Stargazer

Stargazer

         Once there were nine sisters, paired off in groups of three. They were all born on the same day. Each group was inseperable from one another, having divided themselves off at birth. As they grew no one could tell them apart. Young and green, they had yet to experience the world and all the wonder that it contained. In their youth these sisters were shy and closed off from everything around them. They huddled together in their groups of three and whispered amongst each other about what they thought the future might bring. As they aged they realized how drastically time took its toll. Childhood passed on into adolescence, and changes occurred.
         There came a day in which one sister pulled back the shadowing curtain and discovered the beauty of sunlight as it poured down upon her face. There was a time in which she only knew darkness from the safety of her bed. But curiosity overwhelmed her and she found herself looking out upon a world of shimmering gold and exquisite green, a darker shade than she was herself. Filled with warmth and joy she spread open her arms and parted her lips to sigh in exquisite satisfaction. In her excitement she did not notice how her cheeks began to glow a rosy shade of pink and her skin glistened with sparkling beads of ecstasy.
         Enraptured by her discovery, this sister whispered the secret to her nearest sister. The following day that sister mimicked the activity of the first. In pulling back the shrouding veil, she uncovered the enlightment of the glorious dawn. And like her sister before her she welcomed the rapture of daylight with open arms and sighing lips. The first sister smiled upon the second and nodded contendedly as she watched her cheeks turn rosy and her skin glisten as did her own.
         In time the sisters had spread the word of this discovery amongst themselves and throughout their groups of three. Each day they basked in the comforting bright tenderness that the sun bestowed upon them. Their blood stretched towards the surface of their skin until their flesh, once pale and green, became lined with vermillion. The sisters grew coppery hair that sparkled with the dust of the early dawn. Nothing could be more perfect than their delight in the miracle of life they experienced daily.
         Then one day a man came by and plucked one of the sisters away from her group of three. Her family, so engulfed in their rhapsody, did not notice her departure. But the stolen sister wept and quivered in fright, for she did not know what was to come and could not bear the thought of leaving behind her world of bliss. The man held her gently in his palm and looked down upon her beautiful face sadly. She could not fathom why he looked so distraught and wished that she could show him her world of unending satisfaction under the caress of ceaseless sunlight.
         Night came and the seven slept, oblvious to the absence of their sister. But when the sun rose again the next day, they saw her broken and tattered at the base of their bed. The man had shorn her of her shimmering hair and peeled away her glorious skin. Pieces of her body lay scattered on the floor in dried and wrinkled fragments. Distraught by their loss, the seven remaining sisters wept and quivered. They refused to drink or eat or partake of the joy of the sunlight. And come the next morning they all lay upon their bed in cracked and shriveled heaps of brown and gray. Not even the sunlight could breathe life into them anymore. For their happiness was lost the moment their sister was crushed beneath a sad man’s palm.