Under The Stars

There they stood, under the stars.
Looking up in silence. Not needing to say anything.

It was so perfect, She thought. What else could you wish for? The stars, the moon and clouds - so unlike cotton candy - floating by in the gentle breeze. She saw the leaves of the Gul-Mohar tree and heard the traffic in the distance. The world seemed just so right to her. And she turned to him with a little smile on her face.

“They say the stars shine brighter at the higher latitudes”, he said not looking her way, but instead vaguely into the distance. “They say they are so bright you can read a book by them.

“And further up, way up near the Arctic, they say there are lights that streak the sky that the explorers call the northern lights. I wonder if they are as pretty as they say they are. I want to go up there someday. I want to look at the stars and the lights. And I want to go to the Sahara, where they say the moon shines really bright...”

He didn’t really see her get up from where she was sitting next to him.

But she did get up. And she said to him in a firm voice that reminded him so much of a schoolteacher, “I’m feeling cold. And I’m going inside. The northern lights you so rhapsodize about are called the Aurora Borealis and they’re nothing more than bits of electric discharge from the sun.”

He looked at her puzzled. Did she not want to hear about how many amazing things there were to be seen?

And she blinked back tears. Would he never ask her to come along when he went to see the lights?