Sarkis is a boy of seven: Seven years, seven dreams. “Sarkis is sick”, his doctors say. He has seven years to live. Sarkis, however, does not believe in time; he sees no sense in it. He knows of dreams, his mother, the sun, the unlimited universe, love, play, light, and most importantly, he believed in  green.  For a long time now, Sarkis has been spending most his nights on his balcony, gazing at the vast universe, exploring its wonders with his telescope.

One dark night, Sarkis remarked a shimmering light in the distance. The light could be seen to the naked eye, and it was surely shining green. Sarkis grabbed his telescope and spotted a green planet.  That surely was not one of the planets he knew by heart.  Pluto was brownish, Neptune was blue and white, Jupiter was much bigger, Mars was reddish, Mercury was grey and similar to the moon, Saturn was more colorful and Uranus was more plain…wow! That was a new planet he had discovered himself! Now his name will be written in the thick books of knowledge! Now he can make his mother proud forever!

Sarkis went to sleep that night with seven dreams in his heart, and on his mind…he roamed around the sun all the way to visit Green, his own planet,  along with his mother whose hand he put in his all the way.  Everything was fresh green there except for the money, for there was none;  People there offered and received flowers in their daily exchanges.  Even the people themselves were green. Sarkis was amazed because the planet he lived on, the Earth, was plain brown; He saw no green there; his grandfather had told him stories about how the earth used to be called ‘the blue planet’, but Sarkis never saw that blue either!

On Green, there were sparkling streams and glittering blue skies, and green trees stood tall and proud; during his stroll with mum, he met a little green girl. He asked her why everything was so green and fresh-looking.  The girl smiled and told him that everybody on the green planet dreamt of green, ate green, walked on green, worked for green, played with green.  She told him that he could have some green dreams to take with him to his planet if he wanted, and so he did.  Sarkis carried some green dreams in his pocket to give to his friends back on earth .  He shared some with his mum to offer to the neighbors too.  Sarkis also kept a lot of those fresh dreams in his heart, and, in the end, his seven dreams all came true only on his planet, Green.

Angelique Fallah,

Feb 29, 2012