“After supper the boy is more forthcoming. ‘Ana Magdalena
taught us the numbers,’ he tells them. ‘She showed us Two and Three and you
were wrong, Simon, and senor Robles was wrong too, you were both wrong, the numbers are in the sky. That is where they live,
with the stars. You have to call them before they will come down.”
--The Schooldays of Jesus (p-59),
“His most cherished memory was of the sky-watch, a
pastime in which his mother joined him, though not often, as she was big with
child. She told him stories of the Devas. These dwellers of the sky drank the
milk of the Kalpaka fruit, their elixir of immortality, and flung the empty
husks down to the earth. If you gazed on the sky long enough, you saw the husks
as transparent apparitions. The sky at noon was full of them. Ravi saw them
slide over glistening cloud-hems and pass softly over pine and rock and grass.
He watched, leaning on Mother’s belly as she reclined on a couch.
‘Thirteen!’ Ravi whispered, unable to contain his
excitement.
‘Ah, my child,’ Mother said,’ what did you do to them?’
‘Counted them, Ma.’
The shy apparitions vanished. The sky was deserted now,
save for a lone crested vulture navigating the precipices of space.
‘My little star,’ Mother said during one such vigil,’ don’t
lean too hard, you might hurt your sister.’
--The Legends of Khasak (p-7)
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