Night Lights

• Kayla Niemann, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2013

Stepping out onto the ice sheet I never realised how alive I'd feel with the cold wind against may face. Catching the snow as it winds its way through the mountains. I look up into the clear night. The sky is riddled with specks of light rebelling against the suffocating dark, as they seek to escape the nothingness of space. The moon is full and so bright that with all the light bouncing off the snow you would nearly mistake it for the sun. But this light is a rich, comforting white blue, nothing like the striking yellow hiding just behind horizon.

A second set of moon and stars is before me on the still water. The wind seems to leave the fluid still as if it recognises the raw beauty. Carefully I make my way to the edge and take off one of my gloves. Something in the back of my mind squirms in the cold. A half smile creeps across my lips as I defy all instinct and place my hand on the surface of the wet mirror. Rings erupt from where I place my hand, they distort the sky and warp the shape of the moon. I want to leave it there and wait for the water to settle, let my hand become another corner of light among the specks. It becomes too cold to bare so I recoil my hand and dry it before replacing it in my glove to regain feeling in my finger tips.
If only I could touch that other sky as I touched this perfect copy.
Would it too warp under my fingertips?
No, more likely I would warp under its somewhat graceful force.
No one can conquer that sky.