Waiting for rescue

There was not even a shred of a doubt in my mind – this would be night of my rescue. Surely my saviors were on their way. I lay there in the darkness, gazing up at the two-foot tall rectangular window high above my bed. I was supposed to be sleeping, but I was electrified with anticipation. I could see the glimmering lights out there, some of them suns, some of them planets, all ablaze with life. I clutched onto the lucky charm I won at the Boardwalk that summer, the magical talisman I’d used to summon them. It was round and green, with my name stamped across the top in a semi-circle, and a four-leaf clover emblazoned in the middle.

This would be the night, the night when the star people would come take me away. They would come and rescue me from this veneer of a world and return me to the real, a world high above this one, made of finer stuff. I thought of my mom and dad, how they would feel when they found my empty bed the next morning. But there was no way to explain it to them. Their minds and hearts were not prepared to understand or accept what needed to be done, and what great cosmic orb was pulling at me, drawing me closer.

I thought of them, and my little sister, and my pet hamster, Sally, and then I fell asleep with my small hand tightly wrapped around that charmed tin trinket.