A clear night. Bright moon. I’m out on the deck looking up
at the stars and remembering when I was a kid. I used to lie on the ground and
stare up at the stars, trying to find things in the giant dot to dot in the
sky. I was never very good at seeing the real constellations, so I made up my
own. I saw all sorts of things; animals, faces, furniture, and cars. Once I
even discovered a house complete with windows, a chimney, and trees.
Then I made the mistake of mentioning my findings at school.
Most of my friends were uninterested in what I saw and ignored me. But my
teacher thought had to set me straight. Apparently, only those constellations
that had long been established were viable constellations. The things I saw in
the sky were nothing and due to an overactive imagination.
Of course, I argued that at one time even the established
constellations had been someone’s imagination. But it was no use; my teacher
maintained that those constellations had been discovered by legitimate
astronomers, people who had devoted their life to the study of the stars. And
those constellations were actual groupings of stars with meaning and a purpose.
As luck would have it, later in the year, we had a short
study on constellations. We learned that most of the constellations got their
names from the common things people thought they looked like—or characters from
mythology. The last part was what I chose to focus on.
“So, they are named after myths?” I asked. “As in something
not real?”
“Yes.”
“And you think I have an overactive imagination?”
I don’t think my teacher was impressed with my questions. But
she must have realized it would be a losing argument. She quickly finished up
and moved on. When we got our papers back from that day, I took mine up to her
desk to discuss my grade.
The teacher looked confused. “You got an ‘A,’ what more do
you want?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, a gold star?”
No, she still wasn't amused. ~
Bruce
A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey,
Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS
and
paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders
is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.
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