The stars were so pretty that night. Cloudless and cold, the sky hung above me and never noticed me watching it. It felt good to be invisible. The sky didn’t care how I looked or what I was thinking about. It wouldn’t ask my opinion or about my day. The sky was too big to notice me, too far away to care about just one more speck staring up at it.

I hugged my jacket closer around me and tried to hold onto the feeling of invisible. I’m not here I’m not important, but the sky was beginning to notice. Perhaps I had been staring too hard. I ducked under the picnic table and wasn’t there as loud as possible.

“I’m not here!”, I shouted at the sky.

“Look someplace else! Go far away with your bigness and your stars.”, I pleaded.

“I just wanted to see. I didn’t mean you to find me. You were so far away I didn’t think it would matter.”

I pulled my jacket over my head as the sky came down to earth.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “ Please go away.”

I hid my face and waited to be forgotten. Soon, soon the sky would remember it was big and cold and far away and it would go back up and forget the speck who had dared to stare. I breathed deep and quiet and waited.

Between one breath and the other I felt the picnic table lifted away.

“Hello,” said the sky.