Draft #1             

  Kipo’s gazed wandered up from the warm sparse lights of the village center. Twinkling against his eyes the black void of the night sky danced with tiny lights that he knew little about. Every now and then he would ask Jasmine, his older sister, what they were and every time she responded with the same answer.

               “Stars, brother, so far away you could not possibly even imagine, they shine their little light across the universe just for you to gaze upon, when you look up there, I want to you remind yourself that anything is possible, if something so far away and so tiny could catch your eye from millions of miles away, then think of all that you could do.”

               He always loved when she told him that. It gave him hope that he could change the world, that he could do something greater than himself.

               Tonight, though, he wanted to get away from all the other lights, so he could fully appreciate those little night lights his sister always talked to him about. He was never allowed to leave the village without an adult. But now at 9, his confidence in little acts of rebellion grew every day. Tonight, was the night to find the darkness so that he could see a little clearer. Josiah creaked open the front door and peered inside at his sleeping mother, soundly asleep. Smiling to himself he slowly shut the door and shuffled away ever so silently into the night.

               His mother always told him she would buy him a good pair of shoes, but she could never afford them. Josiah had become quite accustomed to traveling the earth in his bare feet. Lately he had become to enjoy the feeling of dirt caking to the inside of his toes, the wet squishing when he stepped in mud, the feeling of soft grass caressing his heels when he stepped up after temporarily crushing the thin green spawn of the earth. At 9, the soles of his feet began to feet leathery, like evolution had caught up with him after realizing his feet had such needs for his survival.

               Kipo’s silent steps went unnoticed as he slipped past the lights, along the side of his wooden home, and out into the brush of cool spring night in Narok, Kenya. The subtle sounds of a quiet village were soon replaced by the hum of crickets, smalls bush animals running in the underbrush, and the occasional bird, crying out towards the moon. The farther he got from the village, the darker everything seemed, his ears become a little more sensitive, his eyes opened a wide as they could trying to let in much light as they could handle. With each step he became more confident yet knew that the slightly disturbance meant turning his heels back to safety. For the first time in a long time, he was in solitude. Alone with the happenings of the night and the stars to guide his way.

               Walking in his hyper-aware state, he summoned his sister’s words to his mind to combat his ever sweater palms and the feelings of missed opportunity that would await him if he turned back to the safety of the warm bright lights of the village center.

               “When you are afraid, know that you have everyone that has ever lived before you along with you. You are the result of thousands of years of evolution, thousands of years of making the right choices to keep on living. Trust when moments of fear come, and they will come, that you will trust that you will know what to do. Listen to yourself as you would listen to a car horn, as lion’s roar, a bird call, listen to yourself because that voice is everything. It will lead you to greatness Kipo.”

               He was closer to her now but needed to keep going.

Draft #2

                                                            Title

               Kipo’s gaze darted around at the surrounding village huts, checking that the path forward was clear. Carefully, he examined each of the twelve huts for light and found nothing to breach the cloud covered moonlight. Placing his bare foot against the cool dry dirt, he began his silent escape. Placing his other foot alongside his first, his gaze leapt up from the warm sparce lights of the village center.   Twinkling against his eyes, the black void of the night sky danced with tiny lights that he knew little about. Every now and then he would ask Jasmine, his older sister, what they were and every time she responded with the same answer.

               “Stars, brother, so far away you could not possibly even imagine. They shine their little lights across the universe just for you to gaze upon. When you look up there, I want to you remind yourself that anything is possible, if something so far away and so tiny could catch your eye from millions of miles away, then think of all that you could do. And if you ever want to see more of them, let them be the only light you see. Allow darkness to be your ally Kipo, it will help you to find the light.”

               Tonight, Kipo felt ready to find the darkness, to welcome it so he could understand what Jasmine had said to him all those years. Though the lights of the various village homes now slept, the village itself still swelled with light, beating back the darkness of the night. Kipo wanted to find that darkness. To do that, he needed to get away from civilization’s barrier of glittering glass and steel which held back the night sky. He was never allowed to leave the village without an adult. But now at eleven, his confidence in his little acts of rebellion grew every day.

               His mother always told him she would buy him a good pair of shoes, but she could never afford them. Accordingly, Kipo had become quite accustomed to traveling the earth in his bare feet. Lately he had come to enjoy the feeling of dirt caking to the inside of his toes, the wet squishing when he stepped in mud, the feeling of soft grass caressing his heels when he stepped up after temporarily crushing the thin green spawn of the earth. At 11, the soles of his feet began to feel leathery, like evolution had caught up with him after realizing his feet had such needs for his survival.

               Kipo’s silent steps went unnoticed as he slipped past the lights, along the side of his wooden home, and out into the brush of cool spring night in Narok, Kenya. He followed the little dirt path outside his house into what felt like the entrance of something new and dark. Though he could not yet articulate the exact emotions he felt, he was surprised to by the degree to which night can make familiar things seem alien. He wandered through the sparce forest, trees becoming like lumbering shadowed monsters in the distance.  The subtle sounds of a quiet village were soon replaced by the hum of crickets, smalls bush animals running in the underbrush, and the occasional bird, crying out towards the moon. As he slipped through the village’s barrier of light, the darkness swelled around every corner. His ears become more sensitive, seeking out the secrets of the forest, and his eyes opened wide as they could, drinking in as much light as they could bear. With each step he became more confident yet knew that any slight disturbance meant turning his heels back to safety. For the first time in his eleven short years on earth, he was in complete solitude. Alone but for the whims of the night and the stars to guide his way.

               Walking in his hyper-aware state, he summoned his sister’s words to his mind to combat his sweating palms and trepidation; feelings of missed opportunities promised to haunt him were he to turn back to the safety of the warm bright lights of the village center. Weighing the two, he decided which side of his emotional conflict would guide him. He calmly reached out and purged his fear, allowing the wonder of the night ahead to suffuse him.

               “When you are afraid, know that you have everyone that has ever lived before you along with you. You are the result of thousands of years of evolution, thousands of years of making the right choices to keep on living. Trust when moments of fear come, and they will come, that you will trust that you will know what to do. Listen to yourself as you would listen to a car horn, as lion’s roar, a bird call, listen to yourself because that voice is everything. It will lead you to greatness Kipo.”

               He was closer to her now but needed to keep going. He could feel her pulling on his hand leading the way further and further into the night of the jungle. Soon he reached very large tree; though he had not recognized it from far away, he now knew it was the singing tree, an ancient tree a few hundred meters from his village. At this point his eyes had adjusted and he could make out the patterns of bark twisting and churning their way up the tree, rivers of nutrients flowing up from the roots deep below to drag their fingers along the canopy above.

               Dragging his own fingers along the bark, he let the roughness slowly scrape over his hand. Looking up he watched as the night sky was divided into smaller bite sized portions among the wild climbing branches. In the dark, the tree seemed bigger and more monstrous than it was in the day. It became strange and alien, standing there without his community. There were not songs being sung, no chants of prayer, no laughter, or voices that filled the air. In the night, the tree loomed silent and ominous. Kipo took a deep breath in and let the night air fill his lungs. He took his hand off the bark and saw that it shook. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his ears perked to the tiniest of sounds.

               He kept facing the tree and held his breath, trying to listen more as the feeling of uncertainty raised up in his chest. He heard a scamper over to his left, a branch break and then silence again. In the dark this place felt unfamiliar. It was not as it had always been to him, a place of safety and security in his community. Now he was locked in a state of ignorance and loneliness. The sounds of the night came flooding back and a rustling noise snapped him into focus. He was not alone here. He turned around and faced the night. Whether it was the shadows, the leaves in moonlight or his eyes playing tricks on him, he could not tell; he thought only that figures danced around him in the dark. He backed up closer to the tree and open his eyes as wide as he could taking more deep breathes. He focused himself and saw that the figures were in fact branches hanging in the darkness, that the trees looked like monsters when he was not focused on them. The darkness was a place that played on your fears. He decided again that fear would not control him.

               He sat back against the trunk and looked up again at the starts divided in the canopy above. He thought of the kind of trouble he would be in if his mother found he was gone, what kind of labors his father would make him do. But he did not want to turn back. Sitting against the tree he looked up and saw how mighty its figure stood in the dark. He knew this place to always bring him light and a sense of love. It was the same place he thought that same place where he had heard so many songs that gave him strength.

               “What is so different about this place? It’s the same place I know and love, if it weren’t for the night I would be as courageous as I know I am,” He thought. He focused his vision more, “I know that tree, it’s where Jacob and Alex and I talk about the village girls, and that bush, where Jasmine told me that father had seen a lion once. This is a place I know. This tree, I am sitting here under a place I call home. I am not afraid here.”

               Kipo got to his feet and found the dwindling lights of his village hundreds of meters away. He then looked out past the ancient tree and farther on into the dark. Farther towards where he knew he would find open air and a place to lay out under the night sky. His eyes gave the lights a final glance and he took the first step past the tree.

               Saying goodbye to the last glimpse of civilizations Arora gave Kipo a sense of pure adventure. Here in the dark with the evening air caressing his face, he felt a sense of awakening, like he was over the hump of the fear of the dark. The ancient tree had shown him strength in the face of the deceptive monsters that night brought with darkness. He looked up again and through the canopy and reminded himself of the reason he was out there, to find her. He knew the area quite well but as he had discovered before, night enveloped the environment in a shroud of mystery, so he took his steps slow, trying to see into the night as best he could.

               With each step he gained more courage, and soon discovered the night to be quite beautiful. A freeing sense that he could look around in the moonlit forest and take it all in, no parents to labor him, no elders to assist, no games to play with his friends. These thoughts brought a smile to his face as he felt eager to push on. Kipo knew the river was between him and his destination, where he would find her waiting for him. The river manageable, he had crossed it many times with his friends, hoping from rock to rock, only slipping in once two years ago. It was around 15 meters across and ranged in depth. At it is deepest he could barely stand, but the depth was never what he feared, it was it is whipping velocity.

               He heard the river before he saw it, that familiar roar of thousands of gallons of rushing water. At the edge, you could not hear an elephant’s trumpet across the river, it consumed sound like it had countless lives in all the stories, like it consumed cries for help even on the brightest day. But the river was responsible for life just as much as death. It could sweep anyone away, only the strongest swimmers in the village had ever been brave enough swim in its mighty rage. Crossing it was not a hard task under a midday’s sun, but at the polar end of days’ time, he knew it was a different story.

               Kipo stood at the bank and felt small once again. The roar had quitted the courageous and freeing narrative playing out in his mind. His rebellion, his quest for the stars and for her, was slowly being drowned the more he stood and watched the dark water stream by. He looked back into the dark wood and felt the pull of home on his feet, his warm bed cozying him to sleep. Making it this far had not really occurred to him as something he would get to.

“The river, at night? What am I doing here?” Now drowned out by the river he surprised himself by speaking out loud almost as if he could not hear his own thoughts.  

“I don’t want to let you down, but this is crazy, how can I do this?”

Once again, he draws her words like a sword to fight the cowardice that threatened to pull him away from leaping onward towards his destiny. At this very spot, they once shared a conversation under the roar.

“Do you know why I love the river Kipo?”

“No, tell me.”

“Because it doesn’t try to be anything other than itself. It roars without shame; it takes what it gets and does not let up. Its power is in its consistency. Now, take this pebble.” Kipo watched as the memory grabbed his hand and he knelt and pick up a good pebble. “Now in your other hand scoop up some water. Which is softer?

“The water obviously. The rock is hard as well… a rock.”

“Now look at the river, does the river care for the hardness of the rocks? Does it yield to them just because they are stronger?”

“No”

“That is because the water does not try to beat the rocks, it does not try to break them, but look at all the rocks in the river, notice how round they are, notice how the water cannot break them but slowly overtime shapes them. Rounding them because it knows what it can do. Just as you know what you can do. Now, we will cross together. The path is laid out before us, you know you can do it. We have crossed on these rocks for ages. Follow the path laid before you, do not try to be anything but who you are.”

Draft #3

Jack Allsopp

                            

              

                                         Above and Below

               Kipo’s gaze darted around at the surrounding village huts, checking that the path forward was clear. Carefully, he examined each of the twelve huts for light and found nothing to breach the cloud covered moonlight. Placing his bare foot against the cool dry dirt, he began his silent escape. Carefully bringing his other foot alongside his first, his gaze leapt up from the warm sparce lights of the village center. Twinkling against his eyes, the black void of the night sky danced with tiny lights that he knew little about. Every now and then he would ask Jasmine, his older sister, what they were and every time she responded with the same answer.

               “Stars, brother, so far away you could not possibly even imagine. They shine their little lights across the universe just for you to gaze upon. When you look up there, I want to you remind yourself that anything is possible, if something so far away and so tiny could catch your eye from millions of miles away, then think of all that you could do. And if you ever want to see more of them, let them be the only light you see. Allow darkness to be your ally Kipo, it will help you to find the light.” He would meet her there, in the darkness, so they could gaze together like they had always promised. She was far away though, already gazing among them. He knew she left earlier to reach them, and while he did not understand why, he wanted to fulfill his half of the promise.

               Tonight, Kipo felt ready to do just that and be courageous enough to place himself far from light and find the darkest part of the night, to welcome it so he could understand what Jasmine had said to him all those years. The lights of the various village homes now slept, but the village itself still swelled with light, beating back the darkness of the night. To find the darkness, he needed to get away from civilization’s barrier of glittering glass and steel which held back the night sky. He was never allowed to leave the village without an adult. But now at eleven, his confidence in his little acts of rebellion grew every day.

               His mother always told him she would buy him a good pair of shoes, but she could never afford them. Accordingly, Kipo had become quite accustomed to traveling the earth in his bare feet. Lately he had come to enjoy the feeling of dirt caking to the inside of his toes, the wet squishing when he stepped in mud, the feeling of soft grass caressing his heels when he stepped up after temporarily crushing the thin green spawn of the earth. At 11, the soles of his feet began to feel leathery, like evolution had caught up with him after realizing his feet had such needs for his survival.

               Kipo’s silent steps went unnoticed as he slipped past the lights, along the side of his wooden home, and out into the brush of cool spring night. He followed the little dirt path outside his house into what felt like the entrance of something new and dark. Though he could not yet articulate the exact emotions he felt, he was surprised to by the degree to which night can make familiar things seem alien. He wandered through the sparce forest, trees becoming like lumbering shadowed monsters in the distance.  The subtle sounds of a quiet village were soon replaced by the hum of crickets, smalls bush animals running in the underbrush, and the occasional bird, crying out towards the moon. As he slipped through the village’s barrier of light, the darkness swelled around every corner. His ears become more sensitive, seeking out the secrets of the forest, and his eyes opened wide as they could, drinking in as much light as they could bear. With each step he became more confident yet knew that any slight disturbance meant turning his heels back to safety. For the first time in his eleven short years on earth, he was in complete solitude. Alone but for the whims of the night and the stars to guide his way.

               Walking in his hyper-aware state, he summoned his sister’s words to his mind to combat his sweating palms and trepidation; feelings of missed opportunities promised to haunt him were he to turn back to the safety of the warm bright lights of the village center. Weighing the two, he decided which side of his emotional conflict would guide him. He calmly reached out and purged his fear, allowing the wonder of the night ahead to suffuse him.

               “When you are afraid, know that you have everyone that has ever lived before you along with you. You are the result of thousands of years of evolution, thousands of years of making the right choices to keep on living. Trust when moments of fear come, and they will come, that you will trust that you will know what to do. Listen to yourself as you would listen to a car horn, as lion’s roar, a bird call, listen to yourself because that voice is everything. It will lead you to greatness Kipo.”

               He was closer to her now but needed to keep going. He could feel her pulling on his hand leading the way further and further into the night of the jungle. Soon he reached very large tree; though he had not recognized it from far away, he now knew it was the singing tree, an ancient tree a few hundred meters from his village. At this point his eyes had adjusted and he could make out the patterns of bark twisting and churning their way up the tree, rivers of nutrients flowing up from the roots deep below to drag their fingers along the canopy above.

               Dragging his own fingers along the bark, he let the roughness slowly scrape over his hand. Looking up he watched as the night sky was divided into smaller bite sized portions among the wild climbing branches. In the dark, the tree seemed bigger and more monstrous than it was in the day. It became strange and alien, standing there without his community. There were not songs being sung, no chants of prayer, no laughter, or voices that filled the air. In the night, the tree loomed silent and ominous. Kipo took a deep breath in and let the night air fill his lungs. He took his hand off the bark and saw that it shook. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his ears perked to the tiniest of sounds.

               He kept facing the tree and held his breath, trying to listen more as the feeling of uncertainty raised up in his chest. He heard a scamper over to his left, a branch break and then silence again. In the dark this place felt unfamiliar. It was not as it had always been to him, a place of safety and security in his community. Now he was locked in a state of ignorance and loneliness. The sounds of the night came flooding back and a rustling noise snapped him into focus. He was not alone here, but nor was he ever. He turned around and faced the night. Whether it was the shadows, the leaves in moonlight or his eyes playing tricks on him, he could not tell; he thought only that figures danced around him in the dark. He backed up closer to the tree and open his eyes as wide as he could taking more deep breathes. He focused himself and saw that the figures were in fact branches hanging in the darkness, that the trees looked like monsters when he was not focused on them. The darkness was a place that played on your fears. He decided again that fear would not control him. The night was not a place for the faint of hearted, it would test him, humble him, and show him no mercy.

               He sat back against the trunk and looked up again at the starts divided in the canopy above. He thought of the kind of trouble he would be in if his mother found he was gone, what kind of labors his father would make him do. But he did not want to turn back. Sitting against the tree he looked up and saw how mighty its figure stood in the dark. He knew this place to always bring him light and a sense of love. It was the same place he thought that same place where he had heard so many songs that gave him strength.

               “What is so different about this place? It’s the same place I know and love, if it weren’t for the night I would be as courageous as I know I am,” He thought. He focused his vision more, “Darkness is only a lens, Jasmine would say. Like, I know that tree, it is where Jacob and Alex and I talk about the village girls, and that bush, where Jasmine told me that father had seen a lion once. This is a place I know. This tree, I am sitting here under a place I call home. I am not afraid here.”

               Kipo got to his feet and found the dwindling lights of his village hundreds of meters away. He then looked out past the ancient tree and farther on into the dark. Farther towards where he knew he needed to go on this night when his courage felt awakened, like tonight when the wild beast inside him would roam the land, when evening air would fill his lungs with exhilaration, and when he would fulfill his promise to her. Standing tall, eyes absorbing the little light that night offered, he gave the lights of home a final glance and he took the first step past the tree, onward into familiar land of unfamiliar shadows.  

               Saying goodbye to the last glimpse of civilizations aurora gave Kipo a sense of pure adventure. Here in the dark with the evening air caressing his face, he felt a sense of awakening, like he was over the hump of the fear of the dark. The ancient tree had shown him strength in the face of the deceptive monsters that night brought with darkness. He looked up again and through the canopy and reminded himself of the reason he was out there, to find her and the stars. He knew the area quite well but as he had discovered before, night enveloped the environment in a shroud of mystery, so he took his steps slow, trying to see into the night as best he could.

               With each step he gained more courage, and soon discovered the night to be quite beautiful. A freeing sense that he could look around in the moonlit forest and take it all in, no parents to labor him, no elders to assist, no games to play with his friends. For the first time in his life he felt that the world was his, that he could take his time absorbing the life he lived. He wafted in his newfound freedom with a sense of pride like he had unlocked a new way to see the world laid out before him. These thoughts brought a smile to his face as he felt eager to push on.

               Kipo knew the river was between him and his destination, where he would find her waiting for him. The river had a single bridge that led across its treacherous waters, he had crossed it many times as it led the other side of the plains, but never at night. The bridge was sturdy and sound for the most part as it was well maintained but the creaking wood and feathered rope that held it together always gave Kipo a sense of risk. It was not unheard of for ropes to snap or a board to break create a gap into the water below. A fall no one wanted to experience. The River was around 15 meters across and ranged in depth. At it is deepest he could barely stand, but the depth was never what he feared, it was it is whipping velocity.

               He always heard the river before he saw it, that familiar roar of thousands of gallons of rushing water. At the edge, you could not hear an elephant’s trumpet across the river, it consumed sound like it had countless lives in all the stories, like it consumed cries for help even for those on the bank. But the river was responsible for life just as much as death. This river was why Kipo’s ancestors had chosen to settle down there. The river brought energy, food, and a place to bath farther down. But It could sweep anyone away and only the strongest swimmers in the village had ever been brave enough swim in its mighty rage. Crossing the bridge, it was not a hard task under a midday’s sun, but at the polar end of days’ time, he knew it was a different story.

               Kipo stood at the bank and felt small once again. The roar had quieted the courageous and freeing narrative playing out in his mind. His rebellion, his quest for the stars and for her, was slowly being drowned the more he stood and watched the dark water stream by. He looked back into the dark wood and felt the pull of home on his feet, his warm bed cozying him to sleep. Making it this far had not really occurred to him as something he would get to.

“The river, at night? What am I doing here?” Now drowned out by the river he surprised himself by speaking out loud almost as if he could not hear his own thoughts.

“I don’t want to let you down, but this is crazy, how can I do this?” He started to pace along the edge of where the forest met the river. Thoughts of his mother now raced in his brain of the terrible repercussions of his actions he would face if she knew of his circumstances. He felt his dad would understand, but keep that hidden from mother, this journey was more about just himself, it was about her too and what she needed. They had not let him see her once since she left and that left Kipo only needing more answers, more understanding. He only ever wanted to be like her, wise, adventurous, a rebel by virtual and heart.

Once again, he draws her words like a sword to fight the cowardice that threatened to pull him away from leaping onward towards his destiny. At this very spot, they once shared a conversation under the roar.

“Do you know why I love the river Kipo?”

“No, tell me.”

“Because it doesn’t try to be anything other than itself. It roars without shame; it takes what it gets and does not let up. Its power is in its consistency. Now, take this pebble.” Kipo watched as the memory grabbed his hand and he knelt and pick up a good pebble. “Now in your other hand scoop up some water. Which is softer?

“The water obviously. The rock is hard as well… a rock.”

“Now look at the river, does the river care for the hardness of the rocks? Does it yield to them just because they are stronger?”

“No”

“That is because the water does not try to beat the rocks, it does not try to break them, but look at all the rocks in the river, notice how round they are, notice how the water cannot break them but slowly overtime shapes them. Rounding them because it knows what it can do. Just as you know what you can do. Your power lies within, find it and use it for what it is.  Now, we will cross together. The bridge will support us, you know you can do it. We have crossed the river for ages.  Follow the path laid before you, and trust in it.”

               Kipo placed one foot on the bridge and looked out at what just keep like a long dark shadow reaching across the river. He could barely see each board and the wood creaked under his foot. He grabbed the rope that fed alongside the bridge and took another step, his heart starting to beat a little faster with each passing second. Soon one step turned to two, then three and four and suddenly he stood in in the middle, hanging by wood and rope over a sure death if it all were to come crashing down. He could not even really see the water below his feel. Just the sound of it, the rushing, powerful roar underneath him. Carefully, he placed each step on the next board, trying to think less and less of the creaking that only heightened his anxiety. Moving fast across it just seemed stupid but moving too slowly made him worry more and more.

               With less than halfway to go, he quickened his pace a little more, each step landing with a little more confidence on the middle of each board. With three board to go, he placed his foot on down and heard a louder creak, like the middle of the board starting to snap so he quickly released the pressure. Kipo froze with fear and looked back at the long shadow he had just traversed. Three boards to go and he was petrified of the next one, whether he was just over thinking the next board, or it was busted, he was petrified to move forward or back. Looking ahead, he knew he did not have much farther to go, the grounds in which he hoped to reach were only another 100 meters through the trees after he finished crossing. Without giving it much thought, Kipo surprised himself by leaping over the potentially busted board, hoped on the next one and landed safely on solid ground. His confidence grew and the journey beckoning him further.

               Continuing down the path into the new forest, the roar of the river subsided until it was out of earshot. In the absence of the river, it got a lot quieter than Kipo remembered it being before, there was less rusting of leaves and fauna in the night breeze, no birds called out, and even his breathe seemed to not exhale that sound of life. This part of the forest was denser and the thicker canopy draped a heavier darkness on Kipo. In the absence of noise, Kipo began to realize his situation a little closer. He was far away from Home, far even for daylight, if something happened there would be no one to hear his cries for help, no one to rescue him, only the trees and what else existed among the forest with him.

               He knew she was near; he could feel it. Looking around in the darkness he spotted the dim light of the break in the tress. His eyes had adjusted so well that spotting shades of darkness became a tool to him now. His oasis was near, his journey’s end was approaching but he knew the end was only the start. He cleared through the trees, tramping over cold mud, broken sticks, and leaves, nearing the light at the end of the tunnel. Each footfall felt heavier, his bear feet now getting colder and more aware. The ground felt so solid and full of little sensations reminding him life. Breaking through the jungles edge he entered the clearing. Starlight shining down like a spotlight on him and her gravestone. It looked different then when he last saw it in the light of day, surrounded by his friends and family. Now she looked lonely, out there by herself.  

               He approached the stone carefully and lied down beside it, looking up into the night sky. With no lights anywhere nearby, the Milky Way colored the sky above him with tiny lights that rained down from the heavens. So many stars that he had to blink a couple times to really wrap his head around what his eyes bestowed upon him.  His eyes wide enough to reflect the light from each one back across the universe in an infinite cycle of wonder. Each one shining brightly, each other telling its story, each one holding the mystery of life.  

               She was up there, somewhere, while her body lied below him in the ground. He knew this but it still confused him, the concept that she could be in two places at once because she was not in one anymore. His parents had told him that she was “up there” now, in heaven, but “up there” was just the sky. In the day it was blue and now, at night, it was black and twinkled with stars. He could not see her, but he felt that she did, and could not explain why. He did believe his parents though, when they said she was up “there” but never understood why. Maybe it was just a feeling. A concept that he could not quite hold in his hands, like a pebble from the river. But it was a feeling that she was up “there” out amongst the stars. Floating adrift, from one to the next like a constellation, like artwork of the universe. Not intentional, not painted, but there by nature, and she could be there. Wonder is such an amazing part of the human experience. Not knowing the answer to life’s questions but instead spending him looking up and having your own individual take on what it all means. Life and death, ground and sky, above and below, fear and courage, love and hate, light and darkness, all these things raced through Kipo’s little stary eyed head. For a moment he felt it all, the weight of it, the infinite of it all and he wish that she could be there to experience that weight with him. But he knew that in a way, she was.

FIN.

Alternative ending writing if I can find a place for it. I think though the ending I just wrote works better than adding more detail.

{Kipo knew thought that if he dug right now, six feet below him that he would find her, but was it really “her.” Jasmine was alive to him, moving, breathing, eating, making jokes and talking about the whims of the universe. She was a poet, the best writer in the village

               Jasmine perished just three weeks prior, the river he had just crossed had taken her. That roar masking her demise. Kipo had been around death before, but never this close. One day she was with him and the next she wasn’t. Suddenly walks to the tree, around the village, to the river, were a different experience. A lonelier experience that Kipo had never expected to have to deal with. ]

Reflection

Overall I think the workshop was a really positive experience for me. I had a lot of the doubts about my story dispelled and it really helped me to feel more confident in my story. A couple of the points touched on were great. First that my narrative voice came along well being told from the perspective of an 11-year-old. I was worried about my narrator being a little too old for the story so it helps me to know that rest assured, the narrative voice fits my character. Another point made was the question of location which I had to take out of the story because it didn’t feel that it added to the story in any way. I like that it added to the element of mystery in the story and I feel going forward I am going to keep the location and timing out of the story as it helps the reader to focus more on the details that matter. I was told that I had great detail which was awesome to hear. It was also good to know that a lot of my intentions came across as intended too with only a little leeway which is important as each reader is different. I think going into the revision I might add a little more about Jasmine’s death to add some emotional weight to the story, but just enough that it makes the river scene pop out more. Otherwise, I’m very happy with how the feedback went. I have a lot of confidence going into the revision to make this story the best that it can be. I will also go back into my story and review and analyze my foreshadowing of Jasmine’s death as I want the reader to only get that she is a dead character towards the very end, which I think that overall, is the case. I’m excited to revisit my story after having it sit for awhile to see what over details I wish to keep or change.