Begrudgingly, I hauled the last garbage can to the curb. The cold, night air of mid-November accompanied me, making me curse my weekly ritual and my own foolishness at neglecting to don a coat. As I turned to return to the warm embrace of the indoors, I noticed the morning paper lying unopened on the driveway. With a sigh, I picked it up to add to the already full can, but as I did so I glanced over the headlines. Upon reaching the Weather page, something caught my eye. A meteor shower was due to pass by at roughly 11 o’clock at night until four in the morning. I scoffed at the foolishness of waiting around simply for some rocks to go flying by, and without another thought, I chucked it into the bin.
I checked my watch on my way back to the door and saw that it was already 10:48pm, so I shrugged my shoulders and figured “What the hey, I’ll stick around for the next twenty minutes or so.” Besides, it would give me another excuse to avoid my homework that was due the following morning. I stared up at the sky intently for a while, finding my anticipation growing with each passing minute. After several minutes with no sign of anything, I began to grow frustrated with nature not instantaneously gratifying me. At 11:00pm sharp, I expected some celestial “On” switch to be thrown and the heavens to perform tricks for my amusement. Instead, I found myself growing weary of staring upward and tired to the point of sleepiness.
My eyelids grew heavy with exhaustion and I let out a customary high-pitched yawn when a great light flashed before my closed eyes. Quickly I snapped them open and instantly wished I hadn’t. A truck turning onto our street had chosen to drive with his high-beams on for whatever reason and I was momentarily blinded. Blinking to clear my vision, I turned my gaze to the sky once again, but all I could see at that moment was a great purple blob obscuring my sight. I rolled my eyes and stamped my feet to regain feeling in them and headed inside.
As I signed onto Facebook to see that nothing new had been posted, I fell back into my chair to wallow in despondency. After a few minutes of sitting there, I heard the loud bang and rumble associated with the heater being turned on, followed shortly by a yell from downstairs “Close your damn window! It’s cold in here!” I groaned as I lifted myself out of my chair and as I reached for the window, I stopped myself. My room is constantly the wrong temperature, whatever I want it to be, it’s frequently not. Thus, with the heater turned on, I knew it would probably reach unbearable temperatures and force me to leave. Pondering this, my hand brushed against the screen, giving me an idea. I pulled on the tabs and removed the filthy construct from my window giving me free access to the outside. I reached inside and grabbed a sweater and stepped out onto the roof, sliding the window shut behind me. I no longer wished to be inside and deal with inside problems, meteor shower or no, I simply wished to sit and stare and do nothing for a while. It had been a while since I had been on the roof and just looked up, I had forgotten how big the sky really was.
It was well past the 11 o’clock scheduled start, so I figured I’d see at least something. All that I saw was a single engine plane lazily turning circles over the mountain in the distance, perhaps some pilot out for a night flight to clear his head as well. Suddenly I felt very alone upon the roof without the warm glow of my computer and the faint buzz of electricity to keep me company. I flicked my phone open and considered calling someone, but snapped it shut and dismissing the foolish notion, nobody would be awake at that hour and certainly wouldn’t care to be bothered by something as trivial as a seemingly non-existent meteor shower. I puffed out my cheeks and blew out a long breath, watching the pale cloud drift off into the sky and slowly dissipate into nothingness. I closed my eyes and wished for a change, something to bring me comfort, if not joy.
Suddenly a solitary meteor blazed across the sky on its journey to places unknown and most likely uninteresting. My breath caught and I watched in mute amazement as it winked out of sight as abruptly as it had appeared. Watching that icy chunk of rock burning through the atmosphere comforted me, its beauty reminding me to just let some things be. In that moment, I was happy. Shortly thereafter, another appeared and another, until they were as raindrops falling across the sky. Albeit, very sporadic and peculiar raindrops, but raindrops nonetheless.
For the next few hours I watched as the meteors danced across the heavens; a thousand wishes streaking through a diamond sky. I thought of the countless others miles apart taking time from their own lives to stop and simply look upward and wonder at the infinite majesty of the heavens. In that moment, I did not feel so alone.