Birth of the Desert Stars
by Christina Hermes

Generations ago, before you and I were born, before even my parents’ parents, the world was much like it is today. The sun still warmed the sand into a frenzy, the winds still scattered the grains all around the world. Rain was still sparse and welcomed everywhere it lent its life to the lands around it. The only major difference was the stars. When you venture out at night today, you will feel the light of thousands upon thousands of stars journeying with you. They guide us with their ancient wisdom, leading our footsteps through the desert to help make our trip far less perilous. 

 

But it was not always this way. 

 

There was once a time before the stars. 

 

The night sky was not empty. Clouds still floated past and promised rain, and the sister moons still rose on their own schedules, but both were inconsistent. Everyone knows that the giggling sisters dance around the world as they please, and the clouds slumber for much of the year. There was no consistent point in the sky to guide the weary travelers, nothing to suggest they were going the right way aside from what few landmarks they could make out in the dark and the conviction in their hearts. 

 

It was in this world that the boy was born.

 

It has been many years since anyone knew his name, and more still since his name was important. He is a hero of this world, but he could have been any one of us. He was born to a normal family, in a regular encampment, tending to animals just as any other boy his age would have. As many do, he had dreams of leaving his small station and trying to find the city so many travelers passed through from, to try his hand bartering among the busy streets. It was not that he did not love his family, but rather they did not understand his dreams. They could not comprehend why a boy like him would ever want to leave.

 

But every night, he felt the call pulling him to the desert.

 

It felt almost as though the wind were trying to drag him there, even on the calmest of days. Like the sand under his feet was sinking, pulling him further into the soil below. It felt warm and comforting, but in a way that alarmed the boy, as though he would rest his head and never wake up. It felt right. 

 

Some nights, he answered the call. He would come back to his family late in the morning, already exhausted before his day's work began, and his family would chide him for going out, saying that one day he would get lost and not be able to find his way back. Their words scared him enough that he would often attempt to fight the call, but rarely did it work. The desert wanted something from him, and he knew it. He had been told not to ignore such signs from people much wiser than him. He simply had to go. 

 

Though he did not know what he would find, he went. There was something he was missing, there had to be, and he was going to find out what it was. Was it a trail that some faraway caravan used to get to where he lived? Was it some resource that would be good for his family? Was it simply an escape from a life that was too comfortable for him? He did not know. He had even heard rumors of magic, the magic of some time long past, something that had been forgotten so many years before he was born that now it was unclear whether or not it had ever existed in the first place. Was that what he was going to find there? Was this why he felt the calling? 

 

But this is not a story about why he left. This is a story about how. 

 

One night, exactly like every other and different in every way, the boy took his first steps out onto the soft sand in front of him hours after his family had fallen asleep. He did not know why he had waited so long, only that he had and now there was lost time to be made up for. He did not understand that the desert was kind to those who knew their secrets. He did not even understand that he was shouldering secrets even from himself. All he knew was the call.

 

It was hot there. The heat was something he had grown up with, of course, but there had always been a place for him to stop and get some shade. His home was an oasis. As he had begun his walk mere hours before, it was possible that he could return in time for the beginning of his day’s work. Many times, his journey had ended at this hour, looping back on itself as he lost his resolve. Different things won him out every time, whether it be hunger, exhaustion, heat, or simply the desire to be back with his family. 

 

It was difficult. Every step in any direction was hard. The first step carried the knowledge that he was leaving his family, the second the truth that he had no idea where he was going. The third that he was leaving, the fourth that he had no idea where he was going. Each step was a reminder of a painful, nearly unacceptable truth: that where he was going was unknown, and that he was leaving certainty behind. 

 

It was not long before he learned that there were far more difficulties ahead of him. When he had been with his family group, outings had been easier. He could lean on an animal if he got tired, or sit down and rest while they played in the sand. No longer. With travel at his own pace, it was harder to find a moment where he found it acceptable to rest, and it was far more difficult to find a place to do so when he was tired. Certainly leaving after a full day of being awake and therefore not getting any sleep hadn’t been the best decision he could have made. 

 

The heat was nothing compared to the wind. 

 

No matter which direction he faced, it seemed the wind was content in tossing him about. Carried on the wind were bits of sand that were determined to make it into every crevice of his body, into his eyes and mouth, making him have to turn his head down towards his feet every few seconds to avoid the partial blindness that was the constant company of the desert sand. He’d turned so many times to avoid the gusts that he was now thoroughly lost. 

 

To his left, a set of mountains, far enough away that they appeared to be a pale mauve rather than whatever color he was sure they’d been when he was closer… had he been closer? As his journey had started in the night, it was hard to tell. To his right, bright white sands that glimmered with potential and heat. With every step forward, his feet sunk into the ground, making shallow imprints that disappeared after a few minutes alone with the feisty winds. The shadows of what few footprints trailed behind him were the only reminder of where he had been, and they had twisted so many times in the past few minutes alone that he could not remember which direction he’d started from. 

 

The weight of the hours he’d spent awake hit him all at once, dragging him down to the lonely shadows in between mounds of sand. If he hadn’t left at night, he never would have left at all, though that didn’t change the fact that his exhaustion was a stronger foe than expected. The boy had mere seconds to adjust himself in a way where he was certain the least amount of sand would get in his eyes before he fell into a deep sleep, lulled by the calming warmth of the desert around him. 

 

The boy didn’t tend to dream. When he did, he didn’t remember it after he woke. This is why, when he dreamed that day of the same thing he dreamt of every night, he was not surprised. Immediately in the dream world, he knew this was where he ventured constantly. He was standing among the animals, watching as they all stared towards the desert. He did not know why they were staring, so he looked as well, and that’s when he felt the pull in its full, earnest splendor. It was not simply calling him. It cared for him. 

 

He knew just by looking that if he called, the desert would answer, that the sands shifted beneath his feet because they, like him, could not stay in one place for long. They trusted the winds, the winds trusted the skies, the skies trusted the clouds, the clouds trusted the moons, to take them where they needed to go. In that moment, he trusted the desert, the winds, the skies, the clouds, and the moons, to guide him where he was needed.

 

As his eyes opened, the boy was shocked to find that he remembered a sensation from his dream, though the wind was blowing it away as he tried to hang on. 

 

Amid the wind, amid the heat, amid the sand sticking to his cheek, amid the rose-colored brilliance of a sun beginning to crawl under the covers of the horizon, the boy could feel a singular feeling return that had been stolen away from him the instant he’d left. His eyes opened, truly opened, to the desert for the first time. He felt calm.

 

The wind picked up around him, the sand below his feet sunk further down. Rather than fighting it, he tried to think why that may be happening. As the wind pushed him down, as his feet sank, he felt that they grew much cooler. 

 

Crouching down to his feet, he began to dig in the fluid sands, creating a well as well as he could, eventually reaching something he had not been expecting. 

 

Between his fingers, the sand was wet. And where there was mud, there was water. He smiled. And he dug, and dug, and dug, and eventually there was enough water that he could wash the silt from his hands and press his lips to the cool, cloudy water to drink.

 

His family did not believe in any higher power, but the boy had never been quite so sure. Looking up to the first moon in the sky, he sent a thankful message to whatever it was that had led him to the life-giving water. He kissed the water once more, drinking as much as he could manage, though he knew that no matter what happened, he would probably still be able to find more. He knew that there was something out there that wanted him to succeed in his journey, to find his new place. 

 

The water reanimated the boy, changing the landscape of the desert in the process. No longer was it an unforgiving wasteland. It was a friend. There were secrets to be found; it was a mystery. A playground. A tangle, waiting to be unraveled. The world existed for him, and he existed for the world. 

 

That night, he approached the world with excitement. Curiosity beat through his heart, love entered his eyes. His feet sunk into the sand as he threw his arms out beside him and twirled his way down a curved slope, the wind whistling through his fingers as he tripped and rolled the rest of the way down, laughing as he landed in a pile of sand. He braced his energy and ran,   leapt, flipped, tripped, danced, and danced, and danced, and danced, and loved this new freedom he was experiencing. His life was now his own. 

 

He was recreated in the image of the sand. He ran with the wind, taking breaks only to sleep in the cool sand underneath the top layer as the scarlet sun warmed the desert, waking up with the appearance of the moons in their burgundy sky, watching as they traveled around, painting their favorite shade of purple as they laughed.  

 

The boy’s hair grew longer and longer until he took strands of it and tied them together in beautiful patterns, thanking life every day for the opportunities he was given. The sun bounced off the sand, setting it dazzling more beautifully than any precious stone. The wind’s warm embrace filled him with joy, and waking up with sand hugging him was something that always brought a smile to his face. 

 

He knew that the world was a beautiful place. 

 

Finally, after months and months of traveling, after he could hardly remember his name but still recalled with fondness the faces of his family, he came across a noise.

 

It had been some time since he’d heard a sound aside from the natural sounds of the desert, so he flinched at first, hiding among the sand until he remembered what it was. 

 

Before him was a settlement, and the sound was the delighted laugh of a child playing a fantastic game of imagination. 

 

This was what he had long been searching for! A place, a new place, where no one expected of him the things his family had expected him to be, a place where he could start anew. New people, new faces to get to know.

 

But he did not feel joy, or even relief, at the thought of this new life in a settlement. He was now petrified that, in choosing this life, the people there would begin to see him the way his family had. He did not want to trade his old life for a life that would be just the same.

 

He sat and watched that child play, watched them holding a rock above their head as though it were a bird soaring high above, casting out glances towards the desert any time anyone wasn’t paying attention. The boy remembered being that child not too long ago. He held out an arm to the child, who held out an arm to him, and in that moment they knew each other. In that moment, they were each other.

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Unable to bear the sight any longer, the boy turned away and cried for the first time. He had not cried when the sun had burnt his skin, when he had been unable to find enough food, when he had lost his footing and passed out face-down, but now he cried uncontrollably. He pulled his legs close to him, rocking gently back and forth, face in between his knees, thinking about his joyous time in the desert. 

 

It was his home now, as it had been for some time. He knew now that he’d been offered a new life of comfort that it was not comfortable at all, that it would mean him leaving his home that he loved, the place where he most felt himself. He grasped handfuls of sand as tears slithered down his cheeks.

 

He sat there for so long that the wind blew sand in towards him, embracing him with their stinging blows, going into his eyes only to be washed out by tears. He continued crying as a bird landed by him, bobbing its head as it stepped around him, landing on his knee eventually. He reached his hands below him and dug into the sand, finding water. He added his tears to the pool underneath him, staring at the violet sky above him through the reflection.

 

He knew the desert, the wind, the moons, the clouds, and the sky were trying to cheer him up. 

 

Closing his eyes, he reached into the pool of water, reaching out as he had done in his dreams since he’d been a small child, reaching for something better than what he had, for a place where he could truly be himself. 

 

And then, the boy disappeared. 

 

As it happened, the desert, the wind, the moons, the clouds and the sky had been reaching out for him too, just waiting for him to reach them. He wanted to stay with them forever, to follow the dancing moons and to leap with the wind, to thank the desert for everything they had done for him, to embrace the sky as the sky had embraced everything else. 

 

Looking back into the pool he’d reached, he could see that there was now something new in the sky. Something shining brightly, solitary as of yet, though it was about to be engulfed by a lilac cloud. He spun and saw a twinkle in that strange body, and knew immediately what had happened.

 

He was in the sky. He was glimmering like the sand had, moving like the moons. The gusts, the sand, the moonbeams, everything had pulled him up so that he could join them. He felt the need to introduce himself, but he was stunned to realize that they all already knew him, and they already loved him as he loved them.

 

Now, if you look into the sky, you can see hundreds of his siblings, each guiding our way through the world. If we ever get lost, we can look at them. None of them, though, will ever be as bright as our guiding star, the very first, the one who is always reaching his arms out to embrace the lost, the lonely, the guides, to bring them all up to be his family in the sky with him. 

 

He is always watching the world, smiling down on the inhabitants who may have lost their way. If you find a miracle in the sand, if you are embraced by a warm wind when you are at your worst, if the dancing moons whisper a secret to you when you most need it, it is him sending his friends down to comfort you. 

 

If you ever need him, simply reach out your hands.

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