Paradise Lost

Many of you, as children, would look out of the window at night before you went to bed. You would wonder how the man in the moon was doing; wonder if he was real. Many of you who believed would then wonder why he spent all his days watching you through his telescope; you were scared. And at that I grew heavier, more sombre. For I knew this little man and he was not quite so small. He was a man like any other who, watching you all through his hole in the sky, saw you all living in a big paradise which he felt he’d lost out on.

A long, long time ago, before man learnt to write and read, before the earth grew homes and cities - before there was any earth for anything to grow on - there was God. God and space spent time together - whatever time was before it was created. And while I was not there, I imagine that hovering in nothingness must have grown to become awful lonesome. That’s when He made the man. The man had no name; he didn’t need one.

I don’t know much about this time. I wish I did because I know it was something you all look for. It’s rare to find a good thing with another person, let alone your father. The man was a friend to God, and God was a friend to the man. So, when the earth was created, the man sat on God’s shoulder. He watched, smiling, as trees and seas appeared. He smiled more brightly when the stars, the sun, the moon, and dark sky appeared.

‘This place I made for you,’ God said. The little man hugged Him.

That day God rested in the clouds, the man hanging on a white crescented moon as they named the clouds. And from that day on, the man resided in the moon, and the man was happy.

God had made a house on that moon of his; with lots of little rooms with lots of little things in them. He loved his bedroom best of all. He had a bed and a nightstand where he kept trinkets he had learnt to make, like a clock. The little man loved clocks. He made big ones with faces, small ones with spots, ones shaped like stars, ones shaped like clouds. He spent hours fitting together tiny pieces with instruments God had given him. I think he liked the sense of control it gave him. After all, how could time run if he didn’t set the clock just right?

He had learnt about time long before anyone on earth had. He was there when it came to be, and he watched as it slid by from his place in the sky.

At night he would don his night gown and cap and read the books he’d written to himself: ‘Once upon a time there was a giant’ or ‘once upon a time there was a fair maid’. He liked to imagine that he could do all those great things. He would fall asleep to these with the soothing sound of the nothingness around him.

When he woke up, he would watch the other people God had created on earth.

‘They walk and talk and look like me!’ he would think.

He watched as they walked in bright, golden fields, and swam in shiny blue waters. He thought they looked very pretty; he was happy when he watched them. And while he loved his night sky, he had a night sky all day and all night. And while he loved his home, it was big, and he was small.

However, God hadn’t forgotten the man. Every day they would sit together for a while, for God needed rest too, and talk about the world and sometimes say nothing at all.

One of those days the man asked Him a question.

‘Father?’

‘Yes, my son?’

‘How come I am up here and everyone else is down there?’

‘Because I did not make you for that place.’

The man thought a moment, looking down as his feet that dangled into the dark space around them. ‘But what was I made for?’

‘Consider this,’ God smiled. ‘Have you seen the way the other men go about? Cain killed Abel…they were brothers. My people have become lost.’ He then put his hand on the man’s shoulder, ‘Your purpose is here, away from all that. You would not be happy there.’

‘But what am I to do here…alone?’, thought the man.

He spent his days sitting in his house, moving about from room to room. Watching, but never hearing. Seeing, but never fully knowing. Eventually he began to kick the grey walls of his home. Some days, when He knew, God would come to sit, he would batten all the hatches of the windows down. He’d sit looking at a blank space of wall, his face long and wilting, silence becoming a pest he wished to soon be rid of.

Eventually he realised that locking himself in his home made him lonelier, so instead he would sit hanging over the edge of the moon. He watched as the world turned without him. He saw people fall in love, he saw births, deaths, laughter, tears and all the while he realised that God never visited anymore…that He never would.

One day he couldn’t help the tears.

‘Why!’ he cried to no-one. ‘Why have I been left alone? I thought He was supposed to be my friend…I thought the earth was created for me,’ he sobbed.

The sad part was that no-one on earth could hear him. No one could sense his sadness droop down upon them, but it did. The trees dipped for a little, earth’s brow quaked, the sun saw the moon more kindly, and the moon himself tried to be as still as he could so as not to disturb the quiet little tears.

Perhaps what was sadder was that this man was to be alone for all of eternity. He was not mortal like any of you. And even for your short period of time you mortals have the pleasure of somebody else’s company - he did not. And as far as the man was concerned, God never came back to talk with him.

For a long time after this epiphany every time he looked at earth a small tear would slide down his face. He would wipe it away and try to see the beauty in the life he led. He tried to be grateful with his small garden. He painted the walls of his house yellow on the inside and orange on the outside. He grew plants that climbed the walls all the way to the roof and painted the shutters white.

I don’t think he was ever happy, but he grew to be content. At some point he decided to write the stories of the people he watched and learn to draw sketches of them. Everything he created was beautiful. More beautiful than anything humanity has created. But no-one would know.

So even now, I myself wonder what this little man’s purpose is. He has always been there, and he always will be. I suppose for all you on earth this is some sort of comfort; to know that someone sees you, even if you can’t see them. But I will not pretend to know this for certain; here I have come to the end of my knowledge. Perhaps it is time someone ask him.