When he was older, when his children had grown, his wife had died, and he had no more worries to keep him in bed staring at the ceiling, he took to walking through the darkest parts of the city at night. He gazed up at his zenith point, and thought about Copernicus and Galileo, about Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. He left his world behind, pretended that he was an ancient, in a world where nothing was discovered and everything was new.
Sometimes he even reached up, fancying that if he could circle the moon with his finger and his thumb, he could hook it and swing beyond his limits. He took the path through the park, through the ghetto, under the bridge: too busy charting everything above to watch where he was going, too lost in everything that used to be.
Until one night, one of the dark children of the street crept forward, and lifted his wallet from his pocket with light fingers. He turned too late, his reflexes slowed with age, and fell. As he came down hard to earth, he realized that he was an ancient, in a world where everything was discovered, and nothing was new. He gazed after the thief fleeing down the street, envied his young strides before rising up to walk home with his hands in his empty pockets, counting his steps, watching the pavement at his feet.
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