Leo Smart // Woodford County

     Shifting thoughts pursued my attention as I approached the monolithic trees. A rustle of leaves to my right pulled my eyes to the blackened undergrowth; whatever made the noise was invisible to me. I turned away from the trees and surveyed the field as the moonlight fell over the brooding countryside. Every night I was drawn to this field, a different aspect of it every time. I could feel it all from here, from the faraway stars, to the birds singing their mournful songs, and to the little animals of the forest.

Tonight was a new night to me. Tonight, the only thing on my mind was the brightness and shape of the moon. It wasn’t quite a full moon, but it seemed to be the brightest that I had ever seen. I craned my neck to look straight up at the bright sphere in the sky, temporarily absent of thought.

     Then I was hit by a freight train of thought. The force knocked me off my feet and into the tall grass of the field. All logic that I’d ever been taught had led me to believe that the moon was far away and the stars even farther. I’d been raised to appreciate the science behind all of this logic and all of the men who had literally died to assert that the Earth was just a pale blue dot in a sea of emptiness. All of that faded away. I’d never been to the moon. I’d never seen that dark side of it. The stars could’ve been 200 meters above me and I’d never know because that wasn’t a height I had yet experienced.

     The feeling that I might’ve been much larger in the universe than I had previously assumed was a lifting one. For all I knew, I was the king of all the eye can see, to the edge of time and space. I was a giant, inches from being able to grab the moon out of the sky. The swath of countryside that I had been knocked into blew away as the starry sky accelerated to my eyes. The stars had come to my level, and I was as tall as the moon. While reaching out to make my mark on the constellations, I stopped and thought about the reality of my situation.

     I was in a field, on Earth, and much too small to touch the night sky. My two border collies swarmed over me looking for attention and warmth. I wanted to be big. I wanted to be important, but the void of space was too large for me alone. They licked my face and motivated me to get up and out of the field. Walking to my house I resigned to understand that I was minuscule, yet every step I took left a resounding thump of a giant to be heard by those of the future.