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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.
It had been an exhausting day for Peregrine, and none of it involved attending Destiny City's Star Festival. The summer meet at DC Downs was in full swing, with a number of feature races being run this day, and Perrie had scored four rides, two more than he had been picking up at the race track since recovering from the horrible racing accident he'd been in some years back. He actually won one of the races, and placed in the money with the rest! An exhausting day, sure, but a good one, both financially and mentally for the young jockey.
Now, in the nighttime quiet of the rolling hills around the boarding stable he and his parents worked at, he lay on his back in the grass on a mound, watching the sky. The weather people had said this would be a perfect night for seeing the annual meteor shower that happened around Star Festival, so in a rare change of pace he'd eaten some magic mushrooms as a civilian instead of taking some to prep for going out as his Senshi alter-ego Parsifal. He could feel the effects of the hallucinogen start to kick in – a kind of mellow, warm haze slowly drifting over his consciousness, bringing the world into sharp, colorful focus. Mushrooms were far superior, in his mind, to LSD or ayahuasca or peyote. For one thing, mushrooms were legal, and for another, the trip they provided was much less harsh than what the other substances did. Just the perfect thing for watching shooting stars by, a nice mild high.
Peregrine yawned and stretched his sore arms and legs, then folded his hands behind his head with a smile. This was nice, just chilling beneath the stars. It was a perfect night for it too, clear as a bell and just the right temperature with no moon yet to distract from any meteors with its light. Gazing up at the sky, he could make out a number of constellations, those bright enough to not be dimmed by the ambient light of the city. He reached up with one arm and traced the connections between the stars, laughing lightly as his fingers left a faint trail across his vision. Yup, now would be a perfect time for the meteor shower to start, he thought as he traced little patterns in the air.
As if the heavens read his mind, a pale yellow streak raced across the night sky. Perrie gasped and grinned. The first shooting star of the night! His focus was now on the pinpoints of light which seemed to shimmer and move against the darkness; he was having a hard time telling if they were doing that themselves or if it was the mushrooms. Another meteor appeared as a white streak, followed by a bright yellow streak; Peregrine sat up to more closely watch the streaks. He followed the next one, a white one, with his finger, grinning like a child. This was worth staying awake for, not going out and patrolling as Parsifal for, not just crawling into the family hot tub and collapsing for.
Then the shooting stars started doing something strange, at least some of them. As Peregrine watched as attentively as someone who was high on mushrooms could watch, every now and then one of them would blaze across the sky in a veritable rainbow of colors! Blinking, he stared as first one, then a second, streaked through the darkness, leaving a rainbow trail behind it. "Whoa," he breathed reflexively, his mouth making an o shape. He almost reached up and tried to touch one of them, or at least touch the trail it left, before his stoned brain reminded him that the meteors were probably super far away. It wasn't all of the shooting stars that were doing this, but it was enough of them that it made him wonder. How did they do that? Was it the magic of Star Festival?
Peregrine laughed. The magic of Star Festival. It had been his experience that Star Festival had weird things going on every year, but he wouldn't call them magical. At least, not before now. No, the weird things that happened around Star Festival were like strange bugs hatching from pods on trees, odd vendors selling weird things, crazy s**t down at the reservoir, stuff like that. Some of which he'd encountered before, too, like those weird fireflies that glowed in colors and zapped you if you touched them. Nothing as beautifully benign as shooting stars burning through the night sky leaving rainbow trails.
Looking up at the night sky, he saw another of those rainbow meteors streak by, followed by two white ones and a yellow one. Was anyone else seeing this? He had to wonder about that; it could be just an hallucination caused by the mushrooms. Or it could be real. He'd have to ask his mom when he went back inside if she'd seen anything on the news about them, since he didn't usually watch the news himself. They were intermittent enough that if you weren't paying attention, you might miss them, so maybe no-one else noticed them.
But he sure did.
The pink-haired young man hugged himself and smiled. Maybe they were like his own private show type of thing, something only he could see, and that was only because he was really watching intently. He looked up again, just in time to see several shooting stars, about half of them normal, the rest rainbow streaks across the night. His personal mushroom-fueled trip toys. Flopping back on the ground happily, Peregrine folded one hand behind his head, using the others to trace the rainbows, his finger leaving rainbow traces of their own. This was fun! This was better than he could have hoped for.
The sound of a meteor breaking the sound barrier startled him, and as he sat up he laughed. Had he drifted off to sleep? Wouldn't surprise him if he had. Maybe he'd better call it a night. As if to say "Good Night Peregrine," a flurry of shooting stars of all colors filled the dark sky. Getting to his feet, he waved at them. "Good night, friends, and thanks." Then he wandered happily down the hill, back to the house.
(wc: 1060)
