When she exhales looking up at the passing meteor shower, she thinks of each shooting star as someone she’s loved. Some are faint and barely there at all, while others shine bright and own the sky. I’m not sure where I would fit on this cosmic scale. Could be I’m a mere speck, almost invisible to the naked eye, or perhaps I have a special place in her heart, and my light is there, guiding her forwards down the street where she walks.
The moon, the moon is made of cheese, and when she reaches out her hand and touches the leaves of the trees that line someone’s garden, she wants to run into the darkness and never come back. She wants to find a spiral staircase that takes her up into the heavens, and when she’s there, she wants to never come down. She wants to nibble that moon until there’s no cheese left there at all, and when she’s done, the night will last forever.
I’m somewhere. Not sure where, exactly, but I’m out there, thinking of her as I so often do. Could be I’m some stray dog following her on the other side of the road, or I’m just another ghost, hanging around making a nuisance of myself with a white bedsheet over my head all lovesick and forlorn. Stumbling after her, I’ll look up at those stars and think again about which one I am. There are so many, but all God’s creatures have a place. We all make a difference in our own way.
She’s on her way into town. Or it could be the city. Or maybe even the local park, and there in the dark, she’ll sit on a swing kicking herself into the air thinking about life. Her nose will have turned pink from the cold, and the cold will make her want to pee, but she’ll make the moment last. And the animals will be there, and they’ll be watching her so excited about seeing the one that lingers in their animal dreams. And I’ll come along wearing my white bedsheet, and I’ll sit down next to them and watch her too.
And as the cosmos does its thing above our heads, and she takes out her phone to capture the glow of that cheesy moon, the secrets we all so desperately seek will feel a little closer, and as we breathe in and watch the mist escape our mouths, each and every one of us will smile, because those secrets will whisper their truths into our cold little ears, and as the whiskers of the animals twitch in anticipation and the sheet slides from my skin onto the wet grass, her smile will be the beacon. A lighthouse on the shore. A door to a place where we long to be.
Author S. K. Nicholas 
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