Swooping Through the Milky Way

Swooping Through the Milky Way                               

It’s Friday night, school is out and I have light years of time to enjoy the holidays.

I was floating on my back in the swimming pool; the world was like a furnace it was so hot. The lights were out and all I could see was that infinitesimal galaxy in the sky. As my eyes drooped closed, the stars became hazy, except for one, which seemed to drag me towards it. I squinted into the night sky; the star dazzled me with its brightness. Curious, I reached out my hand to take hold of the giant sparkler. The moment I touched it, I shot off on the sky-ride of a lifetime. As a rainbow of fireworks exploded around me, I was transported upwards with a massive g-force pulling at my face, trying to tug my skin from my skull. There was a loud popping sound in my ears that made them feel like they’d burst and I realised I had broken the sound barrier. 

In a terrified stupor I watched, dazed as brilliant splashes of colour spiralled even higher than I had flown on this sparkler, then they cascaded in a waterfall past me until I couldn’t see them anymore. With this magnificent sight, came the realisation that I was dangling, one-handed, millions of light years above the earth. I tightened my grip with both hands now, and just in time, as I hurtled downwards, sure that I was going to have a head-on collision with Earth. Perhaps, with luck, I’d land back in the swimming pool. 

No such luck but the giant sparkler slowed down and levelled out, becoming ever so slightly dimmer. I could see a little more clearly now that there were not so many sparks glowing in my eyes. In a confusion of relief and horror, I found that I was not alone. Sitting astride the handle stalk of the giant sparkler, was the zaniest creature imaginable. Without looking where we were going, it indicated that I should sit like it. As soon as I was as comfortable as I could be, the creature pointed out a spectacular burst of light to my left.

 It had the beauty of a kaleidoscope, as the colours melted into each other, rolling over and over into a myriad of different patterns. It started with triangles of bright canary yellow, burnt sienna and glimmering gold, tumbling end over end, then changed to diamonds of brilliant silver, shimmering red and flaming orange, cart wheeling head over heels one after the other in a big round orb and lastly were the hexagons of sparkling sapphire, glistening bronze and bursting purple like grapes exploding all over the sky.  

As the show came to an end, I noticed that we had stopped in mid-air and the creature was sliding down the handle towards me. Too scared to move for fear of falling into eternity, I sat with my eyes transfixed on its face. As the ‘being’ reached me, it bumped our right shoulders together, I bent my arm to rub my shoulder and it knocked elbows with my bent arm, in the next second it hooked my little finger in its own. 

“Me title Neb,” he said, “What title you?” 

Before I knew what was happening, I answered, “I’m Leo.” 

Satisfied, he slid back, just as suddenly as he’d slid forwards. Now that was more like it, I thought to myself. I felt much more comfortable with a little distance between us.     Actually, he wasn’t bad looking, okay sure, he wasn’t a model, but he was also no Frankenstein. I presumed he was a male because of his deep voice. He was very short, with a small build, actually no body to speak of, just a head, two arms and two legs. His face wasn’t frightening, although his eyes slanted vertically, with eyelashes along each side, not horizontally like ours. His mouth was like a beak, mixed between a broad duck bill and a pointed bill like that of a penguin. His most extraordinary feature though, were his antennae that grew out the top of his head. They weren’t used as we use antenna to receive radio waves, but they folded over in front of his eyes to protect them from the brilliance of a galactic collision or to shelter his eyes from the fierce wind when he travelled at turbo speed on his giant sparkler. When there weren’t any galactic collisions or turbo travels, there were, what look like from a distance, dust storms for which eye protection was needed. Actually, those apparent dust storms were various nebulae floating around the galaxy, like formless ghosts wafting in and out of loops, tunnels and passage ways formed by all the stars.

I was whipped out of my musing with astonishment at the sight of my sister, Ursa, up here in the galaxy with me! How did she get here, what did she make of all this and why in the world would she look so happy in a place like this? I just had to know. I waved, frantic to catch her attention, but soon stopped as I nearly toppled Neb and I off our giant sparkler. 

Luckily, Ursa saw the commotion and, with some serious ducking and diving, managed to make her way over to us. 

“Ursa, that was amazing, how did you do it?”

“Oh, it was easy Leo, Cassi showed me how. It’s kind of like skateboarding or

snowboarding except you’re sitting.” 

I presumed Cassi was the pilot of her giant sparkler because Ursa pointed to her while talking. Cassi looked pretty in a weird sort of way, much like Neb, just smaller and with more hair on top of her head, both of them had extremely hairy legs. 

I realised from the silence that I hadn’t answered Ursa, so in a dumbfounded slow kind of voice, said, “R-i-ght,” thought for a few seconds, then “How exactly did you get to be up here in the first place?” 

Ursa answered too excitedly which meant that I had to listen really carefully to hear what she was saying; “Well, I was sitting on some rocks on the beach at summer camp with some friends, when a shooting star attracted my attention. It was so magnificent that I tried to reach out for it and before I could make head or tail of the situation, I was up here viewing a million shooting stars from a shooting star! Isn’t it just spectacular Leo? I never knew a galaxy was so stunning.” 

“Neither did I,” I replied, “But what do you suppose we’re doing here?” 

Ursa was two years older than me, making her 14 years old, so I figured she would know what was happening to us.

“Well, I tried to ask Cassi where we were going, which was kind of difficult at high speed. My mouth and eyelids nearly turned inside out and my breath kept gushing right back into my mouth, making it impossible to speak. I did manage to find out that we’re going on a tour of the Milky Way though, which sounds quite exhilarating don’t you think?”

“I guess so, but what about mum and dad, won’t they be worried about us by now?” I asked.

“They went out for the night, remember, to their friends 40^th birthday party.”

Before I could answer or become more enlightened, we were plunged down into the midst of all constellations. Now, I was sure that Neb and Cassi were preparing our demise! Just as I was preparing myself for certain death, I heard the most contagious giggles. It was only when I opened my eyes that I realised they had been closed in the first place and that the giggles were being had on my behalf. All three of them had turned to look at me. I just couldn’t understand how Ursa could be having such a good time, while I was totally petrified. It seemed like she had been friends with Cassi all her life. They already had such a close and happy friendship going.  

Unless, maybe, Ursa was also terrified and was clinging to Cassi for some weird kind of moral support. I must find a way to speak privately with her, I decided. We sat facing each other, but our line of vision was broken by intermittent flashes of gold bars, or so it appeared.  

In fact it was an entire row of shooting stars starting beyond where the eye could see. It was coming from the right in a straight line, between the four of us and ended on the left in a spiral that continued to get bigger and bigger as it collected the stars that just never stopped coming. This galaxy must be the most spectacular fireworks display that ever existed. 

As I watched, completely stunned, I noticed the chill in the air for the first time, and something else too. There was a distant sound, or was it a vibration, catching in my ears. 

Neb and Cassi exchanged nervous glances, their vertical eyes blinking in rapid succession. 

Of course it could have been the cause of the shooting stars flying past us, but I didn’t think so. There was something apprehensive about their shared glance. Acutely observant, I followed Neb’s gaze and to my complete shock and horror, saw what it was they were anxious about.

Up above us was a swirling, sinister mass of cloud. It gurgled its thunderous vibration out to us, threatening to engulf us, warning us to steer clear. Well it needn’t have worried about us getting close, none of us wanted to go near it anyway. The trouble was, though, even though we didn’t want to get closer to it, and even though it wasn’t actually inviting us near, we felt compelled by a physical force to move towards it. Like an unrelenting magnet attracting a solid lump of metal, we had no power to resist. It was sucking us into its evil smelling swirl of smoke, and that was where I got that chilling feeling from, I realised, as I shivered. 

This was the third time I had given up all hope of survival this evening, and it was as many times that Neb had come to my rescue. He and Cassi managed to muster up the will to bend their antenna glasses over their eyes, immediately breaking the spell which had bound them to the swirling cloud. They sped off at top speed to the next part of our tour. I figured they must be human-friendly after all, otherwise they wouldn’t keep saving our lives. 

For the first time that evening, I started to relax. We were slowing down now to a comfortable speed. Although I was feeling a little more secure by now, I still wanted to check on Ursa, so I called out quietly, so as not to attract Neb and Cassi’s attention. She heard me and turned her head towards me. 

“Aren’t you scared at all?” I whispered. 

I figured I may as well get straight to the point as we didn’t have any time to lose. She shook her head, grinning widely. 

“But how do you know we’re safe? I mean, we don’t even know how to get home, what these creatures are or why we’re here!” I warbled to her shakily.

“Relax, will you,” she admonished me, “Just enjoy the ride,” she added happily.

Well, I tried to relax. It was pretty great, I had to admit, so long as I didn’t think about getting home. I mean I’d got here easily enough, hadn’t I? Getting home should be a piece of cake, and besides, Neb would know the way. After all, he got me here in the first place. Well these thoughts all sounded logical enough, but deep down inside, I shuddered. I tried to put on a brave face, but I guess Ursa could see right through it because she patted my shoulder reassuringly. I gave her a wan smile, which was the best I could do for the moment.

Right now, coming from all directions were tiny hopping coloured lights. They looked just like Christmas lights, only they weren’t flashing on and off, but hopping in little arch formations. I learnt later that they were shot off a star, aptly called the Rainbow and once they had left the star for longer than 10 seconds, they lost their glow, which is the case with all shooting stars up in the galaxy, then you can no longer see them. But while we could still see them, it was a multicolour fusion of astronomical proportions. There were lights coming from every corner of the universe and just as I thought they were going to bounce right into me, they’d daintily hop right over my head, with the next one right behind it. The colours were amazing; there was cerise, indigo, violet, magenta, lime, peach, turquoise, the list was endless. It was stunning and surreal all in one thought. 

I pinched myself just to make sure it was real, “Ow!” I blurted and everyone gasped and looked at me. 

I laughed then, feeling just a little foolish. “Just checking that I’m really here,” I mumbled, knowing that I sounded really feeble.

While I had everyone’s attention, I decided to ask just exactly how we were going to get home and when. Ursa had already told me she wasn’t concerned about it, so I directed my questions to Neb. 

“We-ell,” he answered slowly, “Exactly sure – me not, yet. Neb and Cassi to introduce Leo and Ursa to family want. We is in Milky Way live, away a little just.”

“How long will it take to get there?” I stammered.

“Oh, me’s think this many light years just,” he indicated with all the fingers on his hand, which was a total of three. 

I was flabbergasted and speechless. 

While I was still trying to stop my brain from spinning right out of my head, he added “You is already this many light year here,” he showed with one of his knobbly fingers. “When you not on Earth is, light years very in galaxy fast.”

Ursa had so far been watching in silence and I guess she could see my bewilderment, which wasn’t too difficult to see at this stage because I must’ve had eyes as big as a bushbaby’s and a mouth as wide as a hungry chick! She asked Cassi why it was so important for us to meet their family.

“We will Neb and Cassi show when get’s there we do,” was her rather high-pitched squeaky answer.

Having had time to regain my composure, I glanced down at my watch to judge how long one light year had taken us in earth time. Aargh! Hadn’t I had enough shock treatment already, my heart was in good condition you know, I wailed inwardly to whoever could hear ‘out there’. My watch was a garbled mess and as if in answer to my thoughts, it was showing me that my heart rate was 105 beats per minute!

“Ah,” said Neb, “Me next time, show you fly proper.”

“Next time! No way, never again, I’m going home to stay after this visit,” as I pushed myself up and straightened my clothes, I managed to answer Neb.

Ursa sidled up to me and I thought, at last, I had her on my side. She probably wanted to go home too now. 

“Be nice,” She hissed in a dramatic stage whisper. My unsuspecting ear almost shrivelled with shock.  

I staggered apprehensively as she propelled me forwards by the arm. I was bumped incessantly, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow and little finger to little finger as Neb and Cassi’s family introduced themselves.

Just as my fearlessness was beginning to fade faster than a shooting star, I felt a warm mask being placed over my mouth and nose and just as quickly, saw one being placed over Ursa’s as well. This was their petulant, or ‘pet’ in earthly terms, Plume’s valuable contribution to our survival – how he contrived these masks out of that peculiar tail of his was beyond me, but they worked really well and stuck on with their own built-in sticky edging. Having found my breath again, I started to relax and was able to concentrate on what was happening. 

The headway we were making into the vast Milky Way galaxy was definitely becoming clearer as a glimmer of something huge was just visible through the remaining gases. Neb confidently reached up and waved the star in his hand with much arm waving and flair. He managed to clear another patch of atmosphere, paving the way for us even more. 

Cassi and Ursa were more cautious with their star-waving antics, but no less successful. 

I was last and by now we had reached our destination - frozeN staR!

By Cal Grant-Smith