Becoming Something Else

At this particular moment, a girl stood alone gazing upon the setting sun and the mountains which swallowed it whole. Her skin desperately soaked up the last remaining warmth in the atmosphere, until all the color in the sky had been reduced to a deep, sultry blue. On this night, she noticed too many glimmering stars to count. As her lungs filled with the chilly air of twilight, she felt goose bumps sprouting, first on her arms and then her legs. Her hands searched for her coat, which she pulled around her tiny body. Atop her little head, she placed a hand stitched cap.

Now that she was warm, she turned her attention to the eastern sky, where the vast darkness of space reached past and inside her. A smile twinkled on the corner of her lips as she counted the lights, noticed patterns and shapes and colors. Her young heart fluttered with the wonder of the universe, of what her future might hold.

Her eyes glued to a specific spot, suddenly detecting movement. It was a single silver streak: a shooting star. She sucked in her breath and squeezed her eyes shut so tightly they hurt. In her head, she whispered, I wish, I wish upon a star.

There was something mystical about being beneath the night sky. She was too young to grasp what the powerful feeling meant, but she knew it existed. She had first become aware of it when she was three years old, and her father took her by the hand and showed her a star through a telescope.

“What is it?” she had gasped, completely mesmerized by the glistening orb she spied.

“It’s another sun, like ours,” he had said softly in her ear. Gently, he took the telescope from her and swept it to the opposite end of the sky, adjusting it an inch, then another, before beckoning her closer. “Now look.”

She stepped up and peered inside, only to be dazzled by the crest of the moon. There had been an iridescent haze circling the great white rock, and she could see it now much more clearly because of her previous encounter.

The lights above throbbed with energy, sending a thrill through the little girl who watched. Her eyes began to water slightly from the cold, causing her to blink rapidly and lower her gaze to the earth spread out before her. Their family owned several acres of land, most of which were used solely for the purpose of grain. The stalks swayed lightly in the evening breeze, shining with the silver light of the moon.

Letting out a little huff of satisfaction, the girl trotted down the steps of the wide porch. Once her bare feet came in contact with the cold grass, she was grinning and racing for the play set. It had existed since before her birth – her sister had more than four years on her. A second swing had been added on the end just for her, but it was substantially closer to the ground than the other seat. Now that she was alone with the seats, and with only the fields as witnesses, she took pleasure in sitting upon the taller swing. Her toes scarcely touched the ground, and that was after she had scooted her behind to the edge of the plastic seat. Instead of worrying about the length of her legs, she preceded the ritual of using gravity to give her a head start.

As she swayed to and fro, her gaze drifted upward to the stars. How beautifully they sparkled, how wonderfully they lit up the sky.

And before her very eyes, the stars began to fall. One by one, they winked at her, becoming barely visible in the faint glow of the moon, and then cascaded downward and out of sight.

She stopped swinging immediately, feet digging into the grass and her head thrown back so she could watch. The emerald in her wide eyes glinted with each reflection of a shooting star, pupil flashing to the most recent flash. If she got lucky, a star might have fallen right into her gaping mouth.

Suddenly, she realized that this event would not last forever. She hopped onto her feet, stepping up to the porch to enter and alert her family to the great phenomenon taking place right above their house. But before she reached the top step, a bright light came searing down, stopping her dead in her tracks. And then something happened that would mark a change in the girl’s life, and her entire future.