Ancient Antiphony

We pulled off the highway onto a country road and then over into a clearing surrounded by shrubbery and trees and blanketed in a light fog. We weren't far from the highway, but the hour was late, and the foliage dampened any sound and light that might otherwise have reached us. The headlights filled the clearing, reflected back at us until the car was abruptly turned off.

I didn't know why we were there or what his expectations were, but there was an air of possibility. We were young and hopeful. When he got out of the dark purple Chevy Corsica, I followed his example. He slid onto the hood of his car and patted the hood. The night air was cool and crisp, but I could feel the heat of his body radiating next to mine. We sat, for several heartbeats, in the dark, listening to the only sound--the click-click-click of the cooling manifold.

My chest tightened as the silence deepened. That nervous static of a new relationship crept in. I tried not to breathe too loud or give away how self-conscious I was. A desperate urge to say something, anything, to break the tension welled up within me. Unsure of myself, I let it engulf us. But I didn't need to worry. A chirp here and a trilled response there. The frogs and insects in the clearing and the amphitheater of trees timidly resumed the ancient antiphony that we interrupted.

Fireflies gradually reinitiated their luminescent courtship. A single green-gold blink in the grass to the left. A pulse midair across the clearing. Within minutes, the night was alive with them. They seemed synchronized to the late-night symphony. The quiet, apprehensive adult in me stepped back, replaced instantly by the childhood wonder of summers spent chasing "fairies" with a mason jar. I watched them, completely awestruck, until he shifted beside me and lay back against the hood. His arms nonchalantly behind his head.

Mirroring him, I let myself lean back, the warmth of the hood a comforting contrast to the chill in the air. The clear night sky opened up. In the absence of the city glare, the crowded tapestry of the cosmos was revealed. The pale shimmering band that is the milky way. The Big Dipper, a cosmic cradle. The Little Dipper, pouring stardust across the sky and over the full moon, melting my unease. Forgetting my tentativeness, I pointed to a brighter point shining in the sky. "I'm pretty sure that reddish one is Mars. It's visible this time of year."

He smiled sweetly and looked over at me, the moonlight catching his beard. "Where did you learn that?" he asked, his voice low, warm, and soothing as it reverberated through the night air.

Lying flat on the hood next to him, the metal solid beneath us, I felt completely at ease. This had been exactly what I needed to be coaxed out of my shell. He seemed to get me before he even really knew me. Sharing this was easy now.

"My Dad," I said, looking up at the rust-colored point in the sky. I explained how stargazing had been our special thing. A quiet ritual entirely ours, away from the noise of my siblings. I told him about the telescope my parents gave us for Christmas and the star wheel my Dad had given me. I described how he had patiently taught me to align the dates and times. To decode the sky, turning the chaotic dusting of silver overhead into a map of familiar stories.

He listened quietly, just nodding as I talked, before look back up at the vast, crowded tapestry above us. From that point on, everything just flowed. We lapsed into a comfortable silence, punctuated only by the occasional, effortless conversation about any old thing that came into our heads. Lying there on the hood of that dark purple Chey Corsica, surrounded by the rhythmic chorus of the frogs, a profound sense of peace settled over both of us. The universe felt infinitely large, but our corner of it felt entirely safe, still, and perfectly understood. We stayed out there long after the manifold grew cold, just two people watching the universe spin by.