Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks

Author:Nicholas Sparks [Sparks, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780446694858
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2004-04-05T07:23:01+00:00

Late in the day, we headed back to Ayers Rock for the third time. This would be our chance to see how it changed colors at sunset.

“I’m beginning to get the impression that there’s not much to do around here besides stare at Ayers Rock,” Micah confided.

“It won’t be so bad,” I said. “I hear there’s supposed to be original aborigine music tonight.”

“Oh, gee,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I can’t wait.”

As it turned out, that evening was one of the trip’s most memorable. It began with a cocktail party—and yes, everyone stared at Ayers Rock when the sun started going down—but afterward we were led to a small clearing where tables had been set up, complete with white tablecloths, candle centerpieces, and beautiful floral arrangements; the setting was gorgeous and the food delicious. Among other things, on the buffet they had both kangaroo and crocodile meat, simmered in spices and cooked to perfection. The temperature cooled, and even the flies seemed to have vanished.

We ate in the desert under a slowly blackening sky; in time, the stars appeared in full. Later, the candles were blown out and an astronomer began to speak. Using a floodlight to point to various areas of the sky, she described the world above.

Not only was it dark and clear enough to make out individual stars in the vast sweep of the Milky Way, but because we were in the Southern Hemisphere, the sky was completely foreign to us. We were all spellbound. Instead of the Big Dipper and Polaris (the North Star), we saw the Southern Cross, and learned how sailors used it to navigate. Jupiter was closer to Earth than it had been in decades, and glowed bright in the sky. Saturn, too, was visible, making it the first time I’d ever seen both planets in the same sky. Even better, we found out that TCS had made arrangements for telescopes. That evening, I saw the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, and while I’d seen them in books I’d never seen them through a lens. It was a first for Micah, too.

On the way back to the hotel, he leaned his head back on the seat, the picture of contentment. “The morning was great, and the evening was the best on the trip so far.”

“It’s just the middle you could have done without, right?”

He smiled without opening his eyes. “You’re reading my mind, little brother.”

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes as well. No one on the bus was speaking; most seemed as relaxed as we were. In the silence, my mind wandered. The years had passed so quickly that I couldn’t help but feel as if my life seemed surreal, almost like I were viewing it through someone else’s eyes. Perhaps it was because of the evening I’d just spent, or maybe it was due to exhaustion, but in the midst of this foreign land I suddenly didn’t feel like a thirty-seven-year-old author, or husband, or even a father of five.

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