Shepherd of the Stars

A little boy, named Jacob, a shepherd by necessity, not choice, with eyelids weighed down with lead of exhaustion continued to sleep unmoved -- there. A place that has a name, but he remembers it not just yet.

Felled by fatigue, this slugabed had been lying there on his back well past the limits of his bedtime hours. Never before had a boy wanted to sleep more. This time, however, it was tough to shake off  sleep from his drowsy eyes -- though he tried with all his tiny might. He opened the lid of one eye, first, real slow; and then the next, even slower. Then shut both eyes swiftly, and reopened them again, together, with lightning speed.

What Jacob witnessed next was beyond belief. With mouth agape he caught himself peering up a glimmering dodeca-rung ladder of light reaching the roofless dome of heaven; such an eyeful reserved somehow only to those who can dream with oneiric vision of 20/20. His groggy instincts knew right away, quicker than his intellect, that he was not under the same old roof of his familiar mud hut -- this was not home.

Strange as it may, his tired body had been laying there for twelve hours straight in  deep slumber, with a pair of orbs heavy as stone tucked inside their sockets -- missing the entire trip back home last night.

Wrinkles of worry collected about his youthful face as he thought of his mother, but it was too little too late, what’s done is done. He quailed in fear: God forbid, she should think that her only child had fallen prey to hungry wolves or worse.

Jacob’s home lies somewhere, h’m, t-t-there, as mentioned before, but to be exact folks, it is over three successive humps of hills towards that way as the crow flies from here. He’s just a green kid though, younger than some of the sheep he tends to know his forefathers’ landscape well enough.  

It takes an average of two hours to do this pastoral odyssey on a good day, and that’s each way. His back and fro journey requires no knowledge of this mysterious terrain -- what a relief. His trusty ole dog, thank God, knows the way like the back of its paws.
  
Terror in his eyes, he recognized his error quickly, "oh my God," he screamed, "I slept right through the night," and as he sprang up from his make-shift bed, he banged his head hard against his stone-pillow. A nasty gash right above his hairline twinkled with blood right away. As crimson streams began to soak his hair, droplets began to burble and drop into gravity’s wide open hands before they had a chance to clot shut.

A shaft of sunlight quivering around a majestic walnut tree behind him snuck up and kissed his blood-soaked face with solar glare. Looking around, he sought his flock -- his family, so to speak or write -- they were behind him, all right.

His animals, all of them, were in some kind of a ruminant state -- the ones that could chew their cud ruminated phlegmatically; the ones that couldn’t simply regurgitated in animal thoughts about their immediate future in life of five minutes from now. This magnificent pastureland, where a Flower, the Highness of the Fields, gladly lowers her crown to offers her ambrosial nectar to hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees, while birds of different feathers at a distance, sing in varying tongues the lyrics of worm-catching songs amidst the stridulation of beetles and crickets -- what a beautiful life! If one could just run, sing, jump, or fly in these magical lands.

But now, Jacob is up and about.

This little boy, who couldn't have been more than twelve years of age, kept a tight, watchful eye on his flock of sheep entrusted to him by his fraternal uncle, Varjabed, just a mere seven days after his father's mysterious and premature death.

  
Jacob's flock of twenty-one sheep, complemented by four rams, and buttressed by two trusty Anatolian shepherd guardian dogs. The Anatolian canine is a cross between Kangal and Abkash dogs. They're known to herd large flocks instinctively, and protect them ferociously from predators. The boy's late father, Hayrabed, had personally bred and trained these dogs just before his tragic accident. The Anatolian canines are part and parcel of the transhumant lifestyle of the indigenous people since time immemorial.
  
Jacob was a boy of small stature. In fact, the lead ram, must have been one, perhaps two, finger breadths taller than the boy. If you could just picture the ram standing on its hind legs, in human-like stance, shoulder to shoulder with the lad would easily confirm this mindless guesswork of non importance.

A sudden cringing arrested Jacob's delicate face, as he was jarred back into the memory of his father's death. The idea of losing a father for eternity is not an idea a boy should wrestle with at such a tender age. His animals didn't seem to care, as they plucked away on the bounty of the verdant pastures.

At a distance, tall trees were happy as they undulated their heads and midriffs to a whistling tune of the whimsical winds. Also, smaller plants, donned with floriated hats of the latest fashions of spring, were bobbing their heads in unison  adding background rhythm to the unrehearsed dance of the highlands. Nature's olfactory, noticing the windswept bounty in the air, opened its animated lungs to the fragrances bursting out of the flowers' colorful crowns -- a sea of shimmering interplay with nature's symphony in full display. 

One of the younger rams, sporting a set of puny spiral horns was feeling its oats a bit. Its self-importance impressed no other animal but it. After a few amateur hops hither, and few bungling bops thither its rambunctiousness came to an uninspiring abrupt halt.
 
Left with no choice, he paused for a moment, and threw up his eyes to heaven and smiled. Just then, he saw an apparition, the wandering soul of his father and he knew just what to do next. He ignored all thoughts of  angst and despair. Out of a shepherd's bag, he pulled out the duduk that his father had carved from a branch of an apricot tree. He brought the instrument to his lips, puffed up his cheeks and blew sonance of life into it. He transformed his breath with a measured quivering of lips and  fingers into cool melodies, releasing them freely to the whistling winds to soothe a  myriad of ears dotting the hills.

But this morning -- here, not there, as Jacob fluttered out of the Land of Nod, he opened his eyes for real. He realized that this was all but a dream. He found himself to be safe and sound in the warmth of his familiar bed, just as nicely tucked in by his mother last night. Though he did oversleep a tad long that day, I must say.