… and now, at one in the morning, it was just beach, stars, and dark sky. The waves pounded rather scarily. On the blue tarp path to the sand, a solitary person startled us. “I was lying down on the path for the meteor shower, but I got up when I heard you.” A slender young man, maybe seventeen, wearing a hockey uniform, appeared in our flashlight. “My mom told me there might be a meteor shower.”

“Might even be a meteor storm,” said UD. “But might be nothing.”

“I’ve seen twelve meteors already,” he said, excited. Also genial, polite.

“That’s promising! Any of them have tails with fireballs?”

“No, but most of them were very bright.”

UD liked his excitement, recognized it as the same species as hers — the anticipation of an insane cosmic shakeup. As in – why should that not be? Why should the infinitely firm (yeah I know it’s not really; but that’s how it looks to us) firmament not do a big ol’ break dance and splatter itself with sweat? Why shouldn’t that occasionally be? Not Stars Fall From Heaven stuff, but the universe for, say, twenty minutes, losing its glacial poise – its gassy poise. Letting its freak flag fly…

And here were Les UDs, ideally situated – prone under a huge clear sky on an empty stretch of soft sand. Light breeze, seventy degrees.

******************

And certes, as soon as we lay down, bright meteors (and jets, and satellites; and, over there, bejeweled container ships) blasted out of the black, their silver stilettos thrilling the three of us… But there weren’t many of them — not a shower, not a storm, not even a swarm; merely jabs here and there concerning the death of comets.

And fine. Our humble humanoid charge was to thank the divine withholder for at least this much glint, even this weakly dropped hint of the amazement up there.

Mr UD babbled throughout about big bang controversies and changes in the laws of physics and UD tried to follow as her eyes swept the sky.

After, UD told the hockey kid about Cherry Springs State Park. He whipped out his phone and read, entranced. We left him there (Mr UD made sure also to mention Big Meadows) in the bowl of the universe, in his little circle of cellphone light.