Is This The Plan?

Jaspar had always loved the night. It was still, quiet, and peaceful. Ever since he was a boy he had loved spending time out under the stars. He used to sneak out of his window and sit on the roof and look up wondering what it would be like to live among the stars and what sort of beings they may be. One night his father had come into his room and found him missing. Jaspar was certain as soon as he heard his father climbing out the window and onto the roof that he was in serious trouble and feared what would happen to him. He remembered how his heart raced as he stared at his bare feet. He cringed as his father sat beside him and closed his eyes tight bracing himself for what he was certain was coming. There was silence for what seemed like an eternity.

Jaspar had finally resolved to look at his father; whatever was to happen he was sure that his father wanted to look him in the eye first. He wanted to keep his eyes closed and hid, but the anticipation of what was coming made his stomach turn. He gritted his teeth and looked up, but his father did not look angry. He was even smiling. “You see that cluster there?” he said pointing into the sky and leaning close to Jaspar so that he could look at the sky from where he was and point to the right place. Jaspar looked back to the sky looking down his father’s arm and into the night where he pointed. There in the ink black sky shone a band of stars. He slowly nodded, his eyes locked on them. “Those are the Great Serpent.”

That night was one Jaspar would never forget. The two of them sat on the roof all night and his father told him legend upon legend of the stars. It was only when Jaspar noticed that some of the stars were fading that he realized that the sun was returning and the night waning.

For years there would be many nights of sitting under the stars together, but there was something special about the first time. It had been ten years since he lost his father. There were days when he was such a distant memory that Jaspar could hardly remember anything about him. But each night when the stars were in the sky and he was out under them, he felt there were moments that he could hear his father’s laughter and smell the spices from his robes. And as his eyes danced over the star patterns, he could hear his father’s thick voice telling mystical legends and tales that had filled his young world with such awe.

Maybe that was why even as a man, he was still looking up at the stars. But now, instead of being a mere interest to him, they were an obsession. Jaspar had become a magi – a highly respected one, at that.

Night after night he would look up into the sky and study his charts in attempts to receive insight into future events and clarification of past ones. There was nothing in the skies that escaped his sharp eye. Every change – every event he bore witness to. That was why he was surprised this night as he looked heavenward and something seemed different to him.

In the mountains high above the city, he and several other magi had gathered in a cave they had claimed as their own. In silence, they watched and studied the stars and awaited a message long foretold of by their forefathers. They had spoken of a light that was to come. It would be a sign of the coming of the Son of the Exalted One. He would be the one by whom all that was in existence had been set in motion and would be the Son of perfect mercy. He would be the ray of light of the glory of the Father. Every night for generations, they had gathered in the cave – the Cave of Treasures where they had stored precious gifts they desired to present to the Son when he arrived.

But it had been many years and many generations and still the sky remained the same. It had been Jasper’s intention to travel to the cave that night, yet he felt a strange drawing to remain in his own home. So instead of joining the others, he chose to remain in silent worship and glorify the Exalted One from his own roof just as his father had taught him so many years before. It was on this night that he was in his observatory when he noticed it. At first, he had thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but at a second and a third and then a fourth glance, he became convinced that they were not. So he went inside to a quiet room covered in a thin layer of dust with a lit lamp. He dug out his star charts – they had been in his family for four generations and though the paper was yellowed with age, the ink held true and the color brilliant. He could see notes in his own hand and in his fathers and his grandfathers and his great-grandfathers. Drawings and notes and discoveries littered the edges, but he had no time to linger and focus on the eminence history that he held in his hands. After searching them over carefully, he determined that his original observation was correct – there was a new star in the sky!