The Gift: Chapter One

"When the stars threw down their spears, watered Heaven with their tears..."~William Blake

"To the right hand I turn'd, and fix'd my mind
On the other pole attentive, where I saw
Four stars ne'er seen before save by the ken
Of our first parents. Heaven of their rays
Seem'd joyous."~Dante Aligheri

The horizon lay flat and empty at the edge of the ocean. The waves moved perfunctorily, lazily, under the hot eye of the sun. Far off in the distance, one small speck drifted gradually toward a larger speck. hours passed. As the sun melted down into the warm waters, the two specks merged. The eye of the world sank below the horizon into darkness.
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A fire blazed on the shore of the island; the two men bent over it, instinctively coming together for protection against the darkness.The light of the fire danced in and out of the trees. The men had dragged their boat quite far out of the water, being unfamiliar with the tides of the island. They had built their fire a good way inland, but not too close to the edge of the forest.
The firelight now flickered against the tree trunks, now illuminating the shadows between them, now hiding them in blackness again. As the fire burned itself out on the sand, the two men set up their tent and went to sleep.
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The man fought his way to consciousness, throwing off sleep and exhaustion. He forced his eyes open and stared. Like most civilized men, he had never seen a night sky completely free of articificial light or pollution. He saw it now. A million, a hundred million, a thousand million spears of light rushed down from the dome of heaven.He was silent a moment, lips moving, reciting the words of the poet. He stared up like a madman, unable to look away, tears streaming from his eyes.
A dark shape rose up on his right, a mountain towering against the brilliance of the stars.He slowly got to his feet and stumbled slowly toward the center of the island. Soon, he began walking briskly, then broke into a run. Never taking his eyes off the peak, he ran, dodging a few trees, and began scrambling up the side of the mountain. He fell, scraping the skin from his hands, then got up and continued running. The stars slowly turned on their course above him, constellations and galaxies swirling in their timeless dance.
Finally, bleeding and gasping for breath, he gained the top of the mountain, and stood there transfixed. An entire sky filled with stars, more than any eye could see, hung above him and below him lay an ocean so calm that it reflected each point of light. The sky grew brighter, hour by hour, then with a mighty leap, the sun mounted above the horixon. At that moment, the entire jungle below erupted into song, a song mixed with the flutter of a thousand wings. From every tree, birds began to take to the air, singing and chirping loud enough to deafen him.