Jas. Hook, Captain

The Starry Firmament

The Starry Firmament

There's a cruel kind of give-and-take that exists at night on the streets of a modern industrial city. Of nooks, crannies, hidey-holes, niches, and the like, there is many a dark place in which to secret oneself when necessary.

That, you might say, is the give.

The take - you are never the only one trying to hide. All manner of creeping and crawling things have long made their homes in any sort of place you may wish to occupy. At all times, you are an unwelcome guest.

But sometimes, if you're upwind from the factories belching smoke and ruin into the sky, if the wind persists, perhaps you might catch a glimpse of the heavens above. And it's a beautiful thing, innocent and pure, a comforting black veil adorned with jewels, for the starshine falls gracefully upon the cruel and the kind, indiscriminate in its generosity.

Peter slept fitfully beside me and, between the crawling bugs and shivering from the cold, he seemed possessed by some dancing demon. I myself feared that I might bite off my own tongue from the intensity with which my teeth chattered.

I thrust my hands deep in my pocket and felt the smooth brass cover of my father's pocket watch, an item I'd nicked while he was away playing at war. I pulled it out and checked the time.

2:35 in the dead of night. It brought little comfort.

"Peter, are you awake?"

"Hnnn..."

"It's so cold. Do you think we could find somewhere warmer?"

"I hear France is lovely this time of year."

"I'm being serious."

"I know you are, Jim. I know. But there's not much we can do right now. Unless you want to go home."

Of course he knew better.

"Anything but that."

"Then I have an excellent suggestion for you," he said, whimsical. "Get closer and start shivering. C'mon! I'm relying on you here. Who knows. We might start a fire with all the friction."

For all my superior size, I fear I offered little relief from the elements. So I did as I was commanded.

I shivered. With vigor.

I dare say I shivered with the utmost enthusiasm, putting my entire body into it. And if I had continued with my frenetic attempt at slumber, I may well have rumbled myself apart so that a carpenter with a good set of instructions for assembly might still have puzzled over how best to put me back together and settled for writing a poem about me, perhaps a children's poem with a clever title, in which royal cavaliers and their valiant steeds also could offer no help.

Yet as I lay there, fairly vibrating among the rats and roaches, I saw a light appear in the sky. And what a light it was.

It twinkled, but not in the accustomed way, not in the way I had seen stars twinkle in my limited experience, whenever the smog lifted or the smoke cleared. No, this particular star danced about the sky like a ballerina upon the stage, not that I'd ever had the good fortune to witness a ballet, myself, but I'd heard of such things.

There it was, flickering at irregular intervals, and jumping from one place to another as though it had escaped from its own constellation and was determined to explore the others, perhaps to see if they had a space available. Words alone cannot begin to describe the state I was in: amazed, drunk with wonder, awestruck, dumbfounded, bedazzled. Surely, there are better words but I knew them not.

In simple point of fact, as the light grew ever closer, and as my jaw sank lower, I wondered if this might not be the end and if I might not be seeing that fabled light of which so many have spoken after a brush with death, gazing at eternity.