David didn't know how long he'd sat on the bench, but darkness had fallen around him almost unnoticed. The park was still and quiet and the lack of lights made the night all the more clear. He continued to sit on the bench, not moving even a muscle, totally relaxed.
As the darkness deepened stars began to appear in numbers David had never seen before, and the longer he sat there the more amazed he became. To get a better view and stop the crick in his neck David lay down on the bench, which was uncomfortable but he didn't care. Soon there were so many points of light he was finding it hard to pick out the well know constellations.
Lying there David began to contemplate the vastness of the universe, and how much there was in it. Tiny, glowing, pink pricks that millions of light years away were giant, raging, balls of fire, and suddenly David felt very small.
A shooting star flared for a moment and was gone.
'My life,' David said aloud, 'is just a shooting star; burning for a moment and going out.' And yet here I am, he thought, and despite the massive-ness of the universe, or this world even, someone has given little me a chance to live. This made David feel even smaller, so he stopped thinking again and gazed up at the sky and then he spotted the Milky Way, and once he'd seen it he couldn't look at anything else.
Men can argue and fight and die, but the stars remain forever, David thought, and I can lie on this bench tonight and tomorrow I can return to work, but somehow none of that will ever be enough. There must something more.
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