Illustration by Taylor Penner-Ash.

“What are we all doing here on this planet?” the boy in the treehouse wondered as he dug a little deeper into his sleeping bag.

Every once in awhile, he could hear an owl hoot.

The night wind blew and the branches swayed. The few leaves left on the tree shivered. Some fell to the ground, adding to the great mosaic of red, orange and yellow below. The tree remembered when she was very young, and her mosaic had been small.

Many creatures lived in the tree besides the boy. Spiders and ants, even a family of birds from time to time. A few years from now, the tree would be chopped down.

Far away (or very close, depending on whom you ask) stars swirled in the churning cosmos. The boy saw some of these stars from the window of his treehouse. The stars could see him too. They both twinkled brightly.

The owl hooted again.

Carefully arranged on a shelf in the corner of the treehouse were seven seashells the boy had brought home from the coast. Each tiny shell held the full weight of memory from that particular cloudy day. The smell of the foam that carried the shells into the boy’s hands and pockets. The sound of his older sister’s laughter as her toes felt the coldness of the sea.

His sister had built the treehouse. She had painted tiny white flowers on the ceiling. The flowers reminded the boy of the stars.

“If I lived in the year 800,” the boy thought “and was never educated on such matters, what would I think the stars were?”

If he was being honest with himself, the boy still didn’t know what the stars were. Or lightning, or rainbows. There had been a faint rainbow at the beach on the day the boy had brought home the shells.

The boy wondered if anyone else in the world was lying awake in a sleeping bag in a treehouse. He wondered if anyone else was thinking about things too. He wondered if anyone out there was thinking about if anyone out there was thinking about things. The world sure is a big place. There are a lot of people here.

“Hello out there.” The boy whispered.

The wind blew a chill through the open window. The cold air kissed the boy’s cheeks and he felt warm and safe in his sleeping bag. The tree added a couple more leaves to her mosaic. The boy fell asleep as the moon slunk across the sky.