Member-only story
The Stars Were Burning Bright
Meet Leonard.
Leonard had always felt too deeply.
It had started the day he found a baby bird caught in the shreds of a fallen nest. A gale had gone through the little suburb his parents called home, and he had gone outside to retrieve his forgotten jump rope that had miraculously not been spirited away down the street, never to be seen again. But all thoughts of the rope fled as he saw the trembling shape of a creature taking its last breaths.
Before he could stop himself, Leonard fell to his knees and brought his fingertips to the bird. In a flash, he saw things he couldn’t explain: a beautiful sparrow with speckled wings, a proud bluebird with feathers dappled in shades like a summer sky, the slither of worms pecked from grains of sodden dirt.
Startled, Leonard drew his hand away as if he had just been burned. Before he could even think of what had just happened, he ran from the dying bird and its nest. Later, his father would dispose of the bird quietly without a fuss. Later, his mother would cry when she heard, needing to be consoled in the kitchen by the warm embrace of his father.
That night, Leonard sat with his knees hunched to his chest and breathed out. Ever after, his dreams were alight with strange things — unexplainable things, things he shouldn’t have been able to…
