Stars

I was laying on my back looking up at the sky. Aunt Dianne lay next to me as we stared into the night sky. She didn't want me wandering around on my own because of mountain lions and grizzly bears. All around us was the scent of crushed pine needles and earth. The needles came from the tall pine trees that framed the chunk of sky we were looking at. It wasn't really the sky we were looking at so much as we were looking at the stars in the sky. So many stars. For the first time in my life there were more stars than darkness. There were so many I worried about them bumping into each other. That and there were colors. Alongside the typical white star were huge red ones and bright blue ones and yellow ones all over. The red ones were my favorite, even though they weren't very bright. Aunt Dianne told my that the silver smear across the sky was actually tons of stars in something called the Milky Way. She also said that we were in the Milky way too. Which was kind of confusing because it was way up there but we were still in it. My head was starting to spin but then Aunt Dianne told me that all of the stars up there were actually like the Sun but just really far away. It made me feel like and ant staring into the eyes of God. What was I compared to this world? Why did my life matter? Who am I to challenge the being that put all of this into place? Why would a deity like this care about me? Why? Why? Why? I couldn't answer that. I still can't.

'"A couple of weeks earlier, Miss Page had gotten the ax when the principal caught her toting a loaded rifle down the school hall" (Walls 73). Understatement