Number the Stars

My eyes flew open, and to my disappointment I found myself in an awkward and rather painful position in my seat. Only a few of the overheads were still on, splashing soft light into various corners of the cabin. The rest of the cabin was dark and quiet, and I was aware of the low rumble of the engines again. The guy seated next to me had fallen asleep in the middle of his movie and the images continued to flash silently in front of him.

I pulled out my Ipod to check the time but I caught myself. We were currently time traveling east to west at roughly 500 miles per hour over the Atlantic Ocean--there was no real time, no concrete point of reference to pinpoint exactly what time it really was. All I know was that we still had hours to go before the sun would roll over the horizon at our backs to overtake the speeding aircraft, and a few hours after that I'd finally trade this glorified can of sardines for another one bound for Los Angeles.

I was lucky enough to get a window seat for this flight home (because it's not everyday I get to see the world from 40,000 feet) and only hours before I'd watched the lights of Tel Aviv recede into darkness as the plane ascended into the night sky. I was a bit bummed that I wasn't able to get a seat with any of my friends but I had the sights of the window to keep me company.

I wonder what's outside now? I've never seen the sky at night--from for the sky. I quickly rebuked myself--it's dark outside; there's nothing out there to see. But now my late-night curiosity needed to be fed its midnight snack so I lifted the shutter a few inches and peeked outside.

I was right; it was dark. I could see the right wing jutting out into the darkness; the lights on the wingtip flashing steadily. Somewhere in the void I could just barely make out a dark line separating sky from sea, darkness above from darkness below. The faceless ocean below me was rather terrifying to look at, and even scarier to think about the absurd amount of water I was suspended above right now. I leaned further into the window to look upwards instead.

I let out a small gasp, my eyes widening to drink in the sight. The sky was smothered in stars. All I could see for as far as I could see was nothing but stars; bright, burning, frozen in the sky. I pressed my face further into the glass. The darkness above was teeming with countless little lights clustered in the overpopulated sky like beach-goers on a crowded beach. I tried to pick out the few constellations I knew but it was impossible to tell them apart, all lumped together like barnacles on a rock. It seemed like half the universe had stopped by my window just to say hello. It's no wonder the sailors of old could navigate by celestial lights. Twinkle twinkle everybody.

Suddenly I was thankful for my privileged position. I wasn't chained to the ground by gravity or confined to a bright, luminescent city full of artificial lights blocking out the beauty above; I was suspended between heaven and earth, between space and sky. Ocean and aircraft faded into the foreground as stars hung in nothingness, watching over me with bright and eager eyes as if they'd been there all along. Nobody moved--neither distant lights hanging in empty space nor speeding observer hovering above the small spinning rock hurtling through empty space. Instead we gazed and stared--I at them and them at me, through millions and billions of light years and galaxies and space dust and God knows what else.

At any moment, I half expected the burning spheres in the sky to stretch and elongate before my eyes and we would go hurtling through space at the speed of light just like in the movies. We would be home in an instant.

It all lasted but a few moments--one small soul on an airplane peering into deep space. I closed my mouth for the first time and whirled around in my seat but the guy next to me was dead asleep. He probably wouldn't have cared anyway. The entire cabin was asleep.

I sat there in the dark, my eyes full of light as I tried to harness the energy of the cosmos in that little chair by myself. Everyone around me was away in their own worlds and dreams, ignorant of the galaxies that lurked just outside of the window. I peeked under the shutter one more time to preserve the image in my mind for safekeeping. When I looked again the stars were still there, silent and watching, just like me.

I reluctantly bade my little slice of the universe goodbye. I slid the shutter closed, curled up in my seat as best I could, and slowly retreated back to the familiar world beneath my eyelids.