Thousands of glittering bits of light shone up at me, greeting my eyes with their iridescent appearance and reflection. Not that it was overwhelming – it wasn’t. It was that their lighted reflections were simply amazing. Their appearance was beyond belief and thought. They looked like stars against a sand-grained canopy of heaven – yet, I was looking down, instead of up. And it was daylight, or at least it would be for a couple of more hours before the sun finally set and declared that it was bedtime on my part of the spinning sphere we called Earth.
Light had suddenly torn through the sky in between gray clouds, across the dark green field, and onto the individual facets of mica-speckled gravel that dotted the road next to my house. Unbeknownst to me at the time, those rays of light had traveled for eight minutes through space to get there from the surface of the giant, heavenly orb in order to touch the tiny surfaces of the gravel and bounce up into my eyes. Some would say that the light was going to bounce up anyway – whether I was there to see it or not. But for some reason, I was standing in the right place at the right time. And as a result, I saw some amazing things.
It was well worth the arduous trip to get there – okay, it was really only a short walk from the living room inside the house to the dirt road outside. Still, it seemed like a huge trek since I didn’t want to miss watching some show on TV. Now, I can’t even remember what was on, but I’m sure it seemed extremely important to not miss at the time.
Despite the temptation to be lazy and stay inside, I mustered up some strength (or was told to go out) and left the comfort of the soft, interior of the house. And by doing so, I was richly rewarded. Within those next few minutes, I was allowed to see and enjoy wonderments that still reside in my memories, today.
Hundreds of rocks lined the road. Sure, I had seen most of the same ones multiple times before, over the years and earlier that same week. But this time, the rocks stood out as a momentary glance into the inner workings of the brilliance that goes on all the time in the background, yet typically remains unseen by eyes unaware.
A slight breeze blew through right then, too. It was just enough moving air to push tiny, leftover bits of water around on the thousands of facets that were causing the push of radiance from the ground up toward my face.
The gray clouds – that the sunlight was passing through – were the same ones that had just filled the sky and dumped buckets of rain in only a few minutes. Now, they were clearing out – blowing on to other parts East – to wet more fields and roads there and to wash the dirt from other rocks, so the sun could dance across those tiny mirrors and reflect up into other little boys’ eyes, as well.
Kneeling down onto the wet dirt road, I absorbed the sights that surrounded me. The sheer volume of reflecting light rays was overwhelming, yet glorious at the same time. I picked up a couple of the wet rocks and rolled them around in my small palm. With each movement side-to-side and back-and-forth, they convinced me that I now held some incredible form of magic.
All up and down the road, there lay before my eyes an abundance of shimmering, changing particles of light – bouncing here and there, as I walked excitedly. I soon learned that they would disappear and reappear with each drying out and subsequent rewetting. In the future, I anticipated the coming and going of each rainstorm, knowing that the magic of the rocks would return.
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This was adapted from one of my upcoming books. For ones currently published, go to www.Amazon.com/author/reep
Marty Reep 