The Big Blue Beyond Over Georgia

I was at my Aunt and Uncle's place in Georgia. Mom and George were there as well, helping them plant a field or build a barn, or something like that. I was outside with some of the local kids; their mom worked for my Aunt and Uncle, I think, but she brought the entire brood along when she had nowhere else to put them. The place was big enough. We were all ouside in the yard, and these kids were carrying on a conversation with their mom, who was standing at a big open window on the second floor. They were laughing back and forth at eachother, even as she was scolding them, and it seemed to me that they were a whole lot happier than me and my family. This bummed me out a little. I was jealous, even if they were poor and scrappy looking. I wished I were that scrappy.

We followed the directions of their mom and went off to play in a field nearby, well within sight of the house. I could still see George and my Uncle working in the nearby field. The kids had one of those really bouncy, red rubber balls, and I told them how in school we used these for playing kickball. "Just like baseball" I explained. There were enough of us to field teams of three and four, but the point of all of this, as far as I was concerned, was to show them just how far I could kick that damn ball. And I did. I booted the first pitch rolled my way and watched it rise like a helium balloon into the sky. It was up there with the whispy white clouds, and for moment I had the vague hope that I might have actually launched it into orbit - in fact, it looked a little like the sun up there in the brilliant blue and white, just before it came down near George and my Uncle. A home run, for sure, but not quite a new sun.

George and my Uncle were laughing as they grabbed the ball and walked it back to us. They could see where the fun was. Being adults with a limited amount of time, they naturally stepped in to take the next couple of pitches. Or George did, anyway. The game probably would have fallen apart after my incredible kick into the stratosphere, so it really didn't matter at that point who took a turn. One of the scrappy kids rolled a pitch towards George, and he went and launched it just like I had before. I watched it go, feeling the happiness just leached out of me as it sailed aloft. That travelling red sphere, once again in the big blue beyond. Up, up, up; it didn't look like it was ever going to come down. This time I was gripped by a vague fear: what if this time it actually did stay up there, becoming the sun that lighted and warmed the whole wide world?