Earth was peaceful. Earth was everything I knew, even though I knew there was so much more out there. Most importantly, Earth was home.

I vaguely remember countryside as a younger child; sprawling hills and a lush green carpet of grass fading back to a sharp contrast of beautiful blue sky cloaking the far reaches of space like a velveteen blanket. Soft clouds littered its surface, strewn everywhere like remnants of a forgotten play fight. It was peace and discord in one package. I remember asking if God used to have pillow fights with his angels. My mother said the two words every five-year-old wants to hear: "Of course."

But the green grass didn't last. I don't remember exactly when the hills got swallowed up by the steel and cement. I just remember looking down from our room on the eight floor of our tower block and noticing they were gone. My eyes flew upward and a relieved sigh heaved my chest. At least the heavens were still visible.

I continued to gaze out my window for hours after Mother had put me to bed, a first for me. I was intrigued, confused, and saddened to realize the hills were gone. Relief had lulled me into complacence, but as I watched from the safety of my bed sheets my spark of intrigue grew. The sun had begun to fall behind the skyscrapers, and it was as thought it were taking the sky with it. The farther the sun's glow retreated behind the steel structures, I came to realize the sky was descending with it. Maybe it had caught on a sun's corner or something. I squinted as I zoned in on what remained of the ball of light, but pain welled up behind my eyes until I was forced to look away. I had to make due with assumptions. The sun, for all intensive purposes, must've had at least one sharp angle, like a square or a triangle, that caught on a thread of the sky, forcing it to trail down in the evening and back up again with every day anew.

What shook me most about this revelation was what the sky revealed when it fell. Space. Mother had read countless bedtime stories to me depicting the mysterious frontier, and it matched the children's books description perfectly: the sprinkling of stars stretched from one edge of the black void to the other, a bunch of little dots shimmering in my direction, winking at me. I still remember smiling up at them. As small and as far away as they were, they still knew I was here.

Running to Mother's room, not caring about the reprieval I would receive for disobeying curfew, I remember making her promise to take me there before that got swallowed up like its spiky green counterpart. After a stern talking to mother assured me not only that I could go to space one day if I so chose, but that the land wasn't gone forever. The confusion on my face served reason enough for her to continue. I'll never forget her words.

"You only have to look underneath the buildings. Dig up enough layers of brick and stone and eventually you'll see a blade of hidden grass."


In school, I was a question-asker. There were a lot of children in my class, and each one had their own role. We had criers and screamers, listeners, bullies, gapers, laughers and fallers. Me, I asked questions. To be honest, I think the school had made a mistake trying to make a room full of such diverse personalities pay attention to one adult. The poor woman should have at least had a class with one kind of kid so she could listen or play or run after them all collectively instead of trying to do everything at once. They definitely should have had a question-asking class. I needed my own teacher for all the questions I had, and the one I did kept deflecting the ones I hurled her way towards my mother. She in turn told me to take it back to the teacher.

"She gets paid to teach you kids. I wish she'd start acting like it," she would mumble into her steaming after-dinner mug. So I asked why I had to ask them both, and I never got an answer to either.

The only days I never asked questions were when they took us to different cities. "Field trip" the permission slip would say, though not once did we ever come across a field. I turned into a listener on those days.

I quickly learned that Earth was huge. Looking down at our city from the hoverbus was better than seeing it from my window back home. There were cities within cities, roads bending and curving their way to the edge of where the enveloping blue of the sky hid their ends. I did ask why there were roads when people could just fly to another city instead, and that time I did get an answer: some people walked places, from city to city, because they couldn't afford to fly. Earth was supposed to be able to be seen by everyone, and it wasn't fair to the people who couldn't fly to not be allowed to go other places. When I asked why they couldn't afford it, though, my teacher didn't "care to elaborate finances to a child." So, I turned to my mother for answers. It seemed important to know.

"Why can't some people afford to fly?" I asked, depositing my knapsack from its sling over my shoulder. Mother never even had time to ask how Saratoga was.

In response, her mouth shrunk the way it did when she was uncomfortable, but she answered nonetheless. "Because some people are less fortunate than we are."

"Why?"

"Caleb," Mother sighed, turning to face me. There was a sharpness in her voice that immediately made me regret asking. "Have you asked any of the other children why they can't afford to fly?"

"No," I hasted to explain. "I saw the roads today, the ones that went to other cities like ours. And I asked our teacher why they were there and she 'didn't care to elaborate.'"

My mother laughed. I guess it wasn't so bad that I asked. I relaxed immediately to the tinkle of her voice. "Oh, she did? Ah. Well then, come here," she said as she scooped me up into her lap. Silently I made a memo to try and be a listener as she explained. "Grown ups have to have jobs in order to make money. You know how you need money to buy something when the ice cream cart comes around?"

"'Two credits per pop,'" I replied promptly, reciting the VI's chime.

"Which is highway robbery," Momma scathed. "I charge it to my omni-tool because I need to pay for it before you can have it. It's the same way with bills, cars, toys, chartering a flight to a different city. Everything costs money."

"What if you don't have any money?"

"What happens when I don't buy you a pop?" she pressed.

"I ask for something else."

"You can't have it," she chastised with a small smirk. "If you don't pay for something, you can't have or use it. And if you don't have a job, you can't make any money."

"So people who don't have jobs don't have any money?"

"Right."

"But I have you," I protested, confusion making me forget to listen.

"Not everyone has a mom to buy things for them. When you get older, you're going to have a job just like I do now, and you'll be able to buy things for yourself."

I grew quiet for a moment, letting her words sink in. "Mom?"

"Hm?"

"Can we afford to fly?"

Thin arms tightened around me, and I could smell the sweetness of her last cup of tea on her breath as she exhaled thoughtfully. "Don't worry about money, Caleb. You're too young. We can afford to fly if we need to."

"To other cities?"

Mother nodded. "Flying in the same city costs a lot less money than flying around the whole world, which is why I fly to work."

"How many credits would a flight to space cost?"

"Enough." Her mouth shrunk again. "Too much just to visit."

"What if we want to stay?"

"Don't you like it here?"

My head bobbed eagerly. "But one day I want to see more than just Earth."

Burying her mouth in my mouse-brown hair, she lightly kissed my scalp. "If that's what you want Caleb, it'll happen. Want something bad enough, and it's bound to come true."


The next day at school I wasn't my usual self. I was a listener again. I watched everyone, even the teacher. "Yes, she has a job," Mother had explained, which was watching our class. Then she can afford to fly, I silently decided on. Watching us must have been important enough to earn some real credits. If it wasn't, I pitied the woman for being undercompensated and run ragged each day.

Figuring out the other children took more thought, but all I had to do was look. A few of the girls wore brightly colored dresses with matching shoes and ribbons in their silky smooth hair, with a handful of boys to match in starchy trousers and bright blue jeans. They never came to school with a smudge on their face or a spot on their clothes that didn't belong. Other children had scuffed up, dingy shoes and complimenting messes on their clothes that looked like they'd been there a few days too long. Their hair wasn't as kempt either, often flyaway and scraggly.

Testing the theory forming in my head, I grabbed a chunk of my hair. It felt clean and in place. Looking down my front, I had my blue sweater on today with a pair of corduroys, both soft to the touch and not a stain in sight. Thinking back on what Mother had said the night before, my eyes swooped over the room once more. So the kids with nice hair and clothes could fly. I assumed that meant the ones who weren't so pleasant to look at were the non-fliers. That didn't seem fair. It didn't seem right that some of us got to go to space and some just... couldn't.

I barely took notice as I felt my lips scrunch involuntarily. I couldn't ask my classmates about how fortunate they were or weren't, or why for that matter. Mother would disapprove, and I'd probably get in trouble for it even if they could tell me. But I had a feeling some of them would never see space the way I knew I one day would. Those little winking lights would be all they ever saw of what lay beneath the blanket of blue without ever getting up close and personal with what lay beyond. I wanted it all. I wanted to be able to wink back.