Pretentious White-boy Musings

2001-11-19 - 1:57 p.m.

Had an interesting experience on Saturday night. That was the night of the Leonid Meteor Storm, clocking about 1000 shooting stars an hour at one point. Exciting stuff. Missed it, almost. You see, I asked a friend of mine to stay out late with me to drive to the everglades and catch it at 4 in the am. She couldn't, had too much work to finish, so I didn't make the drive. I stayed up till 4:30, watching bad TV and suffering through I think the most painful headache I have ever had. It's part of that miserable fever I wrote about before. It's died down a lot since, but Christ on High, that night was the worst. I couldn't move for most of the night, the pain was so bad. Anyway, the night was overcast, and I didn't see a single star, so I went to bed. As I was making my way into bed, I looked out the window one last time, and some part of me was screaming that I was missing something wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime. Something that shouldn't be missed. And I stopped and looked out the window, blindly searching for anything to justify the pain. I almost convinced myself that I saw tiny shooting stars, but I think they were normal, stuck, faint ones. Nothing was moving. The sky was one ugly bruise, punctuated with the huge cloud that sopped up the night and hid my stars from me. And my head was screaming in agony, and I was missing my stars, I'd never get them again. They were there, they were hidden, and I couldn't tell anyone I'd seen anything, because I hadn't. And I started to pray. I prayed to God to give me just one star, only one, that would make the pain worth it, let me know there was something going on out there. Just one. And right before I turned away, the sky split in two for just a second, cut by a beam of light shrieking towards earth. Then nothing. I watched again for another minute, and nothing. One star. Just one. And it was mine. And I started crying. My head was a jumble of pain, and wonder, and gratitude. I cried. And then I went to bed.

I think, if there is a God, I got the chance to ask him a favor. One chance, that's all I get, and I know that. I could have asked for anything then. I used my chance to ask for a falling star in the middle of a meteor storm, a small event surrounded and duplicated a thousand times that hour. I used my chance to ask for what was already there. In the middle of the pain and the sorrow, I asked for a piece of debris to burn in our skies.

It was worth it.

Nothing has ever been more worth it.

"Night Moves"

A bruising black and pink

white cloud steeped

and bleeding tea

on weak and sheepish cries

pain had prised

my sides of eyes

Felled star for trembling lip

thin white strip

I prayed for it.