Everyone knows that when you make a wish upon a shooting star, your wish is supposed to come true. Of course everyone knows that, but sometimes, I wish that I could be oblivious of that fact, of that innocent, wishful creation that shines hope upon even the youngest of children. I could stop waiting here, hoping you would come back to me, but no matter how I try, I can’t, just because I wished upon a shooting star.489Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv50IkTKIcq
I already know you won’t be coming back. It’s funny isn’t it, that even though I wished for your return on a shooting star, the constellations themselves have already predicted that you will never return. Your destiny has long been written in the stars, a fact that not even I could’ve changed. I might’ve gotten confused on some other day, whether to believe the stars dangling in the sky above us or the diamond streaking through the night past us. Sometimes it makes me wonder if stargazing actually works or not.
You left me last year, right on Halloween, my favorite holiday. You left the house with a smile and a wave just as two children, dressed as a wizard and a ghost, walked up to the front step, cheerfully shouting “Trick or treat!”
I’d been so absentminded that I had given them the whole bowl of candy, much to their delight. I had to go to the convenience store to get more candy, and I accidentally bought five bags instead of just two. If you had still been there, you would’ve laughed at me for giving into the temptation of the big sale in the store. It was such a waste of candy.
By ten o’clock, only five other kids had knocked at the door. After that, I just gave a whole bag of candy to the next that came, a boy in a hospital gown, wrapped in bandages, probably a failed attempt at a mummy costume. I was sure he’d get plenty of cavities from it, but just seeing that brilliant grin light up his face wiped all regrets from my mind. That’s just the way I was. I’ve always loved children. They were so innocent, without any idea of the cruelty of the world around them. I was almost jealous of their obliviousness.
That had been when I saw a shooting star. I stared after it, even long after it disappeared, before I finally remembered that I ought to make a wish. Wish making only works a few seconds after seeing a shooting star in order for it to become true. That’s what I believed at least, so I said the first thing that came to mind. I wished that the candy I gave that last kid would make him healthy, just so he’d be spared from a mouthful of cavities.
Three days later, on the front page of the newspaper that’s always squeezed underneath my front door, I saw a huge picture of the same boy grinning in the same hospital gown, his parents shedding joyful tears beside him. The title read “Cancer Survivor Sneaks Out of Hospital on Halloween.” Supposedly, the kid had been undergoing a series of cancer treatments before he’d stolen out of the hospital for his favorite holiday. He’d eaten a whole bag of chocolate bars before the doctors and police had been able to find him. They’d hurriedly tested him for any aftermaths of his sudden adventure and were relieved to find nothing unusual. The next day on November 1, they’d administered the last of chemotherapy to treat his leukemia, now completely cured. Scientists and doctors were overjoyed by the discovery. Priests called it the work of God. I called it a lucky wish upon a shooting star.
It was only after I was smiling to myself for helping such a child that I remembered you weren’t here anymore. To tell the truth, I only noticed because usually you’d slide up next to me, asking what other miracle I’d managed to whisk up before laughing when I would claim my good deed to be the work of magic. That was also when I realized that I really should’ve wished that you would come back to me instead. I was happy that the kid was healthy now, but it still didn’t make up for your absence.
Without you, my mind tended to wander. Ever since you left, it’s been like that. I remember once, sometime around this past Christmas, when I had been sitting in a rocking chair out on the front porch. I had been stargazing again, looking to see if my luck would chance upon another shooting star. Before I knew it, I woke the next day to a neighbor’s urgent shaking, covered in a thin coat of snowflakes. Instead of worrying though, I found myself wondering how I must have looked like as a real life snowman. Times like those always made me miss your laughter once you saw me make a silly mistake as you scrambled for the camera. That was always amusing, especially to me.
You must be wondering what I meant from before then, when I said I’d made a wish for your return. I did. It was just later. I’ve always been lucky, especially with wishes. You used to claim I must be a wizard. I really wish I was one. Then I could bring you back to my side instead of having to wait here, alone and cold in the pouring rain.
It’d been just last week when I wished that you would come back to me. Six days before today was how I remembered it. To tell the truth, I think it was Valentine’s Day, but I really hadn’t been in the mood to celebrate. You refused to pick up your phone, which I finally remembered to call once I accidently came across my forgotten cell phone. It would’ve made sense if you were angry. In fact it would’ve been better if you were furious at me. I knew it was probably my fault anyways, the reason you left. I wasn’t strong enough for you, for the world. You knew that, so you left me to come to that conclusion myself in my own time.
It was still cruel of you for leaving me like that. I don’t take things so well, especially when I’m forced to figure them out myself. I could already imagine you laughing as I rang you up, ready to admit my absent-mindedness and stupidity. Instead, all I got was your voice mail. It didn’t anger me. I was just upset, upset that I couldn’t hear your voice, the cheerful melody that hadn’t rung in my ears for almost four months. Perhaps it was something more I wondered. Maybe you weren’t just angry. Maybe that anger had turned to hate, hate for a pitiful magician who only knew to make others happy while forgetting everything important to himself.
I found myself understanding that hate. For one moment, I even felt that hate for myself bubbling inside of this weak heart of mine, threatening to shatter this pathetic creature who only knew of wish making and dreams and yet nothing of the cruel reality that surround him.
That had been when I went outside to take a breather. I never handled negative emotions well. Staring up at the sky, I wondered how it had become night so quickly. The day had passed like water trickling through my hands, something I tried so hard to grab onto and yet never could. It was just like my time with you, something I failed to grasp and treasure until it was too late and I could only watch as the remnants of the water slowly trickle away down the drain, into a world I could never reach, a forgotten past, a lost dream.
Suddenly, a spark of light flickered across the sky, streaking across the horizon like vanishing hope. It was another shooting star, a miracle of its own kind. This time though, I had my wish prepared. Staring long after the star that flew across the heavens, I wished to know the truth, that you would somehow come back and explain why you did what you did so that I could finally wake up from my reverie and move on with full knowledge of the reason for your choices.
My cellphone suddenly started ringing in the house, its soft and melancholy ringtone ripping harshly through the dark silence of the isolated home of mine. I was sure, so sure that it had to be you, that my wish must’ve been granted. I went inside to check it.
It was an unrecognizable number. Slightly disappointed, I picked it up anyways. You could’ve been using someone else’s phone, I decided. I wish it could’ve been like that.
Instead, the conversation rooted me to the floor of the home, feeling even chillier as the breeze slid through the cracks under doors and windows. I wanted to throw my phone at the plastered walls, scream and claw at my hair, maybe even at my useless eyes that hadn’t been able to see the truth. But I couldn’t. I had to be strong. To stay calm.
“So…can you come?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked, broken with sharp inhalations as it almost cracked midsentence. Almost, but I could tell I wasn’t the only one trying to stay calm. I couldn’t recognize this voice, the voice we’d both loved. It was like you really had vanished, gone like the harsh north winds that had shivered through my house during these past months.
My reply was simple. There could be no other answer. “Yes,” I replied. “I’ll be there.”
I wondered just how my voice had stayed that calm and composed. Valentine’s Day had vanished from my calendar. I no longer had use for it. You would never return, even with my wish, and yet still I prayed it was a joke. Some sick joke played from the hands of God.
The next day in a small article in the newspaper, the name of a boy appeared in its obituary. The boy had supposedly been cured of cancer only to suddenly suffer another attack. He’d died last night, around the same time of the call.
Now I stand here. Here in the rain, under the pouring tears of the heaven above. People have umbrellas, but none are dark enough to block out the tainted sky, now stained forever with sadness. It was no pretty sight, watching as relatives and friends piled up in the small piece of land, dotted with the remains of their ancestors, now joined by one who had died too young, too soon.
I know why you left now. You always knew of my weak heart, of my fragile emotions. If I had been stronger, perhaps you might’ve stayed and told me the truth. Maybe I might’ve been there as you fought your final battle, alone, all because you were afraid of telling me.
Maybe you wanted to keep me as the oblivious child I was just a little longer. Perhaps you wished for me to enjoy the innocent world we’d admired just a little more, before even I was forced to face the truth, but I knew I couldn’t stay there in the place of dreams and wishes, the place of innocent children. Not anymore.
They were lowering the body now, the casket closed so that the only memory of you I had left was when you left on Halloween, the light from the door illuminating the sad smile on your face as you hurriedly waved goodbye, almost knocking over the wizard and the ghost. Those children, they’d probably grow up one day too, until they shed their costumes and faced the world, leaving behind the carefree world everyone once lived in.
You forced me to see that fact. Even as dirt fell over the coffin, sealing the doors between the living world and the heaven you must be leaving to, I knew in my heart you were hoping for this. Not death. No one wishes death. Just a simple wish from the bottom of your heart that I’d wake up from my dream, ready to face the reality around me and leave my sanctuary of wishful thinking.
Shooting stars, they were the most beautiful things in the universe, the rarest beings in the celestial sky. They were the vessels of wishes, children leaving their happiest of dreams up to the comets that streaked the sky. Perhaps you’d also seen that shooting star on that last Halloween. What you might’ve wished for, I dare not guess. Your death had broken something inside of me, something that could no longer be repaired. I had already latched onto the shooting stars, waiting as they dragged me, closer and closer to the world beyond their reach, the world outside the mind of the child I was.
The funeral was ending. I hesitated, and then with a sudden whim, I walked, slowly, towards the new headstone set in the ground, bearing your name. A loving daughter. A kind sister. No word of a lover. I didn’t mind. I couldn’t find a word to describe our relationship now. It was better if no one could.
My eyes fell on the one quote inscribed there. “Reach for the stars and follow your heart to wherever it may lead you.” It was strange, but a hint of a sad smile crept onto my face. It was like you, to choose a quote you made up on your own. The quote, it might as well have been written for me. It was your thoughts, your soul, all embedded into this block of stone, materializing it to a form I could see.
The rain was starting to stop. I glanced up, watching the stormy clouds disperse as the sun peeked out from behind. Suddenly, there was another streak of light, the true sign of the lucky. Three shooting stars in a year. It must have been the season, I decided as I picked myself up.
The shooting star passed and headed into the clouds. I stared after it, admiring it. It was like your life, so brief yet beautiful. It didn’t carry our wishes, I realized; instead, it brought them to us. I’d seen the wish of boy fighting cancer, the wish of a mother seeking condolence, and now your own wish of freedom, of a loved one finally growing up. Maybe that wasn’t exactly what you wished for. I decided it didn’t matter.
So, just as the clouds began to clear, as the shooting star vanished into the distance, I smiled for the first time since your death and left the graveyard. I left behind my unshed tears as a tribute to you and the child that had once lived in my soul, now buried underneath the sacred ground together in the world of long lost treasures. I started to head forward through the fog that had now risen in the cemetery. My heart set and the sun shining, I passed through the cloud of gray hesitation and left the graveyard. I never looked back again.
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