Winter Solstice Magic

A Work of Fiction

Source: firstpost.com

Source: firstpost.com

Mahnoor Mustafa, Class of 2024

It was the longest night of a bitter cold and harsh winter, and the power supply was cut off since she couldn’t afford the bill yet. The darkness consumed the whole room, but she wasn’t afraid of it; she knew that, “The truest darkness was not the absence of light, but the conviction that it will never return.”

With the scintillating light of the moon being the only source of illumination in the room, she opened the blinds to gaze at it. She stared for a long time at the elegance and grace of this planet’s one and only natural orbital satellite, pondering upon the fact that the only cause of its mesmerizing and calming beauty is the light of a big, humongous ball of blazing fire. Despite being in need of the radiance of another entity to shine, the moon shone differently; it gave its own unique sensation of comfort. The moon was not visible every day, but when it was, it was her refuge, what others would call a “safe place” from the world’s gloominess. It was the silent, but only attentive and seemingly avid listener of her melancholic tales.

Today, the moon shone like nothing else she’d ever encountered before, it was incredibly effulgent, but next to the very few glittering stars roughly painted across the night sky, her attention shifted towards something else. Something amazingly profuse and bewildering, it seemed like two celestial objects, but they were not as bright as the stars surrounding them. Could they be astronomical bodies; perhaps planets or asteroids of some sort? She felt astounded at the unrealistic sight before her very own eyes. Maybe, this was the universe’s sign telling her that everything would be alright, that the constellation of her life would assemble in order and glimmer brightly once again, maybe not; in spite of that, she had already fallen in a deep slumber believing in it to be true.

She later discovered that the phenomenal occurrence she witnessed was known as the “Great Conjunction,” when Jupiter and Saturn appear to be close together; indeed how great and majestic the vista of it through her bedroom window was. Despite being knowledgeable of the rational justification of the paradoxical episode of the previous night, in her heart, she had convinced herself that the occurrence was the signal for ease in her distresses, holding more significance for her than that of any 11:11 sign in the 11th month.