Make a wish?

At 1:22 am, I left my bedroom, walked down the road of my uni house, and onto the left-hand corner of the street. I planted myself just behind a jeep to cover the distracting light from one of the lone lampposts. Warm puddles of yellow light pool onto the grey pavement, a sight I usually find comforting in the darkness of the Surrey countryside, but today I just find annoying. They turn most of the lampposts off at 1 here, so I’m pretty lucky that the sky is not too flooded with light pollution. My head weighs heavily with the long list of wishes I hope to make, a few things I feel that can only be changed by cosmic intervention. I was briefly into stargazing as a child (as well as bird watching, Irish dancing, the violin, you name it), so I can point out a few constellations. My eyes scan the black sky for the Big Dipper and Jupiter. I turn my phone brightness all the way down and scan the article quickly for what I’m supposed to do. Every second my eyes graze this screen is like an extra five minutes they’ll take to adjust to the dark. “FUCK.” Even with the brightness turned all the way down, it’s still too bright, so I slip it back into my pocket.

Look east and look for Perseus. I then realise I have no idea what that constellation looks like and sigh as I take out my phone again, load Sky Guide, quickly searching for Perseus, and then close my phone again. I’m not tired. I usually sleep around 3 am anyway, but I am impatient. Incredibly. My legs start to itch as I wait. A fox pauses inquisitively at me, and I think that she thinks that this behaviour is very odd for a human being. These are her hours, and she’s not used to them being occupied with anyone but herself. I briefly check my phone at 1:50. I read an article the other day that foxes are trying to domesticate themselves, and for some reason, I think I can domesticate this one right here.

I try to remember if dogs (as that is what foxes are technically) find it threatening or friendly if you get on their level. Do they find it threatening if you look them straight in the eyes, or is that gorillas? I’m not sure. Either way, I slowly descend, I feel a stone piercing through my dressing gown and into my knee. After a few minutes, she steps forward, and I try to make myself look even smaller. I feel like Bear Grylls. After cocking her head to the side she also sits, her left paw turned out slightly in case she needs to escape. We stay like this for 8 minutes, my eyes flickering from the fox to the sky, the fox to the sky, the fox to the sky.

At 1:59, a proper shooting star streaks across the sky, and I stand up so jarringly she runs away, but I barely notice, my attention arrested. I quickly check the time and I realise that as my eyes have adjusted to the dark, the sky has morphed from black to purple and is awash with more white dots than I’ve seen since DofE. Over half an hour for three minutes of tiny balls of light to appear and disappear. Worth it. At 2:02, as I put the keys in my front door, another crests from behind the chimney and onto the roof. I burst into tears, stumble through the door, and onto my bed. I had set out that night with a list of things I had wanted to wish for, but as I sniffle and stare at my ceiling, I think about how silly it is that I wanted to wish for anything at all.