Charlie. He was a sweet 5 year old boy that was everyone’s neighbor and friend, but Charlie was different from all the other kids on the playground, Charlie’s playground was the world. The scarlet curls atop his head were only a cover for the rainbow of colors and mystical dreams that raced through the young lads mind. Charlie is the sweetest boy in his class, the one who is always making sure everyone is safe from the dangers of the of the monkey bars, and cleaning up the messes from art class that his classmates had left behind. But Charlie had a gift; everything he ever dreamt of came true. He was able to go to wherever his dreams and imagination took him, all while he was still seen as being on the playground. He had become best of friends with the man in the moon’s grandson Gavin, and had seen the come to know the best athletes to have ever lived. The best part of Charlie’s gift was not that he could fly with angels, or that he could sit on the stars as they shed light upon our world, but that he could escape every bad thing in his life that haunted his young 5 year old mind. Nothing we have in our world would ever be the same for Charlie. The whole world was made of paper and the seas were of ink. The trees he climbed at school were made of bread with cheeses leaves. The monkey bars in the playground were no made of licorice sticks and the hard ground where the little monkeys fell upon was now made of soft cotton candy with marshmallow rocks, where no harm could be done. Charlie loved his ability to think of something, and instantly be taken to the wonderland in the sky many children can only dream of going. In this place he went to Charlie could be himself, and not have to worry one tiny bit, and here he would never grow old. But not everything was perfect in this dream world. Not one year ago Charlie lost his mother at the ripe age of 4. He was just learning to spell his name and say his abs’s when he lost his protector of all evils. 1 year ago Charlie was running around his mother’s garden as she planted her favorite white lilies, right next to the sunflowers Charlie called his.
That was one of Charlie’s last memories with his mom, the person that could make every pain go away, and wipe away the tears that could ever roll down his face. Every now and then when Charlie goes to this dream land, he would see his mom amongst the hundreds of other angels he saw on his journeys through the sky. For many people getting to see their loved one that has passed for a mere 30 seconds would be better than winning the jack pot, but for Charlie it isn’t quite that way. Seeing his mom, hurts Charlie more than falling off the big yellow slide on the playground, but yet it still doesn’t keep him from trying to find her, just as he would find a way to climb back up to the slide, to be like every other kid. The thing that hurt Charlie the most was that anytime he would see his mother, he would never get close enough to talk to her, for as he was about to reach his hand out to hers, she would disappear and only her wings would flutter far away with the tears that streamed from his young aqua eyes.
But no matter the pain he ever felt inside of him, Charlie could do anything he wanted in this dreamland he called his garden in the sky. He and Gavin would slide over every rainbow to see the place where the blue birds fly, where the clouds were far behind them, the dreams they dared to dream really did come true, and they could wish upon every star that illuminated our skies. Unlike Charlie’s mother’s garden, nothing ever died here in this land high above the chimney tops. This was the place Charlie could see his guardian angel, even though her pixie-like body would eventually float away from him to the brightest star in the sky, only she could go to. And even though it hurt Charlie to watch his angel’s auburn curls drift away to never-never land; he could still see that she was in a place she had always dreamt of when she was on earth with him.
Charlie came to his garden in the sky almost every day, he became familiar with the stars that shone brighter than any lighthouse he had ever seen, he grew very fond of the pink hibiscus sun going to bed for the day, only to be replaced by the angel-trumpet moon that was the home for Gavin’s grandfather they called Pop. The boys shared many memories with each other of soaring through the blue skies of the garden, chasing the shooting stars, looking down upon the paper world that now simply looked like their favorite comic books. In Charlie’s garden near the kingdom of angels, the boys enjoyed their times swinging from gum drop swings and watching the sunsets being painted by the angels the boys had befriended. The boys stayed together in this dreamland they both called home for what seemed like forever, until eventually Charlie would have to return to the playground and be the other children on the playground. Many people say that the planet earth they call home should be the playground of all dreamers, but for Charlie who called the garden in the sky home, the world was their playground.
When Charlie had landed back on Earth after this particular trip to his garden, he found himself on the ground under the school’s monkey bars that were not made of licorice and where cotton candy could not save him. His classmates surrounded him, but he had no idea what was going on. Charlie was the one that was always making sure other kids were not falling from the bars. But because Charlie had been so lost in his dreamland, he had lost track of the Charlie still on earth and let him fall from the start of the bars. Instead of crying for the mother he knew he didn’t have near him, or even in this universe, Charlie looked to the blue sky he knew was his home and smiled, simply saying “I want to go back home please.”