(1 of 1. Originally posted on June 2, 2023 for the prompt “Shooting Stars.”)
“When you see a falling star, think of me…” Janie’s quiet song under the night sky brought a feeling of warmth and comfort. The last fragmented memories of her father had faded long ago, but the song he’d taught her still evoked echoes of memory. “…though I wander far from home, in my heart you’ll always be. When you see a falling star, think of me.”
She used to go outside and look for falling stars whenever she thought of him, though she rarely saw one. As memory faded, her thoughts of him had become a list of unanswerable questions. Why had he left? Where did he go? Did he still live? Would he ever come back? The first few years she had stood outside at night waiting for him. The next, she stood outside wishing. Then questioning. Tonight she stood outside feeling alone, singing to the empty star-filled sky.
Janie wiped her hands on her rough wool dress, disregarding the smudges of dirt from her mother’s grave that stained the white fabric. She remembered other families. Some of them with children near her age. One by one they’d gone, whether into the woods or into the graveyard, until only Janie and her mother remained. Her mother never let go of her dream, that the man Janie no longer remembered would return and take them away. But now her mother’s dreams lay buried next to her memories, and Janie stood outside an empty log cabin singing to a cold, dark sky.
“When you see a falling star, think of me…” Janie’s song trailed off as she tracked a pinprick of light shooting across the sky. She silently thanked whatever benevolent deity had granted her this bit of solace. The spot of light grew larger, moving as if to land in Janie’s outstretched hands. From pinprick to fingertip to candleflame to torch, until it filled the whole clearing with flickering radiance.
A shining metal craft touched down in the yard. Janie stood, her face a frozen mixture of fear and awe and hope.
A hatch swung open, and out stepped a man whose face haunted her dreams. “Janie…?”
