D is for Degrees

Where do you start when you have the whole world to explore? I had probably missed seeing around ninety percent of it in … I guess you’d call it my previous life. I wanted to go to Mexico and see the day of the dead (no pun intended). I wanted to go to Antwerp and look at the fields that Van Gogh painted. I wanted to go to London and watch the filming of the new Sherlock series or go to Wales to watch Doctor Who. On reflection there are two reasons I’d make a terrible Time Lord. One is that when presented with the world on a plate I wonder where the televisions are, and the other is that I couldn’t decide where to go on one tiny planet at one time.
I did make a decision, though. I’m not sure how long it took because even this high up the sun doesn’t move very quickly. I wanted to see the people I loved; those who I had left behind.
I began to circle the Earth to the right. I guess I did that because I used to be right-handed. If I had’ve been left handed or better at geography I probably would have saved myself about a day’s travel but I guess none of us can ever know everything.
I started to zoom in on the country of my birth and death. A place I had once considered to be my little corner of the Earth. I guess I was kidding myself on that as none of us are here long enough to consider ourselves anything more than a brief visitor, an acquaintance of a planet far older than our minds can comprehend and with a longer future than we can see. If you’re curious to know what it’s like to find places while flying at a low altitude then go to google maps, zoom and remove all of the street names and other indicators of place. Nothing looks like it did when I had walked those streets. I couldn’t even remember the colour of my mother’s roof. I could have dipped lower but I wasn’t sure if I was visible to people, even though I couldn’t see me. I didn’t want to cause any unnecessary heart-attacks.
As I roamed above the houses I watched the people. A little girl being pushed on a swing by an old man, the girl screaming ‘Higher, Papa!’ while Papa did his best to comply with her wishes without putting her in danger of a broken bone. At the same playground a small boy, perhaps two or three, with golden curls, flushed cheeks and bright blue eyes is helped by an older boy with matching curls and eyes across a rope bridge. The young boy poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth while concentrating on getting across while the older boy kept his eyes on the younger ones progress, ready to catch him if required.
On a bench away from the play equipment an old woman sat and threw bread to hungry ducks. They were all degrees of people, some further around the circle than others. I was a degree, too, but I was a degree on a sphere; the sphere we are unaware that we are on until we move outside of the two dimensional circle.