Staring at the stars. Not at the ground, not right in front of her, but at the stars. Looking at each one wink at her glittering with pale gold light and looking down upon her as a mother would a child. The pride that shone through. The only ones who could light up the night sky by themselves, not by reflecting the sun’s light, but shimmering and sparkling as independent celestial beings upon planet earth. All these thoughts ran through her as she sat there, staring.
She was deaf to the inpatient calling of her mother. She couldn’t smell the fried chicken wafting their way into her nose begging her to eat. She was blind to her father placing a hand on her back, covering her with his jacket, and spooning in the chicken bit by bit while she sat, still looking up and hugging her knees. She could only hear the otherworldly music, only see the light they gave her, besides the city. She could feel the magic. She looked at the stars sprinkled like salt over the shiny black tabletop.
She thought of the story of the stars. A beautiful golden goddess with her deep blue voluminous robe and chestnut hair surrounding her in waves. The Goddess sprinkled stars down into the universe.
But she had a different way of creating stars as well. Stars had inevitably become an essential part of human culture, and seeing how important they were to humankind, she bestowed a gift upon humanity. A soul who had lived a good and prosperous life would one day become a star after their passing.
The stars always had been her sole interest and she hoped the Goddess was watching. Waiting for her to become a star.
What would it be like? To become a star? What would it be like to know the secrets of the world? To understand the meaning of the music the stars sang softly tonight? What it would be like, she wondered
Her father left. Nothing more than visions in her blind spot. She knew it was long past bedtime. She loved bedtime. She had a room in the attic and could fall asleep staring at the stars. Just as she did tonight. But tonight, there was something else in the star’s music. A word, she listened. A word they repeated over and over. A word far too familiar not to be recognized. Her name.
“Inkan…” they called “Inkan…Come with us to play. Come to your destiny”.
She lay still in her bed looking at the stars call her. But, soon she was lying on a bed with light yellow glittering around her. The magic of the stars. But Inkan was too appalled to understand what was happening. It raised her off the ground and into the heavens. A sleeping Inkan lay in bed. Only her soul was experiencing this.
She found herself in the Milky Way with stars floating around her in the thousands. She reached out to pick one of them. It shivered away but giggled. And again. And again. And finally, Inkan looked for another one, one with no reluctance to be hers. But the giggling star still followed her. Though she had no eyes, Inkan knew her giggling star looked up to her and pleaded. Inkan scooped her up and examined her. She shone with pixie dust, sang with the voice of a stolen angel, and laughed with the sound of thousand tinkling bells. She was only a ball of light. But, at the same time, she was so much more.
The stars brought Inkan back down to earth where she lay. She fell asleep, cuddling her star as a good luck charm, mutually protecting one another.
