The Shape Of Stars
I was late. Now, there is a slight chance you might think that I am usually early. No, you are wrong. I am always this late. It's not anybody's fault, though. It's just, I am someone who strictly follows four meals a day, and I am not ready to lose that, just for the sake of playing football.
We are very fortunate. We have a ground nearby, not a high standard one, but it has enough and more area, that an actual football match could take place; if we are to avoid the rocky half, the bush quarters, the nearby homes and a possibly fatal cliff.
As gigantic the ground maybe, the problem is we do not have a young squad here. Our area is filled with people over 50s. The youth ratio here is depressing. In this humongous ground, there are only two sportspersons. It's like playing chess with two bishops. Two and a half, actually. There is me, my friend and his little sister. By the way, she is the protagonist of this story.
So, I reached the ground by 5:30 PM, and I could understand from his face that he was not feeling very joyous to see me. He pulled off some trick shots, of which, most I managed to save. I am very tall, you see. All it takes is a good stretch.
Quite naturally, one of his trick shots was beyond what I could save. If the goal post had hands, I don't think even it could have managed to stop the ball. It was miles away. He ran off to take the ball, leaving me and the kid silent on the vast ground.
I am a very talkative person, the silence killed me each second. So, I decided to approach the kid. I noticed that she was playing with sand. When I got closer, I realised that she was drawing a picture, a star. It was a very confusing drawing, though. It had the sun on one end, and the rest was stars. And by stars, I mean, the two opposite triangles aligned on top of one another, one a bit down.
It was controversial since the sun is visible during the day and the stars are at night. I wanted to ask her why. But, she was so busy and, it's wrong to disturb artists.
After a few seconds, she asked me if it looks good. I replied that it looks beautiful. Wanting to impart some general knowledge into the kid, I told her, "You see something, this drawing, it's full of stars."
"No, look. The Sun." She replied.
Alright, now I understood from which academic level I should be dealing with this topic. I sat on the floor and whispered, "I will tell you a secret. Do you want to hear it?"
"Uh-huh"
"The sun is also one among the stars."
Out of all the reactions I imagined would occupy her face, the one that actually did surprise me. She laughed. Worse, she called me stupid. I did not have any idea about how to convince this child. Her laughing made my brain wish it could die.
In the end, I told her, "It's the truth. You will learn it one day."
And to my surprise, she stopped laughing. A mature, grave emotion occupied her face now. Then, she asked me politely, "Well then, draw the sun."
I simply drew a circle with rays of varying length. I turned around. Now, the kid asked me to draw a star.
No, I understood what she was up to. If I was to plot the classic two-triangular star, she would point at the sun and say, "Look at them now. See, they are different. It's not a star, idiot." And then she would start laughing out even louder. And that would be worse than hell, in its darkest form.
Though I was very successful in calculating the future, my brain could not force my hands. It already started reflex actions. No matter how much I tried, I could not draw a sphere to describe the shape of stars. All I drew was the classic triangles. Devastated I was. I think you can simply imagine what happened then. Not a great day!