08.03.2008 - 6:53 p.m.

Whenever I go camping, I always wish on a star. This dates back to camping as a kid in western Maryland, in Greenbrier, I think, or some place like that. There was a pond near the campgrounds, and my father would take me and my oldest brother down to the water at night, and we would stargaze.

This weekend, there were no stars. We were in a narrow valley between two tall ridges, so the sky was limited to begin with, and it was cloudy besides, thinking of rain all evening.

The storm finally hit that night, as thunder and lightning and a fitful downpour. I think it was trapped, like I was, between the two ridges, because where I live, storms blow in an out. This one only bounced back and forth, east and west and back again, all night.

I read once that lightning is much larger than it looks from the ground, that the electricity discharges above the clouds, maybe even into space. So I wished on a lightning bolt instead, the one that hit so close that the air didn�t growl; it cracked. Perhaps it would consent to be my messenger.

The next night, driving home, there were still storms in the distance, though less rain and more shows of heat lightning. For a while, on I-81, the stars did come out in pieces, peeking out through tears in the clouds. It was hard to tell the constellations that way, a glimpse of this, a glimpse of that. Two stars nearly in line with a brighter one. Was that the body of Cygnus? I wasn�t sure, but I wished on that, too. Just in case.

-stonebridge

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