Tiny Little Star

By: Amanda

PERSONAL LOG: DEANNA TROI

I took the long way home tonight. It had rained today and the sky was still pretty overcast; so much so that I wouldn’t have known it was a full moon if the calendar hadn’t said so. You couldn’t see the moon at all, nor anything but clouds. And yet I kept looking up. I kept looking out in to the sky as I catch myself doing more and more these days. The sky was pitch black, and in the forest it was so still I could almost feel the darkness. I was trying to make shapes out of the few clouds I could make out- playing mental games with myself, when I saw this one, tiny little star.

And it amazed me. I had spent so many years out among the stars and yet this one, tiny little star was to me the most incredible thing in the galaxy at that moment. It was as if that one little star had moved all of those clouds out of its way so that I could see it; so that it could see me.

And so I stopped dead in my tracks and I stared at it. And by the time I started walking again, I found myself wishing. And I wished as hard as I could for him to be with me. I knew it was impossible, but still I wished harder and longer on that little star than I had ever wished for anything in my entire life. I felt like, if that one, tiny little star had the power to move all of those clouds out of the way- then maybe- just maybe it had the power to make him hear me.

All of the sudden it didn’t matter how far away he was; Earth... Oblivion... it didn’t matter because, wherever he was, he could be looking at that very same star. He could be wishing for that very same thing.

Just then the wind kicked up and blew my hair into my face. I turned my head and brushed it back. And then I immediately turned back to look at my star... that’s what it had become- MY star; mine and his.

But it wasn’t there. It had gone behind a cloud and disappeared like it was never there.

The whole rest of the walk home I kept- LOOKING- up in to the sky; half expecting to see my star right where it had been. Like maybe it had just gone to deliver my message and come back to say ‘mission accomplished’.

Of course it never did come back.

And maybe it was just nature being... well- natural, but it really brought a lot of things home for me.

I have no way of knowing where he is or what he is feeling and there’s not a thing in the universe that can change that. And maybe he’ll come back to me. But maybe he won’t. And wishing on stars isn’t going to do me any good. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop.

End