The Old Man

It had been a long day for Peter Boyle, yet somehow the light within his son's eyes had given him inspiration, and indeed strength to jump out of the house and set to play in the park not far away. The Sun held its position aloft seemingly only for them as they frolicked in the greenest of grass, tossing and rolling the ball back and forth, laughing, and falling into each other in a way that would never be repeated.

Lost in this interaction, Peter took no notice of many things that he might have in his earlier, different days. The jogger girls, gliding by so beautifully proportioned and glistening in the late-day sunlight, the lads playing football and the skill or lack thereof, the derelict or simply deranged peering into wastebaskets and lifting their strangely red eyes back up again....none of this mattered to him. He was with his son. His son was coasting across the park, his soft-boyish hair aflutter in a breeze self-created, his giggle seemingly emanating from everywhere, and from deep within his heart Peter felt a love like he had never known before.

He had named his son Yuri, after his own grandfather. Yuri had hold of the miniature soccerball, and was running with it in his hands despite Peter's exclamations that that was the improper way to handle such a ball, that it should only be touched with feet.

"He doesn't listen," Peter thought, "Just like I was...."

From a score of yards away, Yuri turned on his father, looked at him deviously a moment, then finally -- FINALLY -- gave the thing a boot, and it bounced several times before rolling right onto Peter's leg where he sat.

"Good aim, Yur!" Peter shouted, "Now let's try for a header!"

Peter stood in a fashion which he considered to be impressively athletic for his age, and slowly, at the speed of children, prepared to gently lob the globe into the air.

Yuri's back was to him, however, examing the low, amber sun and all it's rays. Yuri turned to his father, his bright eyes squinting in curiousity, "Where is the Sun going, papa?"

Peter's heart burned like the Sun itself. It is impossible to explain how or why; it a most natural question for a young person to ask. Perhaps it was the late afternoon Sun, or perhaps it was his son's squint, but the moment burned itself immediately into Peter's soul.

"The Sun doesn't go anywhere, son," Peter said, holding the ball over his head in a mock of a forceful throw, "We go around the Sun."

"We do?!" Yuri looked back at the Sun, "But I see it going down."

Peter chuckled now, and his mind sent himself racing along prehistorical tracks for just a split second, wondering what the early man might have thought, before he said confidently, " No, Yur, it only looks that way. We're actually moving around the Sun!"

Peter heard a loud, deliberate chuff come from his right, and he turned to see an old man with a long silver beard holding his hands atop a cane staring directly at him. The look the old man gave him was deliberate, and menacing. Peter regarded him a moment, took him for a loony, and returned his attention to his son, "Yuri, we live on Earth that goes around the Sun, and --"

"Malaka!" the old man belted, causing even some of the lads playing football to pay him a moment's notice.

Peter was a bit stunned by the outburst, but knew that he could not allow any weirdo to dictate his late summer afternoon with his son, so he ignored him and continued, "See, we live in a solar system--"

"What do you know about systems?" The old man's voice was not loud, but it seemed to penetrate somehow. Peter turned and felt strangely dizzy, as the old man's fingers began to work the top of his cane, "That is just the new story...."

He looked at Peter in the strangest of ways...neither approving nor dissaproving, with eyes of an indeterminable colour. Peter wanted to say something to him, to say, "OK, old man", or "Leave us alone, alright", or something to that effect, but he found that no words were coming out of his lips.

The old man turned his gaze to Yuri, and suddenly a benign-ness seemed to begin to emanate from him, a grandfatherly extension to which Yuri responded by racing straight to him, and standing before him almost at attention.

"The Sun goes to Apollo's House," the old man said calmly.

Peter felt the instinctive urge to stand close to the stranger with his son, but found, not at all to his chagrin, that his body preferred to stand precisely where it was.

"And in the morning," the old man continued, "Well, Apollo takes the Sun out for a ride again. He rides the Sun."

Yuri's eyes grew large as saucers, "There's a man riding the Sun?"

The old man chuckled, and let loose his cane to let it rest by his side, "Well...not a regular man. He's a special man. And he rides the Sun with special horses...."

Yuri wavered on his feet, his soft-boy hair now blowing in the breeze of the Earth, and he blinked and said, "But how can someone and horses ride something?"

The old man laughed a loud and boisterous laugh, an almost uncomfortable laugh. In the grasses, a few feet away, Peter managed a step, but not a sound.

"It isn't easy," said the old man, and he stood and patted the young boy on the head. He then bent down and stared into young Yuri's eyes a long moment before whispering, "I can show this man to you if you like...he might even take you with him one time....."

Yuri blinked a bit more, unsure. Behind him, perhaps ten feet behind him, Peter was determined to intervene, to say something, to do something, but he felt himself compelled to stand where he was, silent. The old man stood, acknowledged Peter with a nod, and shuffled along down the jogger path, where joggers and their exquisite bodies moved, raced, and glistened in the Sunlight.

Finally, Peter found cognizance, and in a strange state of duress, ran to Yuri, lifting the child into his arms.

"Greek legends," he said, forgetting entirely about the soccerball he had brought, "Or Roman....see, a long time ago they used to tell stories....that was before we learned the truth......"

And his voice trailed into softness away from the park.