The Stargazer

When I found him, I thought the grasshopper would find his way out of the observatory. Instead, he learned how to use the telescope. I would come in, late in the evenings after my shift at Lockheed, and he would be there. I would open the door slowly and peek in. For a second I could see him – a speck on the end of the little viewing lens. The pale moonlight trickled down the side of the telescope and the grass hoppers wings glimmered. I would throw open the door, and like a bolt of lightning he would blur into the air and be lost. I didn't know where he jumped to, where he lived. But I wanted to find out.

It was a Sunday night in September. The sporadic cold would rush in from the opening of the dome, swirl around in the room, and just as quick be gone. I had decided to spend the night at the observatory. But I had no intention of going anywhere near the telescope. I was there to watch the grasshopper. I was convinced he was studying the celestial bodies, and I intended to see how he went about doing it. So I sat still in the corner, reading a book as the sun went down. The light in the room changed from yellow to orange to pink until the white moonlight came and cooled the room and washed out all the color.

I began my vigil. Hours passed where I saw nothing but the slow movement of the stars in the opening of the dome. I wondered if he knew I was there, or if I was going mad. Frustration gave way to defeat which gave way to the rolling slope to sleep. But then, with my eyes half open, I saw him – that thin lightning bolt flash in the air, then the speck, twitching into place on the end of the lens opening.

He sat there for along moment, hanging over the lens. He was looking in, I was convinced of that. The moon was full that night. He would have a spectacular view. I could not help but recall the urgency, wonder, smallness that I experienced in my early days of stargazing in my backyard with my red Tasco telescope. I must have looked something like this.

Then, the grasshopper crawled off the lens edge, up to the barrel of the telescope. He began to walk up, towards the opening of the dome. He looked like he was walking on a moon beam, slowly plodding up the silvery shaft of light. He was tiny, but impossible to miss against the brightness. He continued up, up until he reached the edge of the dome, and then past the opening out onto the edge of the telescope.

He stood on that edge, above the giant lens, and looked out at the full moon. Out at the stars. The grasshopper stared in the face of the infinite reaches of space, dwarfed by the massive moon and the sea of stars. That night I thought to myself – here is the most beautiful thing I have, and will ever see in my life.

And I have seen the universe.

The invaders came a week later. The observatories were among the first things they bombed.

Sometimes I have a hard time recalling the old days. It is moods and colors in bits and pieces in my mind. But that grasshopper I remember so clearly. How he glowed.