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The Meteor Shower (3) : It wouldn't be a star festival without a meteor shower! Right on time, a beautiful array of shooting stars graces the night sky. This time of year is unnaturally clear and it's incredibly easy to see the stars. Most meteor fragments appear to be little white or yellow lights streaming across the sky, but if you watch closely enough you may find that some of them seem to be a whole rainbow of colors. The scientists have reported that it's just different components burning up as they enter the atmosphere, but there's something undeniably magical about it.
Alanna had to wonder: was Destiny City's Star Festival timed around the annual meteor shower, or was it just a coincidence? She'd lived here her entire life and she didn't know. She supposed she could find out, there was probably something in some news article somewhere, some crusty old newspaper clipping that gave the history of Star Festival. But did she really want to know? Wasn't it more fun to just imagine a bunch of old timey city officials from a couple hundred years ago looking up at the sky and going "you know, we should have a festival to celebrate the shooting stars! Let's call it Star Festival!" (Of course, she didn't know if Star Festival was really that old, but it was fun to imagine it was.)
These were the thoughts that ran through Alanna's mind as she cooled her heels on her widow's walk balcony, rocking back and forth gently in her rocking chair, a bottle of Edradour whisky on the little table next to her. Feeling classy tonight, she even had a little shotglass for drinking the honey-smooth alcohol. Her beloved beat-up Rickenbacker bass was plugged into the 50-watt practice amp in her room, sitting in her lap comfortably. Pouring herself a fresh shot of whisky, she looked skyward with a lopsided smirk and toasted the shooting stars before knocking the shot back. Ah, this was the life.
Idly she watched the meteor shower rain down intermittently across the night sky. Her fingers reached for the strings of her bass with one hand and wrapped around the neck with the other. It was rare that she played finger style, preferring the growly rumble playing with a pick produced, but she knew how, and as she stargazed she plucked the strings until a tune emerged. She played through it til she got to the bridge, then sang the chorus, voice soft and quiet and raspy:
"Don't you know that you are a shooting star?
Shinin' on, yeah yeah,
Don't you know that you are a shooting star?
All the world will love you just as long,
As long as you arrrrrrre…"
Alanna laughed and shook her head as she stopped playing. What a stupid, crusty old song! Wasn't even a good bass line. She noodled a bit with it, humming the song, then shook her head again. Nah, there were better songs to d**k around with. Repositioning her hands, she started slapping out a different tune, bobbing her head in time with the rhythm as she drunkenly sang along:
"You're a shining star
No matter who you are
Shining bright to see
What you could truly be…"
No expert funk bassist, Al, but she knew the technique enough to be able to hamfist her way through the song. And it was thematically on point too! Laughing, she threw in some more finger style before muting the bass. "Ahahahahaha, that was hilarious, holy s**t," she said to herself. Leaning back, she poured herself another whisky shot and tossed it back, then something in the sky caught her eye. It was a meteor streaking across the blackness, but it looked different. Larger, and vibrantly colorful, in a shade of green she'd never seen before. "Whoa…."
She watched the shooting star til it burned itself out. That was pretty. It was then she noticed other meteors in equally vibrant colors, shooting down intermittently through the more conventional white and yellow, in all the colors of the rainbow. Alanna stared in awe as they flew by; this was the most spectacular thing she'd seen in a long time. She leaned back, rocking gently as she watched. Yeah, this was the life.
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