Thursday, August 21, 2014

~ Shooting Stars ~

There goes another

Jonathan walked out the back door into the yard behind his house. He could hear the sound of the waves crashing not far off. It wasn't the usual sound of the midday waves cresting on the sandy beach, though. There was a distinct difference between this and that all-too-familiar sound of the wake. This one was far more distant and sounded a lot more like water on water rather than water on sand. 

Sure enough, his hypothesis was quickly proven true. As soon as he crossed the bridge over the dunes, Jonathan was taken aback by the beauty of the early morning beach. He had never seen this sight before- sleep was pretty precious to him. But this was no ordinary morning. Tonight, the meteor shower was at it's peak, and Teresa promised to join him. 

Although Jonathan lived right on the beach, Teresa still lived a couple minutes down. She would surely be here soon; normally he would be able to point her out walking down the beach a mile off in her orange-and-white modest swimwear. With only the moonlight to view by through his cheap lazy-day glasses, he wouldn't be able to see a giant walking down the beach until he was nearly stepped on even if he tried. So instead of straining his eyes to look for her, he decided to just lay back and enjoy the softness of the ever so damp sand that was now 50 feet from the waterline.

He looked up into the sky. It was the night after the largest and brightest moon of the year, so the sky was a lot more visible on the left side where the moon wasn't. There he sat, waiting for the display to begin. There we go, he thought as the first shooting star of the morning zoomed across the sky. After about ten minutes, another flew through Orion's Belt, separating it like a gunshot. He was glad he had listened to Teresa's advice to wake up early in the morning instead of late at night- There were almost certainly more meteors that were visible at 4:00 in the morning than 10:00 in the evening.

Jonathan heard a crunching noise and quickly sat up. No human being could miss the recognizable sound of footsteps, especially in the sand. Teresa smiled as she looked down at him, smiled a smile saying I'm happy to see you and daintily sat down next to him. He smiled back with the return message, I'm happy to see you, too.

They lay back, both of them now, and talked. They talked about adventures, dreams, fears and wishes. For two hours they continued exchanging stories, smiles and laughs. They even ventured so far to imagine themselves living in the moon, always seeing half the earth at a time. Occasionally, as though to listen in on the conversation, a shooting star would develop right above their heads. She would spot one, he would spot one, but they never spotted the same one.

Finally, after two hours of sharing memories together, the sun began to rise. And it wasn't your typical sunrise that came up over the horizon, most of the sky blocked by invading buildings and trees. No, the sun came up through the water like it was getting out of a bath. Its brilliant rays shone down on the water with the beauty of a thousand meteors while the rest shot out through the clouds causing a blueish-orange haze across the entire sky. Night met light with a distinct line- one half starry night, one half beautiful bright.

He looked over to see the look of awe that was surely on Teresa's face...

But she wasn't there.

Somehow, though, they had still shared memories. They'd still comforted each other. He didn't want it to end. Any of it. But if there were two things he'd learned that night, it was this:

• The sun will always come up in the morning, brilliance and all
• That he never had to be alone, because the moon could be a portal
                                                                                     between
                                                                      universes.

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