Michael Cable

Amira sat in the box with her tools and tried, unsuccessfully, to make the sand stand up. It didn't really 
matter though; the sheer joy of moving the material, raking it, making the concentric circles around the 
growing mound of white sand gave her a sort of peace that was strange yet so satisfying; a peace that is 
reserved for the young at play. Why should that be? But she didn't know or care about such questions. 
It was pretty, and fun, and pleasant to do in and of itself. She played like this for minutes, for hours or 
days; time is always fluid in an innocent mind not jaded by time's passing. As she raked, lines began to 
radiate outwards from the central circle, like the rays of the bright blue sun that was always there. These 
are the rays that a child's imagination has made coming from the sun for ages and that only they can see 
as real. Amira moved the vehicles and small, multi-colored people around and around and around, 
moving one, then two, then three and lastly four so that theycircled the "Castle" which was formless  but 
existed, as the rays did, in her mind's eye.

The new children here had brought with them many, if not all, of the bright toys of their home world. 
These things defied the imagination of all the outsiders who saw them. The little figures, with their 
myriad colors, shapes and sizes made her smile. She pretended they were Ladies and Queens, their small 
eyes shining and glinting in the bright light.

She shoveled more sand and it cascaded and began to ruin the inner most circle. Amira didn't know how 
to feel about that. She knew it displeased her, but there was so much sand to build with, and the rake was 
shiny and new and she had the luxury of time. This was the time of a child, slow moving like canals in late 
fall, but also as swift as the local birds flitting between the sparse shrubs at the same time. The destruction 
made her sad, or mad or afraid; she was unsure.

Amira looked up and saw him then. He looked funny to her but she had heard enough from her parents 
to know not to say anything. He looked at her through the gap in the wall, doing nothing, just staring and 
shuffling from foot to foot. He looked at her for what seemed forever, and for what seemed a second. 
He looked down at the unfinished wall, then up at her. His eyes were blue, brighter than normal in the blue 
sunlight as they questioned her. She thought for a minute and instinctively knew that he was silently asking, 
"Can I come over?" This is the question that children from all worlds in all times have been asking one 
another, longingly, since complex life emerged from the chaos.The desire for play, for communion, was as 
essential as breathing for Amira. She thought to herself, "Can he?" There was a ghost of a shadow of 
remembered warning from her mother but any thought of caution or care for her safety wasn't just ignored, 
it was irrelevant.There were Castles to build.

Amira watched as he stooped down and picked up something that had been hiding behind the wall, a 
bucket. It was strange that these aliens had such a device. "Just like my bucket," she thought without 
wonder or concern for his differences. He brought the bucket with him as he stepped over the wall, tilting 
to the left as he compensated for its weight. He never took his eyes from her nor she from him. Since they 
had come from the sky she had yet to get used to their strange faces, bodies and colors. Amira also knew, 
instinctively, that she looked strange to him as well. His people had come here a long, long time ago. They 
also had been drawn to the kind climate, abundant liquid water and hospitable sun and to the opportunity 
of peace and prosperity for their children.

He looked at Amira and asked a question in a language she still didn't understand. She had trouble with 
her own language and had not yet needed to worry about learning this vastly different tongue. He asked 
the question again and this time pointed directly at her chest.

"He wants to know my name," she realized.

"Ahh - Meee - Raaa," she sounded out, slowly, making sure he understood the sounds.

He then pointed at himself and did the same, though when he spoke it was in a quicker, more clipped 
tone . . .

"M - R - Sun," he replied.

She liked the sound of it. Like the concentric circles in the sand, it was pleasing, no reason needed.

They began to play then, M - R - Sun picking up the little vehicles and people and studying them 
with deft concentration. He held up one in particular next to Amira's face, recognizing the similarities 
proposed there. Amira handed him the rake and he began to make grooved roads around himself as well. 
This road eventually led to one of the rays of Amira's that then led on to the Castle, making a connection 
between his work and that of hers. Amira then handed M - R - Sun the shovel and he took up where she 
had left off, placing more sand upon the central heap. It too fell in cascades as it did when Amira had tried
it earlier. She noticed this with something like sadness, wanting him to succeed where she had failed. She 
very much wanted this, though she couldn't have told anyone why. But then, he did something curious. He
cupped his hand, dipped out a bit of water from the bucket and poured it onto the Castle. It stained dark 
gray and she was unsure if she liked it. He then grabbed a bit of the sand and took it up into his fist and 
squeezed gently. When his hand came away there was a column of sand. It was misshapen and bore the
imprints of his fingers but it stood up none the less. Amira was captivated.

For the next several hours or the next couple of minutes or days they took turns cupping their hands and 
dribbling water onto the structure. M - R - Sun had placed it between them but off to the side so as not to 
disrupt the complex street system they had created. This time, when they added more sand, it stayed and 
did not inundate the circles below. At one point they needed to rise up on their knees to work the top of 
the structure. They spent hours, days, weeks, seconds, digging doors with their fingers and placing the little
figures within them. When at last they were satisfied, or rather wanted to play "with" the Castle instead of 
"on" it, they took up the people and the vehicles and made to play. They played how all children have 
played before or since, pretending to be adults in a world that exists only in their minds. Pretending 
because order, acceptance, contentment, joy in others, and a love for meeting someone new had not been 
trained out of them yet. Amira wanted more.

It was at this point that she wondered if she should do the thing she was told never to do.

"Don't touch one of them, Amira," her mother had warned with that sour look.

"Why?" she replied laughingly.

"Because, we don't want to know their thoughts, they are different and wrong. They will hurt you!"

"OK," replied Amira. Because that is what you said when told to do something you didn't understand.

But Amira had forgotten much of this warning. She remembered her mother's stern agitation and the 
warning not to touch, but had forgotten the reason why. So, slowly, she reached out her hand and placed 
it on the back of his, grasping his fingers, as it rested on his knee.The shift was slow and glided like the 
petals of the draper flowers as they were plucked from the stem by the gentle afternoon wind. There was 
no jolt. There was no pain, nor hurt. "Why did I feel afraid of this?" she wondered.

Suddenly she and M - R - Sun were standing in the middle of a grand city. Cars, cycles and ships glided 
aroundthem as though on silent rails. The multihued people, walking in groups and alone with purpose 
and intent, were more splendid than their toy counterparts. Above it all, dominating the skyline, was the 
Castle, its grayness in stark contrast to the deep blue of the sky.

"Where are we?" the boy asked.

Amira told him they were in the same place but in a new space.

"I don't get it." He said, perplexed but not afraid.

"Just pretend you are one of the toys," Amira said. That seemed to satisfy him.

"I can understand you now," said M - R - Sun with a smile.

"Yes, when I use it we can see and hear the same ways."

"It feels different, but it also feels the same as the sand box."

"It is the same. Come on, let's go to the Castle."

They began to walk. Amira and M - R - Sun made their way along one of the broad avenues they knew 
led to the central lanes that ran around the Castle. People and cars whirled by and sand was piled high 
so that the children were whelmed by them.

When they got to the center they realized the dilemma, how to get across. So many vehicles speeding past, 
there was never any break through which they could dash.

"What do we do?" asked the boy.

"Well," said Amira, "Remember when we walked here? All the people moved to avoid us. Maybe the 
cars and ships will do the same?"

"But what if they don't?" his voice shaking.

"Then we will go home quicker," she said without concern.

"OK," said M - R - Sun, "but I'm closing my eyes."

So he did, trusting his new friend as though they had known each other for years or decades. He went to 
take her hand then noticed that Amira already held it. In fact, he didn't remember a time when she wasn't.

Amira pulled him along and walked into the lanes of rushing traffic. After what seemed like hours, 
or minutes or weeks, they hit the walk on the interior of the circle. M - R - Sun opened his eyes and 
marveled. The Castle was even more impressive up close. The grains of sand looked like small irregularly
shaped rocks, slightly damp but shiny still. Amira dug her hand in the rocks and giggled, then wiggled her
free hand, leaving a little alcove like the larger ones higher up on the façade. They began to walk around 
the huge structure clockwise, Amira always on the outside, acting as a buffer from the rushing vehicles. 
They came upon the doorway then and saw the man they had placed there.

"Good morning," said Amira as politely as her mother had taught her.

M - R - Sun said the same though his was stated as "be well."

The man at the door looked down and did not respond.

"We have come to see what we made," said Amira, but the man would not move.

So, in their childlike freedom, Amira shrugged and pulled M - R - Sun and set out to walk around the man. 
Suddenly he came to life and shouted, "His kind can never enter here!" The man of many colors and many
hands then reached back, pulled a long knife from a hidden pouch behind him and swung it all the malice 
and hatred of a thousand years of prejudice directly at M - R - Sun. The boy pulled away from Amira and 
threw his hands across his face screaming in mortal fear, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes and 
saw Amira, sitting across from him as before, tears running unashamedly down her face.

Her mother came out and saw what was happening. The look of fear was palpable in her eyes and she 
called to Amira, ordering her to come to her immediately. She looked at the strange boy, with his head
covered in strings, falling low to just above his two eyes, and only two arms. She tried to temper the 
disgust in her face and lied to herself that she was successful. No matter that they shared this world, 
nor even that they coexisted in this same valley, she didn't have to like them and she sure as hell wasn't 
going to have one sully her daughter with its alienness.

Amira watched M - R - Sun get up and back away, looking scared and a little panicked. As he backed
away he looked at Amira and saw something kind and confused asshe sat there in the sand, next to what
they had built. He smiled gently, glanced at the bucket swiftly and then back into her eyes. Leaving it 
with her he stepped through the gap in the wall and was gone. Amira's mother mumbled something 
about the wall being finished in the morning which wasn't soon enough. "I can't believe there were no 
walls when we got here. Thank God we all have them now."

Years, minutes, weeks, months or years later Amira looked again at the high wall, its strong, thick material 
the gray of the sand once M - R - Sun had added the water. Though she had unconsciously forgotten him 
and their play so long ago, never seeing him again, she, for reasons she couldn't understand, hoped that that 
wall would dry out. "Maybe it would crumble like my Castle and then we could get in?"


Thanks to C.B. and A.H.