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Michael Shepherd - The Starry Bridge
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The head is held high, with the mane appearing to fly in the wind. The horse almost seems to be flying. Happy, he snuggles down in his bed, the sound of the carousel music helping him to quickly fall asleep.
Nana comes to him after a little while. This surprises him as he doesn’t remember calling her. She tells him that she wants to show him something. Without a sound he gets out of bed and follows Nana, right out of the window. His room is on the third floor so he is scared that once out of the window he will fall to the ground. But no! He finds himself following Nana quite easily. After a few minutes he looks down at his feet. He sees that they are walking on fluffy white clouds, just like the angel in the cream cheese T.V. commercial! He calls “Hey Nana, wait up!” He runs, to catch her. Then he sees it. Standing there, right in front of him is his carousel. But it’s not a model anymore. It is huge. There is the unfriendly looking man. He is dressed all in white. Only he is now smiling and waving at Jean-Marc. The music is playing and the carousel is whirling around and the carriages and horses are going up and down at the same time. He looks for his horse. Here it comes. Oh, no! Someone is riding it. The rider waves to him and calls his name. “Hey, Jean-Marc.” He looks and waves back. Then he recognizes him. It is his friend Philippe. But how can this be? Philippe went “home” two years ago, when they were in grade two together. He remembers how sad they all were. Special doctors came to the school to talk to the students, to help them to stop being so sad. He remembers how sick Philippe looked before being sent to hospital and how so terribly sad he was. Well, thought Jean-Marc, he doesn’t look sad now. Nor sick, come to think of it. He asks Nana why. “ He is happy now. As soon as he came home the pain stopped, there were no more tubes in is body. He could play like he used to. And his spirit is getting ready to return to Earth.” “Will he go back to his parents?” he asks. “No” replies Nana, “he has chosen to lead another life. He has much more to learn.” He sees the carousel begin to slow down. “Nana, can I have a turn on my horse now?” Nana shakes her head gravely. “Not quite yet. But soon. We have to return to the hospital now.” Walking back through the clouds Nana asks Jean-Marc “What impressed you most just now?” He thought for a moment then said, “The carousel, it’s neat. Also, seeing Philippe again, I realized that maybe going home is not so bad as I’ve been thinking.” But then he starts to sob. Nana puts her arms around his shoulders. “What is it, cherub?” He looks up at her, “It will be nice for me to leave the pain and tubes and stuff but what about my sister Chantal. We’re twins. What if she gets my sickness? What will my Mum and Dad do?” Nana points to a spot in the clouds nearby and says, “Look.” He sees the inside of a living room in a house. There is a young woman happily playing with two children. They call her mummy. It takes him a couple of seconds to take in what he is watching. He turns to Nana and asks, “Chantal?” Nana nods her head. He looks back at the room. Two older people walk in. The children run over to them calling, “Grandma, Grandpa.” And jump into their arms. His parents! They are older, of course. His mother puts her granddaughter down and picks up a photograph that is sitting on a coffee table. She kisses it and puts it back in its place. Jean-Marc looks at the photo. It is of himself and there resting on the table beside his picture is his carousel model. He sighs. “I feel better now. Thank you, Nana.” He looks at the stars, which are shining a little brighter and look a little bigger to him, since he is walking in the clouds. “Nana” he says, “can I choose my star when I cross the bridge.”Nana smiles and says, “Of course.” “Well, what will I do there?” he asks. Nana replies, “You will think about all the things you have learned and add them to other stuff you have learned before.” “Sounds boring. No T.V., no hockey.” he complains. She laughs, “First. You won’t need T.V., hockey or any other earthly things. Second, the time will pass so quickly. Time there is much faster than you are used too. When the thinking time comes to an end your soul will decide if you want to stay with us or return to some earthly existence.” He points to a star and says, “I’d like to stay on that one.” She looks in the direction he is pointing. “What, that one over there by the handle of the big Dipper?” she asks. He nods his head. She consults a parchment that has magically appeared in her hands and unrolls it. “Ah,”she says, “that is number C443. You’ve made a good choice.” She looks at the chart again, “No comet activity expected there for another hundred and fifty years. They can be a bit of a nuisance at times.” Without his noticing he and Nana are back in his hospital room. He slips back into bed. Soon he is fast asleep, dreaming of comets and carousels. Two days pass. He is drifting in and out of sleep. Running a very high temperature, he aches in every bone in his body. His eyes slowly open and he sees that his mother is tenderly wiping his forehead with a cooling, damp cloth. His Dad is looking down at him, his eyes filled with love. Chantal is sitting by his bedside, holding his hand. She has been crying. Shawna is standing behind his mom, waving what looks like burning grass. He is strangely comforted by this. Nana stands just inside the door, unseen by anyone else. He knows his time to cross the bridge is close and he longs to tell the people he loves that it’s going to be fine. That all his pain will finally vanish. That in time Chantal will fall in love, get married and have some wonderful children for them all to love and cherish. But he is unable to speak. He is too weak. He closes his eyes for a moment. Then, in the distance he hears a single high-pitched note coming from one of the machines he is hooked up to. Nana walks over to him and says, “It’s time.” He rises and looks back. His earthly body, which his mum is hugging, is still in the bed while his dad comforts Chantal. Shawna offers up a prayer. He and Nana are approaching the carousel. It is not moving. There are no riders. The man waves at him and says, “Hi, Jean-Marc. On you get.” Jean-Marc makes straight for the white horse with the friendly eyes. He climbs onto its beautiful saddle. Nana does not get on with him and when he asks her why she merely says, “Don’t worry, I’ll see you soon.” The man says, “Hold on.” And the carousel begins to move. Jean-Marc closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, the horse is no longer a carousel horse. It’s alive. It now has a huge pair of snow-white wings which are gently carrying him upwards. In the blink of an eye the horse has brought him to the Starry Bridge. The wonderful golden bridge covered with hundreds of little stars, all twinkling as if to say “Welcome, Jean-Marc.” He runs toward the bridge. On the other side he sees Nana. She is in her “real” angel costume. He feels the love flowing from her spirit to his. She is now an angel but he can tell from the look in her eyes that she is still his Nana. They say that whenever some shooting star arcs its way across the sky a baby is being born somewhere in the world. Well I don’t know about that. But eighteen earth years after Jean-Marc went home, his sister Chantal was pregnant with her third baby. One night she knew that the arrival of her new baby was near. Her husband phoned the hospital and her parents to alert them to the fast approaching birth. At the hospital they took her straight to the birthing room. Her husband went in with her, her parents stayed in the corridor just outside. They stood looking out of a big picture window. Suddenly they saw a shooting star flash across the sky from near the Big Dipper. As it disappeared into the night sky, they heard a loud squawking coming from just the other side of the swing doors. Then a slap followed by yell as their third grandchild announced his arrival on Earth.... © 2005 Michael Shepherd Just read 'The Starry Bridge' and enjoyed it a lot. Quite the tear-jerker. "The Starry Bridge" is a wonderful, magical tale well told... thank you for sharing it Michael. |
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