Astronaut

My third son is kind of an astronaut. He regards his own body as a suit, just barely attached to himself.

I often worry about him flying too high, or floating too far away, that he won't be able to return to this here earth I live on. To the trees, the cars and the birds with no names.
He is an astronaut lost somewhere in his own mind.

The messages he sends also are disturbing and not always understandable. The words are all mixed up it seems, scarred by static interference. And when I ask him something his answers seem like answers to questions I asked him weeks ago, or questions I will ask him in a year or two.

Sometimes then, when I am talking to him, I'm scared that I will never reach him again. That someone, someone scary, someone inside, recorded his voice a long time ago, and tries to answer my questions with samples of these recordings. Carefully assembled sentences, but just words, no meaning. Words like flees.

But ever so often he returns. From where-ever. My son. I can see his eyes seeing me. And he is just a kid, a boy, no pressure suit, no empty space between us.
He cuddles up to me, like the other ones did, and do.
Tickle me daddy, tickle me! Throw me in the air!
I love that, him laughing, the bed dangerously creaking every time he lands on it. I love to throw him high up in the air.

But never too high.
Because he's getting rather heavy lately.
And you never know how long he will stay up there......

Maus 2013 - c Jenne Bleijenburg  -www.jennebleijenburg.nl