating in activities with the other children.

All day he dreamt of the night sky and every night he would spend hours staring at it.

It did not matter the seasons or the conditions, the little boy would press his hands against the window and stare into the empty, sparkling abyss, dreaming of a day where he could see the rest of the sky, not only what reflected off the snow in his backyard…

The old man must have fallen asleep during the ceremony, as he was awoken by the gentle hands of his granddaughter, who was graduating that day. He shook the sleep from his head, the memory of the innocent night sky fading in his head and looked up as his granddaughter.

She was eighteen today, but to him she was still five. Her long straight blonde hair was still a tangled mess of dirt and twigs in his mind, her manicured nails and perfect makeup were still smudged with dirt and filled with childlike happiness when he saw her. How time flies, he thought.

He followed the family, just behind his daughter and her husband, out of the gym and outside, where his granddaughter ran over to hug her friends. She looked so happy there, jumping up and down with her friends, all of them giddy with delight.

This was the moment they had been looking forward to for ages. All the nights they had spent dreaming about walking the stage, going to prom with someone they held dear, having independence for the first time. All their dreams were coming true.

The old man began to feel fatigued in his legs and found a bench nearby to sit on. As he sat down, he began to remember a time when he had dreams like those of his granddaughter. As he began to doze off again, the memory of a young child playing in the mud arose.

Mud and Punishment

The memory of the night sky took a back seat as the young boy began to grow up. By the time he was ten his thoughts were occupied by thoughts of pretend games and play. His time was spent in the woods behind his house with his two closest friends. In those woods, which seemed to go on forever in the eyes of a ten-year-old, held many memories in their scarred bark. The scratches and stab wounds of young boys playing knights and the wire, long rusted from fort building. The roots of the trees, now much more gnarled, still hold the rusted remnants of tinned fruits and the broken glass of preserves stolen from the cellar.

In the broken glass, the impression of childhood adventure remains, the innocent laughter of children playing pretend still echoes when the breeze is right. For the boy, his last memory of the woods held not childlike innocence, but the realization of responsibility.

It had been a cool day in June. The rain had just ceased, leaving puddles of muddy water on the driveway, waiting to be jumped in. As the skies cleared to reveal a warm summer sun the boy threw on his rubber boots and ran out into the picturesque daylight. Halfway down the driveway the boy saw his best friend and neighbour running down the road towards him.

It was a daily occurrence, after all, every little boy needs a playmate. The two boys ran into the woods, laughing in delight. After a big rainstorm was the best time for collected bugs in the dirt. They ran through the forest, their boots leaving small prints in the fresh mud. Their faces giddy with the expression one can only achieve by being a child, the responsibilities of adulthood not yet realized.

Their brows had not yet furrowed while budgeting. Their eyes had not yet been infected with images of adultery. The boys were living only for the moment, and their only objective in life was to find the coolest bug in the forest.

As the boys dug in the dirt and examined their crudely apprehended specimens, they heard shouting from the house. At first, the boy ignored the calls, hoping that his mom would give up and do the task herself, but the shouting continued. The boys sighed and let their bugs free, scraping the mud off their boots on the tree roots as they shuffled back to the house shamefully. No little boy liked being called home, it always meant that there were seemingly pointless chores to accomplish with no reward, or even worse, a scolding.

The boy emerged from the woods, waving goodbye to his friend as he walked towards the house. As he walked up the back doorsteps, he was immediately scolded for his muddy boots. After taking off his boots he was scolded for his dirty face, then his dirty clothes.

As his mother went on about his disappointing behaviour the boy began to daydream about the forest, he would have much rather been in the woods with his friend than being scolded by his mother. Suddenly, his mother slapped him across the face holding his chin as she did so. The slap stung worse than being slapped by the school bully the boy had been taunted by for over a year.

Tears welled in his eyes as he looked at his mother, her anger was suffocating. His mother went on to scream at him about his responsibilities, he was getting too old to play like a little boy. She explained that he had bigger things to think about, school, college, a job. She told him that there were so many things he had to do in the future and that if he didn’t start working towards those big goals now, he would never get there.

As his mother went on, the realization dawned on him. There were so many things that he had to do. So many goals he had to work towards. He concluded that to achieve them he had to grow up immediately, he did not have time for any of this “pretend play”.

That night he vowed to himself that he would never play in the woods again. He put away all his toy soldiers and pulled out the books his aunt had bought for him the year prior. His drawings on the dresser were replaced with dictionaries and comic books were thrown out in favour of classic novels. The boy never spoke to his friend again, of course, he did grow up in a small town, so they saw each other at school, but they never played again…

A high-pitched screaming awoke the old man. He looked around; it had only been a group of girls celebrating. As he looked around for his family the man thought about his childhood. He wondered if his old playmate was still alive. Perhaps, he thought, he should try and find him after all these years. He shook his head at his own stupidity, how could he have just left his best friend the way he did. They had been best mates, sharing every secret and every moment of their days.

The man had few regrets in life, but the biggest was growing up too fast. He spent his teenage years looking only towards the future. He slaved over his schoolwork for hours each day to get into a good college.

The man did not bother to make friends in high school, not that it bothered him at the time. He had bigger things to think about. Only, as he aged, those bigger things became smaller and smaller. As he aged and noticed grey hairs and wrinkles, the things he worked so hard for as a teenager became so unimportant. Looking back at his life, he wished he had used his youthful energy and good eyesight for things other than reading and writing.

Now that he was an old man, his energy gone and his eyesight failing, he wished dearly to put a stop on the carousel of life. He wanted to relive his life, only this time, he would live for the moment, not the future.

The old man suddenly laughed at the irony of his situation. He first began to regret his actions at age thirty, if only he had stopped dwelling on the past and what he could have done, perhaps he would have experienced more. The man then noticed his family at a nearby tree and started towards them. As he walked, slowly with a slight limp, he thought of a piece of advice to give to his optimistic granddaughter.

He was lucky that she had never been very forward thinking. The poor thing had never been very intelligent, but she had always enjoyed every moment. His daughter waved at him to come over for a picture and the old man rushed as quickly as he could to make it in the picture.

When the family had finally gotten the perfect picture, after twenty minutes, the man was exhausted. For an old man it had been a busy day. His granddaughter noticed his fatigue and helped him towards the car, the day was not over yet. There was still a family celebration to be had. As she opened the door for him and helped him into the car, the old man told his granddaughter that he had something important to tell her. His granddaughter acknowledged his statement with a tone that suggested that his advice was unimportant.

The old man collected his thoughts, he knew that his advice would not be taken seriously. He had been on a steady decline for a few years now. His mind was not what it used to be. Despite this, the man still believed that there was a chance that she would take the advice to heart.

The old man did not have an opportunity to share his advice with the girl on the way back to his daughter’s house, nor did he have the chance at the family dinner. His granddaughter was the centre of attention, obviously, and was constantly preoccupied. At the end of the night, he realized that he had not yet told her. The man sighed; he was so exhausted.

The old man was asleep on the living room couch when his granddaughter finally sat next to him. She gently woke him, and after he came to his senses, she kindly asked him for the advice he had been meaning to tell her. The man cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts and told her all about the carousel of life.