Perseid Impartation

Created: 08/12/2009 06:35:53 AM

From the surface of this quiet city, my wandering mind reaches out towards this canopy of gleaming stars. The clouds have finally been swept away, luring out the children of Perseus; and my eyes dart back and forth, as they burn streaks into the night sky. This is when wishes are made--by children, by the hopeful, by those who fear the world has already left them alone--though I sit alone.

Inside their societal shelters, they sleep, while the street lights shine down on my back from this abandoned parking lot. My contemporaries find no solace in the quiet brilliance of this perfect night, and I dream of a druidic masquerade to replace our hollow faction. Dancers spin around me in a carousel of smiling faces, music glides through the air--plucked by fingers, sung by harmonized voices of warm honey. This is where I want to be--far away from the hard pavement and drunken headlights--but the cold evening pulls me back from my reverie.

Forever engraved into the celestial kingdom, Hercules looks down at our machines of creation and destruction. Could the greatest of beasts barely approach the level of brutality in ourselves? Will the heavens continue to send the world another hero, another last-chance savior of humanity? Their patience surely must be growing thin.

Soon the clouds begin to drift in. I have carried the wishes of my siblings while they slept, left them with the gods, the stars; hoping they matter to someone greater than I. My arms are cold from the damp night air, and I follow the sidewalk beside gravestones, back to my front porch; my shelter of solace and sleep.