The Meteor (2003)
When the night had unfolded and eleven o’clock had come on this November evening, bundled up in hats and scarves and gloves and thick winter coats, we lay on the hood of our little car and watched the star-speckled darkness of the sky. With the moon behind us, full and plump, the black turned a darkened blue and stars multiplied in their vast web, indiscernible, like the fireflies of the cosmos.
Our spirits flowed forth from our lips. They rose with the steam in the bitter cold, and yet we lingered. Then, a firefly broke loose, fled and disappeared. Just a little twinkle, and in the event that I would have blinked, surely I would have missed it. Afterwards we watched intently, not daring to blink for fear of missing such an occurrence when it would present itself again. We were willing with our hearts, for we stayed, and thus the grace of the universe rewarded us.
There on that freezing November night, lying on our backs, the dark blue sky presented us with a simple greatness. A bright fiery point emerged toward the east and swept across to the west in a line of brilliance as if the world itself had been split in the most magnificent way. I held my breath, and when my whole being had filled with the awe of this great line of fiery white, I exhaled my soul with the steam which escaped me, and I was made anew. My heart leaped and I breathed again. This was the moment of real life and I felt it more now than ever.
