Unbidden Memory

It was a pleasantly warm night. Iago and Quasimodo were surrounded by the songs of crickets as they entered the clearing in the woods. "Finally," Iago muttered, "we can see the stars. Sometimes the leaves overhead are so thickly clustered that one has not even a hint that there is a sky above him."

"You're too easily irritated, my friend," said Quasimodo with a smile. "Whether you see it or not, there is always something above you. Besides, you can now see a plethora of stars shining over your weirdly-shaped pate, so what right have you to be annoyed?"

"Because it is the nature of the beast," Iago sighed. "And I did not expect there to be so many meteors scorching across the sky."

"A beautiful show, absolutely beautiful! How could one even such as you find it in your dark and bitter heart to not delight in this display?"

"Because they're falling stars. The very term 'falling stars' brings to mind so many metaphors, none happy. Sure, they seem so beautiful, their light rushing across the sky for such a short time. But that light means they are dying. We can only see their light because they are speeding toward their destruction. They are beautiful to us only in their moment of death."

"Well," replied Quasimodo, "they are visible to us only as they are dying. But that by no means entails they were not beautiful when we could not see them, when they were in darkness. A thing's beauty does not hinge on its being seen: hidden or revealed, a thing's beauty is inherent in itself, whether any mortal ever perceives it or not."

Iago rolled his eyes. "Please, old friend, don't go into another of your long-winded rhapsodies; just allow me to bask in my annoyance."

Quasimodo smiled. "You've been such an annoyance to me for such a long time that I would be petty not to allow you to wallow in it yourself for a moment." He then silently counted to ten and asked, "Now, what is all of this really about?"

Iago couldn't help but to return the smile. "Very well, since you insist. As I said, falling stars lend themselves to metaphors. They travel in their own course only to die in a burst of illumination. You will find it hard to believe, but once I was in love ... oh, so long ago, when I was oh-so-young. But, as so often happens, we drifted apart, like the stars. I wrote a poem about it. It is very, very bad because I wrote it when I was very, very young, but I still remember it to this day ... or this night. Especially on this night when there are so many falling stars. It goes like this:

"Like falling stars we drifted apart,
You in your world and I in my heart.
Like stars we drifted apart,
You with your world
And I
    Alone
        With my heart."

Quasimodo stared at his companion in the woods for a moment. Then, involuntarily, he began to laugh. Iago, eyebrows raised, started to say something, but suddenly found himself laughing, too. They laughed until they both fell on the ground. Quasimodo, staring into the sky, said, "It certainly is beautiful, isn't it?" Iago, smiling broadly, whispered, "Yes. it most certainly is!"

And serenaded by the crickets, they watched the stars until the sunrise.