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Young Writers Society



Deep Philosophical Discussions and Smiley Faces

by SidereaAquila


We're out on the Bok Walk, just me and Gabi. We still have another half hour to kill before we get to use the telescope.

I'm lying on my back on the concrete balcony. My hands are folded over the zipper of my fleece, and my head is balanced just so on the base of my ponytail. The night sky envelops the world above me

"I still can't get over how dark it is out here," I say. I want to speak quietly, for fear of disturbing the night, but the wind is just loud enough to block out a softer voice.

"Yeah," Gabi agrees. "There're nowhere near this many stars in San Antonio." She's sitting next to me in a fleece of her own.

"You know what's really cool?" I say. "If you stare at some random patch of sky, you don't notice the bright spots. You notice the dark spots. That's how many stars there are."

"I know, it's crazy," Gabi adds. "I've never seen the Milky Way before now. Except at basic camp, but that wasn't like this."

I stand up and walk over to the railing. Kitt Peak is the tallest mountain in the area. To the east is Tucson, so far away that it's just a diffuse orange glow. Sells, a smaller town, lies to the south, about half the distance to Tucson. We can distinguish individual lights from up here.

"I've always wondered why more people don't care about this stuff," I say. "I try to get my brother interested, but he doesn't even listen to me."

"Yeah," Gabi agrees. "I don't get it, either. It's like...everything else is too small, you know? Why do all the little things matter when you can have the entire universe?"

"Exactly!" I exclaim, pointing at her. "All that other stuff is confined to Earth. This isn't."

"And there's only so much you can do with Earth," Gabi adds. "Space is practically infinite."

"I guess that can be scary for some people," I muse. "I know my mom doesn't like to think about it because it's too weird for her."

"Yeah, but that's exactly why I like it!" Gabi exclaims.

"I know, me too!" I agree. "I don't think it's scary weird, I think it's cool weird!"

Gabi walks over to the west side of the Bok Walk. I follow her. There's a very small town, quite nearby--two clusters of orange lights, and a curved line underneath that.

"Know what that town looks like?" I say. "A smiley face."

Gabi looks at it. "Yeah, it kind of does!" she agrees. "Those are the eyes, and that's the mouth!"

"And sometimes is has a tongue," I add.

"What?" Gabi asks.

"I think there's a highway underneath it, or something," I explain. "Because I can see car headlights moving sometimes, and when the car is near the mouth, it looks like a tongue. See, look at that!"

A car is driving past the tiny town on the highway. It drives right under the mouth, making it look like the smily is licking its lips.

Gabi leans on the railing, laughing. "Yeah, that does look like a tongue!" I laugh with her. The car takes a good minute to drive by the town, and we're still laughing when it's gone.

We stop laughing, and for a few seconds, neither of us speaks.

"Wow," I say finally. "Deep philosophical discussions and smiley faces. Oh, three AM delirium!"

"I know!" Gabi chuckled. "I love astronomy camp!"


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the button war, the egg being featured member, and santa necro-liking halloween-esque works are the reasons i love yws
— Carina