Spring lingered, refusing to depart. The tranquil pond nestled in the corner of the esteemed Kingdom's First Hospital was adorned with tapestry of clouds and vibrant lotus leaves, their verdant hues breathing life into the scene.

The hushed air of the ward was broken by the sound of a cough. Solan opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings. A half-consumed dinner, specks of dust dancing in the sunlit rays, and the door standing as a barrier against the relentless passage of time—all conspired to create an uncanny sense of repetition. Yet, in that moment, he realized it was not the days that remained unchanging, but rather himself.

A premonition, faint yet persistent, whispered to Solan that today would be his last.

With difficulty, Solan managed to struggled from the confines of his bed and ventured outside. The nurse assigned to his care was absent, leaving the corridor deserted. Seizing a newspaper from his mailbox, he settled down to read, poring over each word with meticulous attention. It might have seemed peculiar for a dying man to cling to news, but for Solan, it held paramount significance—a lifeline that he refused to relinquish until his final breath. It represented the old man's final hope, mingled with an undercurrent of trepidation.

Solan did everything routinely during the day. As dawn appraoched with ribbons of maroon and orange painted to the evenings sky, Solan sensed an unprecedented calmnss in the beating of his heart. He knew, at that moment, that something was on the horizon. Leaving the confines of the hospital, he positioned himself in a screeching wooden armchair, sitting and waiting. The faint fragrance of the grass waded through the air, bring back memories from his childhood.  He thought of his brother. Gone are the days he chased him on the lawn. He thought of his mother, father, and even the toy that he left on a train to Norway when he was seven. They all appeared so close, yet impossibly distant. Each one of them awaited his arrival in the realm beyond.

Closing his eyes, Solan surrendered himself to the impending judgment, the trial that he was told that everyone would face. Scenes of his life flooded into his mind. The image of his first completed book materialized before him, its cover adorned with the words "The World Outside the Sky." In his relentless pursuit to prove the existence of a realm beyond the celestial canopy, e had done so many silly measures that he felt really funny when thinking about it.Yet, these endeavors had also invited the vehement reproach of others, for his audacious thoughts stood in defiance of the established religious order. He persisted in his battle for validation until the age of seventy-seven when the king exiled him to the confines of this secluded hospital ward.

In ten years of his Isolation, Solan had conducted a profound examination of his own being. He understood that he really distrust the religion, he would never have dedicated his life to waging war against it. The Kammy had alwaysbeen deep in his heart. The darkness enveloped him, and the moon ascended to its lofty perch in the firmament. Moonlight danced upon the pond's surface, bestowing a golden shimmer upon the water. A lotus blossomed under the moon's tender gaze—solitary, yet exquisitely beautiful.

"Your summer is approaching, my dearest,"

Solan’s voice resonated, his spirit taken away by the moonlit ripples of the pond.

The day following his death, the long-awaited news adorned the headlines. A groundbreaking invention, the telescope, had come into being, validating Solan’s prescient conjecture.

His summer had arrived, right on schedule.