Short Stories
From my home I saw a star in the sky, a distant and bright star set among pitch blackness. Not one star shone next to it, by comparison they all added to the bleak darkness surrounding the star. Yet without wane, without supplication, without failure... it never ceased to defeat the blackness, and shone with a brightness that the eye could not take. From the window, from the chair that I called my seat, I saw this. This star. This star whose edges appeared to pierce the darkness around it – whose strength outmatched that of the black shine.
From the pit of my heart a desire echoed, to follow the star. A fisherman I am, I knew the ways of the stars. So I gathered my cloak, my sandals and my staff. Gathered a bag of goods to tide me the journey of unknown proportion and set out.
Into the wind I drove, eyes on the star. For days upon days I rode until I met a woman, cast asunder from her family. She wandered aimlessly for days in search for a city, and was in need of food and drink. With my eyes on the star I did not see my hands unloading both from my pack and handing them to her. Not until I heard the sound of water sloshing did I realize. My eyes were still for the star. So my food and drink I let her partake, and my company she kept. I pointed to the star and said, “Every bright star leads home.” My father's saying when I was a boy.
She had no words for this, but her eyes were for the star now. Consumed instantly with the awestriking wonder that the star exuded. So we continued to drive on through the sand and through the dust. Yet no matter the quantity of sand in the air, the star never dimmed. For days we continued to drive the terrain, following that star in the sky. She drove more furiously than I, even if with a smaller gait, and often I struggled to maintain her zealous pace. With our eyes on the star, we drove for days until in the distance we saw a city. The star seemed bigger now, though it could have gotten no brighter. For the first time, we stopped and rested on our journey. We were weary, but still had our eyes on the star.
We set up a small camp and for the first time she spoke, “From where did you leave to follow this star?”
At first I opened my mouth, then closed it again. The words had been stolen from my mouth and I could not answer. I remembered nothing before the star gracing my eyes with it's light. So I simply answered as truthfully as I knew, “I was a fisherman, seven days walk from where I met you.”
“A fisherman.”
“Yes, a fisherman by profession. Catching and selling fish at the sea.”
“You said you were a fisherman, why the change?”
“I don't know, I honestly cannot remember anything before I left on my journey.”
“Did you experience a sharp blow to the head?” She searched my cranium for marred flesh, and found none, “I suppose not.”
“It was the star, it... entirely entranced me. The call of the star echoes in my heart still from the day I first left my house. I guess whatever lies in that city is my home, that's the only way I could describe it.” Her face was directly beneath the star, and for the first time he could see her face entirely illuminated. She was beautiful.
For the first time since the journey began, we rested in company of one another. In awe of the star above the city. For the first time, we rested. Peace came to us in our sleep, and it was not a restless one wary of the journey to follow, but a complete one in retrospect of the path already traveled. The journey was all but finished.
In the morning the city was enshrouded by darkness, clouds thick black and tossing lightning and sand in deadly circles. Still with our hearts and minds on the star of the previous nights we refused to be turned away from the city by any threat. So into the torrent of sand and electric fire we pursued the call in our hearts. With my back to the wind I covered her, and her back to the rear for the upsurge. Our heads bowed for the first time, together we were the perfect phalanx against the darkness, and across my cloak surrounding us as one, no lightning could pierce.
We walked yoked together, carrying equal weight, protecting equally. Her zeal directed our walk and my back took the stripes of the sand and lightning. Until suddenly it all ceased. Calmed instantly, and raising our heads from the confines of the cloak... we saw it.
The embodiment of the star, the brightness shone exactly as it promised from the sky. In a manger among a multitude, among the hay and the animals, at the side of the babe was a mother. At her side was her husband. Both looked down upon the babe with eyes that were stricken with glory and awe. The two of us walked dyadically toward the babe surrounded by reverent company. At his foot we fell by strength of our knees. A stark contrast to the small babe fresh of the womb were three nails made of steel on which his hand rested, a little under half his own length.
Tears fell from our eyes at the glory before us, hand entwined in hand we looked upon the beautiful and vulnerable babe. Together we looked upon him in awe. We were Home.
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