In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Kindness of Strangers.”
It had been a stressful and testing day at work. The unbearable heat made it all the more insufferable. By the time I got home that evening, I was ready to flop on the sofa. I flicked mindlessly through the TV channels; I was so tired that I was as indifferent to a news story on a famine as I was to a cartoon.
I looked up to the ceiling, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened my eyes again I found myself floating upwards through the ceiling, through the roof, above the houses. I could see the streets and lights below getting smaller and smaller until….
I was rising through the clouds. I could see the outlines of continents, the movements of the oceans. Night turned to day and back again. It was clear to me that I wasn’t just floating upwards; it was as if I was being swept by the winds across the world. But I couldn’t feel the winds or the heat of the sun, or the rain or snow.
I was just there.
And soon, I found myself floating through the outer layers of the atmosphere until I was high above Earth in space itself. I could see our planet, suspended like a teardrop in the dark abyss. I looked around, spinning on the spot as if in a gyroscope. Stars and planets and galaxies and black holes and supernovas and nebulas whizzed around at unfathomable speed.
As I slowed I looked at the Earth again. I could see every person as if I was right next to them. I knew their thoughts, felt their breath, understood their hopes and fears. I came to understand why good and evil existed and the importance of hope. I saw there was a solution for everything, no matter how big or small a problem; at the same time, I witnessed how and why people in different corners of the globe make mistakes, but never truly learn.
I learnt a lot, I saw a lot, but then I forgot it all. As I came to, my mind ached, my mouth was bitter and dry. All in a moment I understood how, what, when and why; but, all in a moment, my new found knowledge and wisdom had dissipated into the depths of space.
I flicked off the TV and went to bed. I would wake the next morning only to make the same mistakes as today, not having learnt a thing.
