How would God respond to making a mistake? Would planets collide or mountains slide into the sea? Or would the ledger of all life simply remain out kilter until a series of small events forced that ledger back into balance again? It's probably the l...
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"Hey Starlin'. Now that we're here, we should both make a wish." He put his finger to his lips and then pointed to the sky. "I wish I was at the top of the dunes in one second. Zoop! Right up there. I wish an invisible string would appear and pull me up. Or maybe I'd jump into one of those pneumatic tubes and get sucked onto the top. Zoop! Zoop! Zoopity zoop!"
Crow bumped his shoulder against mine. "It's your turn now, Starlin'. What do you wish?"
I looked up at the pale brown dunes. Huge mounds of sand that were exactly the same shade of brown. You could tell where one dune began and the other ended but only if you had seen them a thousand times. For me, it was as if someone had taken a huge invisible pencil and drawn a line to separate them. I knew where the line was even if I couldn't see it.
"Come on, Starlin'. Make a wish."
Crow was getting impatient with me again, so I told him that I had already gotten my wish. I said that we were here in North Carolina and that we were together.
"No. You have to make a brand-new wish, Starlin'."
I stared up at the dunes and tried to think of a wish that would make Crow happy. Then something about the wind and the tall (tall) dunes reminded me of that cartoon about the flying mountain. Crow and I saw that when we were kids. The mountain was supposed to be made of Upsadasium, which was the only substance in the world that was lighter than air. It was so rare that everyone wanted to own the mountain. Or to mine it. Or worst of all, to tie it to the Earth so it would never float again. Then I thought if I got to the top of the dunes, I could stop anyone from tying them to the Earth. If the dunes needed to float away, then I would help them.
Okay, Crow. I wish I was on top of the sand dunes. zoop. in 1 second.
"No. That's not fair, Starlin. I took that one already. You have to make your own wish. Come on, now. Those are the rules."
But that was my wish. I imagined myself pulled up or sucked onto the top of the dunes like it was magic. And once we were up there, I could make sure the dunes were safe. We'd sit on the highest ridge and the wind would blow thin streams of sand from one side to the other. Everything would be brown, but it wouldn't matter because I could change the color to whatever I wanted. I could make the sand blue, red, green or even pink. There'd be streams of colored sand like strips of paper that were tinted and curled for a party.
okay.
"Okay what, Starlin?"
okay. I wish we could have a party on top of the dunes.
"A party? Really?"
Crow smiled and kicked sand on my shoes.
"On top? Really really? You mean it? Okay! That's great. We have enough food and so that's what we'll do. That's exactly what we'll do. We'll have a party."
