We are seeing stars, millions and millions of stars like specks of paint flecked onto night blue canvas in a spontaneous arrangement of particular brilliance. The North Star startlingly apparent. Understanding that the stars are actually bigger than the sun, and farther away, yet seeming close enough to touch. The stars lying over us like a blanket, colder and more foreboding than the blanket my sister cuddles at night. The star-blanket settling over us out of the depths of eternity, as it will settle over us at the end; knowing this while we are lying there admiring the beauty, and it is smothering us.
That was what we saw the night we drove up to the dam and spread blankets on the cold hard asphalt between our parked pickup and the dam wall and lay there to admire the stars. We saw what the night wanted us to see; we could see which pinpricks of starlight the moon and the clouds had chosen to expose. We had been living in the city for too long, and our country raised souls yearned for natural light unpolluted by the bright city…for the whispering wind that dances through the trees and the leaves…for the shadowed night creatures that lurk curious and unthreatening at the reaches of our night-limited sight. It was cold and the breeze nipped at our uncovered faces. We were each cocooned in quilts to keep the frigid air from the rest of our bodies. Every few minutes a star shot across our sight in a quickly dying display of light. I wished on each and crossed my fingers for extra luck.
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