Starlight, Star Bright

As long as I can remember, I have loved watching the the stars. Those celestial candles , as I sometimes call them to myself, afforded me my first bits of reptile zen. On a warm summer's night, not too long ago, over a glass of wine and a chiminea, I told Sabina we were gazing upon the hieroglyphs of the Divine. Although what exactly those hieroglyphs are saying is a riddle that has puzzled far more bipeds than me. Through my watching of the stars, I've able to hop-scotch the quantum and travel time, knowing the days of dinosaurs, dragons, and titans, just by looking up. The first story I ever truly told was based upon the stars.

I could give a list of things I disliked about my ten years in the greater metroplex that shrinks or grows, dependent upon the day. There was only but one thing I ever really hated about my time there, and that was the amount of stars I could, or more to the point could not, see. Perhaps one needs to be a child of the wild, having seen the celestial candles beyond the monkey lights of cities to understand what I'm on about.

Lifetimes ago, the fucking indian and I were listening to hair metal. Which band, or bands, dwindles in importance as I get older, since oh so many sounded oh so much the same. We were smoking cigarettes and listening to music. The fucking indian was telling darker tales of his not-so-nice childhood before the death of his parents and being taken under the one wing of his grandfather, who was one of the most amazing storytellers I've ever encountered. My waxmoon reptile eyes were transfixed on the deliciously clear and starry night before us. The musics, his dark tales, were incidentals. Backbeats to my observations of the heavens.

"You're not even fucking listening to me!" He growled at one point, and to a sad degree, he was right.

"Look there," I said, after a long drag of my cigarette and pointing to the sky. "The whole of human existence has happened there. Empires, kingdoms, tribes, and religions have risen and fallen. The greatest of accomplishments and the grandest of failures. All of it, under the celestial candles. Look up! No matter what's happened down here, they've stayed the same. That, elder brother, is maybe our constant. The one thing, no matter what, you can believe in."

The fucking indian took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled his poisons in a cloud of dragon's breath. I knew his temper, and feared he might just hit me. Instead, a smile formed across his face.

"You sound like my grandfather, you know that?" He said.

"That's about the coolest thing anyone's ever said to me," I said, but then I pointed at the sky. "Look up now."

And we said nothing further, but just watched the stars, trying to ascertain the riddles contained in those hieroglyphs of the Divine...