I awoke with a start, heart beating wildly, eyes searching the gloom surrounding me. All was still. Crickets chirruped outside my window, through which moonlight floated, silvery soft in the warm summer air.
I rose silently and padded across the thick carpet towards the gentle breeze. The sky was dusted with stars that night, sparkling and twinkling with an unusual brightness. I looked at them for a long time, gazing at them, studying their patterns and positions.
They had always fascinated me, ever since I was a small child and had wished upon the first one to appear each evening. Their secrets held me in rapture and their power held me in awe. I loved them.
This night, however, was different. I was somehow drawn to them. My eyes were like magnets, unable to resist their pull. I could not stop looking, searching, studying.
They seemed to call out to me, they whispered to me, and caressed me with their light. I was drunk upon their brightness, giddy and laughing. They laughed with me, those stars. They winked at me like old friends. They were omniscient and they were omnipotent. They filled me and surrounded me. They were alive....
I will never know just how long I stood there. Seconds, minutes, hours, all flew past me, for the moment was timeless. I was still standing sentinel at the open window when the golden sun's rays found me next morning, chilled to the bone and pale with exhaustion.
I felt drained throughout my whole being, as though I had fought a war alone, or run a marathon. My mind was empty of all thoughts or emotions. It was nothing but blackness, dark as jet, and was filled with the white, blinding light of a single, giant star....
*
..to be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment