A walk through the universe

“Let me show you the universe,” the young woman said.

She opened her hand and a glowing ball of light appeared in her palm. I leaned forward to look at it and it expanded before my eyes, breaking up into black voids and brilliant speckles of light. I leaned still closer and behold! One of speckles exploded into a miniature spiral galaxy, its center too brilliant for the naked eye. I focused on one of the spiral arms and let it expand before me, breaking up into clouds of dust and clusters of stars.

I leaned still closer and let one of the patches of stars grow ever larger until finally only one star was in view. “This one,” I said, “Let me see this one,” and I did. It swelled in my view until all the world was burning flame. It was too much and I looked away into the darkness where I saw stones alone in the night. I chose one, a small one not far from the burning star.

“This one,” I said, “Let me see this one”, and I did. It too swelled in my view. Blue and white it was and it had a dirty gray companion. I leaned closer and the blue and white world became all. Here and there amidst the blue there were patches of brown and green. I drifted down through the white clouds towards a border between the blue and green, drifted down until I saw the yellow lights of a city below at night.

I was almost there. Where I was I did not know but I knew that I was almost there. The city dissolved into streets and buildings, first small then larger as I drew close. One building grew to normal size. Through a window I could see a man and a young woman. Her hand was held forward and he had his face buried in her palm. I felt a desperate need to complete my journey, to rush forward and unite with the man, to merge into him, to complete my being.

And then the world went black and I jerked back. The young woman reached up and gently touched my blind eye.

“I am sorry,” she said, “I am so terribly sorry.”