The Boy Who Wouldn't Come Down From His Star - Paul William Hollingsworth (e book reader free TXT) 📗

in front of him. How could he not find someone, and some name, that he would like?
They began with India, a place filled with ferocious tigers, chattering monkeys, and trumpeting elephants. They saw temples and ruins, they trekked through jungles and grasslands, they walked up and down beaches, visited cities, and strolled through villages. They journeyed down green valleys and over snow-covered mountains.
The Boy’s eyes were wide with astonishment and delight, and the old Star began to whistle to himself, his mind alive with memories of the ancient past. He felt slightly dizzy with all the changes that had that had taken place since those days when the Earth was just another jumble of molten rock. He had seen the changes from afar, but being up close—now that was a different thing entirely!
They went to a small village where a young woman was giving birth in her own home. The small home was filled with chattering relatives. The Boy and his Star went unnoticed, but they still felt like they had to squeeze between gossiping in-laws to get to the room of the new mother. Flowers seemed to fill every available nook and cranny, lilies, lotuses, and orchids. The young mother held the little bundle up and smiled at her husband beaming beside her.
“Padma,” said the father.
“Padmavati,” said the mother.

The next city they visited was larger than the village where the child of flowers was born. There were many old temples and one temple was simply alive with monkeys. Monkeys leapt from the roof tops, monkeys sprung from wall to wall, monkeys swung from the ceilings or clambered up columns to sit atop lintels.
“Macaques are sacred to the people who live here,” the Boy’s Star said, “sacred and dangerous. We’d better be careful. We don’t want to get bitten!”
“What’s a macaque?” The Boy asked.
“A macaque is a monkey, that is to say, a kind of boy,” said the Star. “A boy that eats lots of bananas and won’t wear clothes.”
“Like me!” said the little Boy, who as a matter of fact never wore clothes, alone as he was among the stars. He couldn’t be seen by anybody down here, and he didn’t get cold.
“Yes,” replied the Star, “but covered in hair. Plus they have tails, which you (alas) do not. You will never be able to swing from a tree by your tail.”
When he heard this, the Boy swore that he would some day, somehow, grow a tail to swing from trees. Or from anything else for that matter. “It’s silly,” he thought to himself, “that boys can’t grow tails! Everybody has a tail! Elephants have tails! Crocodiles have tails! Tigers have tails! When I get born, I’m going to have a tail!”
So when his Star told him that he wouldn’t have a tail, the Boy furled his eyebrows and said nothing. He didn’t stop to think that he had just agreed to be born.

It was October, and much of the country seemed to be celebrating. There were many songs, many flags, and much laughter. The Boy and the Star went to a big hospital in a big city. The hospital was new, modern and sanitized in the best scientific fashion. The hospital was filled with exciting new machines and polished stainless steel shelves. The Boy looked sad. There were no monkeys.

There was a new mother in a room filled with people and flowers. The woman had already had three children. They were two boys and one girl fidgeting and fussing behind adults who would suddenly reach down and swat them from time to time. The Boy was glad he couldn’t get caught accidentally by one of those swatting hands, although the two boys and one girl didn’t seem to mind that much.
The new baby was also a boy, which made the little girl feel sad and alone. She didn’t want another brother. The two brothers were happy. They had someone to join them in the war against their sister. They also had someone smaller to pick on.
The father was happy and worried about having another child in the house.
The mother was worried and happy about having another child in the house. The three children had been and would continue to be a trial, she thought. This new one should comfort her. This new child would not run or shout or break things, but he would be calm and respectful. And patient. She thought about naming him Sadar. But she decided on Saabir. Her husband would just have to agree. Saabir. Patient. She could only hope so.

The Boy and the Star journeyed to another country north of a vast mountain range that separated the two lands. Just like the first country, this land had more people than animals. So many people, in fact, that the animals were running out of room, and many of them were on the verge of losing a place to live in altogether. The Boy thought that it was sad, and the Star agreed, that a country would push out tigers and bears and blue sheep when they had plenty of people but not enough animals.
“I wonder if I should even get born,” said the Boy thoughtfully, “after all there seem to be plenty of children on Earth and plenty of grownups for children to turn into. They don’t need another one down here. Where will all the elephants, tigers and monkeys go, if boys like me keep getting born?”
The Star didn’t say anything for a while, and the Boy was reminded how quiet the Star used to be before they came down here, so quiet in fact that the Boy hadn’t’ve even known that the Star could speak. Suddenly the Boy started thinking about those old times above the Earth, and how much he loved swinging from his Star and how much he loved trying to outrun moonbeams or getting into shouting matches with other little boys or girls on asteroids or dwarf planets or other stars. Until his two guardian stars would tell him to hush and behave!
His two guardian stars! He had forgotten all about them! Suddenly he missed them, which is something he thought he’d never do, seeing how much he hated the way they always told him how to act and what to say. How they always scolded him not to throw rocks at the passing comets! But now he missed them. He wondered if they thought of him down here, or if they were glad they had gotten rid of such a troublesome little kid.
“I bet they’re glad I’m gone,” he thought to himself. “I bet they hope I stay down here too.” He thought for a little bit longer. “I wasn’t that much trouble,” he thought. “Surely they would take me back if I begged. But no, I have to come down here, don’t I?”
Just then the voice of the Star broke through his thoughts. The Boy had almost forgotten what they had been talking about.
“No,” the Star said. “I think you have to be born. I don’t think you have the choice. Once you’re picked, you have to go. At least, that’s how it’s always been. But it is beginning to be a problem. I’ve heard them talking about it up there,” and the Star pointed with a nod of his head to the sky above them, “but no one has thought of a solution. I’ve heard talk that we might have to put the animals on a different planet altogether, but I don’t see how that’s possible. Some have even suggested other alternatives, but I don’t like to think about it. All the same you at least have to be born. Maybe you’ll make a difference. Maybe that’s the point.” The Star sighed. “I just don’t know.”
“Not unless I find a name I like”, thought the Boy to himself. “That’s my way out of getting born. I just won’t agree to a name.”

In the meantime the two wanderers came to a house in a village where a party was being given for a child who had been born a month earlier. The father was a painter, and the mother was a poet. They were both teachers, and the both tried to make tradition a part of their lives. It was important, they thought, to keep to some of the old ways. But they both agreed that they themselves would name the child (a boy) and not leave the decision to a fortune teller or to the grandparents who never agreed on anything.
The child was quiet and calm.
“He is quiet and calm,” said the father, “he will be a scholar or a philosopher. We will call him Shen.”
“He is deep and profound,” said the mother, “he will make wise decisions that will benefit the people. Shen is a good name.”
“He looks like he’s just sleeping to me,” said the Boy. “I guess he still tired from the trip down.” The Boy paused. “You’d think that after a month he’d have enough rest. Parents sure put a lot into a name.”
“They have a lot at stake,” said the Star. “Their child is the most important thing they can give to the world. For some it’s the only thing.”
After they had left the village and were walking down a little used path that wound through a steep hillside, the Star turned to the Boy and asked, “Well, have you thought about it? Have you heard any name you like?”
“No,” said the Boy, “they all sound stupid to me.” He didn’t tell the Star about his plan to stay in the sky.
The land they wandered through had many villages, many towns, and many cities. The cities were big, filled with big buildings, lots of cars, lots of buses, lots of bicycles and lots of people. Most of all they were filled with lots of noise. By now the Boy was getting used to it.
He had seen and learned a lot of things. He had discovered a great deal about this planet, this little blue planet he had always ignored. They did a lot of strange things, he thought. They spent years sending their children to school, in order to train them for a life doing things that made them all, it seemed, miserable. They all spent a lot of time talking about how hard it was to be happy, about how to find happiness, and how to hold onto that happiness when you found it, but after they quit talking, they all fell silent and looked sad again. They all talked about how short life was and about how you had to make each moment count, and then they went on doing things that didn’t count. They all spent a lot of time and effort trying to get something called money, but when they got it, they didn’t know what to do with it except to try to make more of it. People who had lots of money thought they would be happier without it, and people who had no money were convinced that was why there were so miserable. People who