A Night Between Three Skies

I thought the end of the Camino would be tranquil.

After over a thousand kilometres of walking, I imagined reaching Finisterre would feel almost sacred.

Instead, it was loud.

As I walked through the village to my albergue, a young man in an oversized knit jumper stepped in front of me and hugged me as though he'd been expecting me all along.

By evening, we were dragging driftwood into a crooked circle and building a bonfire that smoked more than it burnt. It was one of those camps where everyone became friends before they even knew each other's surnames. If they ever got to know each other's surnames.

Someone brought cheap wine. Someone else played three chords on a guitar, over and over again. Nobody cared. We were like a small family of strangers gathered around it and were singing songs in languages I couldn't identify.

I don't remember what songs they were. Pachamama for sure, like a hundred times. I remember the smell, though. Charred wood, smoked fish, and drying seaweed.

A girl I'd never seen before sat beside me. Without asking, she broke off a piece of blue cheese from a paper wrapper and held it out with the sweetest smile.

"You have to try this."

I looked at the piece of cheese between her sand-covered fingers. Then I took it. The cheese was soft and crunchy from the sand. It tasted sharp enough to make my eyes water.

She pointed to a baguette sticking out of a plastic bag beside me. It wasn't mine, but I broke a piece off for her anyway.

She smiled.

Then, as casually as if she was thanking me for passing the bread, she leaned over and kissed me.

It lasted only a second.

Beside us, everyone was singing and talking over each other. Nobody cared. Even I didn't care. The whole thing felt almost childlike. The next second, she was talking to someone else.

Then I just sat there, staring into the fire and listening to the guy playing the guitar badly. People singing in different languages mixed into one perfect song.

I don't know why I left.

I walked away from the bonfire toward the ocean. The sand was cool under my bare feet. The farther I walked from the fire, the darker everything became until the only light was the moon, spread across the water like spilled milk.

Then I stepped into the waves, and the sea lit up. Not all at once, just around my ankles in tiny fluorescent flashes.

I stood perfectly still, wondering if I'd imagined it, until another wave curled around my feet and the water dissolved into electric blue light before disappearing again.

I laughed out loud.

I played with the fluorescent waves for a while, then I started to walk back towards the camp. People were laughing; someone brought more wine. The guitar somehow became worse.

I thought about my friend, James, who was chasing girls around the fire, but I knew he wouldn't care.

Then, I thought about the girl who shared her cheese with me.

There were dozens of people only a hundred metres away. I could have shouted: "Come, you have to see this."

Instead, I stopped there.

I realized I didn't want to share this moment with any of them. It wasn't because I was selfish. I didn't want the moment to only belong to me. I just wanted it to remain exactly as it was.

If another person arrived, they might reach for a camera. They would break the silence. They might ask why the water glowed, or wonder if it was safe to go in the water. And they might bring more people.

So I turned around, and walked back into the sea.

I stayed until the water felt too cold for my toes. But I didn't walk back to the camp, but toward the dunes. When I looked up, another light caught my eye.

Fireflies.

Dozens of them! They blinked lazily between the leaves of grass.

The ocean shimmered behind me. The fireflies shimmered beside me. Above me, the full moon with the constellations, spreading in every direction of the compass.

For a few minutes, I felt like I stood between three different skies.

The next thing I remember is waking up because I was cold again.

The bonfire was gone. My three skies were gone, too. It was dark and windy, and the clouds covered the full moon.

I went back to the albergue and climbed into my bed. In the morning, we packed our bags, hugged goodbye, and continued our way back home in opposite directions.

Years later, when people ask me about the most beautiful place I've ever seen, I usually tell them about glaciers in Iceland, magnificent castles in France, and mountains I climbed before sunrise.

Those are stories easier to tell.

I never tell them about the beach in Finisterre...

I could tell them about the bonfire, people who love you like you're part of them without knowing you, the shimmering grass and ocean, the full moon reflecting off the ocean waves, and the clear sky with all its constellations.

But those are all only the facts.

The real beauty lived somewhere between the small charms.

Some memories become smaller when they're told. And some belong only to the people who were there.

I don't know how much I fit the prompt with this, because for me this moment is pretty impressive... but for me, it was definitely much more than what it looks like from the outside. That said, I guess I don't need to clarify that this isn't a fictional story, though it has to be submitted to the Fiction community.

Thank you for reading ❤️