The Axis Paradox

Intro - All The Stars

Jasper Redstone sighed, feeling the grass tickle the back of his neck as he laid on the back lawn and stared up. His journal laid across his chest, facing the sky, ink drying under starlight. 

Beside him, Penny Smiler and Kane Hudson stared up at the sky as well, almost unblinking as the stars above them twinkled captivatingly.

Jasper raised a sweater-clad arm to point at a series of stars. 

"That one up there is called the Big Dipper," he traced the outline of the shape against the darkness, Penny and Kane following his finger.

"And that one's the Little Dipper. Ooh, there's Orion's belt, and if you look hard enough," he paused to let his friends squint at the little dots, "you can see the whole of Orion. Amazing, really. They should have called this town Milky Way, you can see it so well from here." 

The two beside him nodded, almost in unison, as if any of what he was saying actually sunk in and they didn't just want to make their friend feel better for rambling about his latest obsession. Which, of course, he was. Again. This time, it was stars, which admittedly was a nice turn from setting things on fire. Or seeing who could climb a tree highest, or swim deepest in the lake. Compared to those, having a star-mapping competition seemed the least destructive way to spend weekends Jasper had come up with yet.

Penny looked over to her friend, seeing his ink-splotch-covered hands still waving about in the air wildly, and smiled. She may not understand half of what came out of Jasper's mouth most days, and her attempt at a star map may look like inky spaghetti, sure, but he somehow never lost the spark that he always seemed to have with this stuff. 

She could count on her fingers the amount of times Jasper had deemed an "adventure", as he called them, hopeless, and even if all three of them came out the other side of the forest lost, confused, and coated in bruises and scrapes (not to mention Jasper sprained his elbow last time), he would still spout something about how the pattern of fallen leaves on the floor seemed a little unnatural and plunge right back in, journal in hand.

Those journals seemed to be always in hand. He called it something cheesy, like "Project Starlight" or something, and was writing about "the anomalous nature of the town" or some such. Penny and Kane, meanwhile, listened to Jasper's theories like any friends would, except once done they completely disregarded any mention of "unescapable corn mazes" (just say you're bad at corn mazes, Jasper. Jeez.) or "fog that ages" (it probably just wiped their makeup off. Water has been known to do that, after all.) despite Jasper's protests.

As Jasper fell silent, she gave a noise of affirmation, and turned her head to the snoring form beside her.

Kane wasn't much for talking most times. He preferred to stay quiet and watch, pulling Jasper back by the sweater when his friend got lost in writing and almost walked off the edge of a cliff. That had happened twice now, and Kane was fully prepared for the third to happen any moment. When he did talk, however, it didn't match his usual disposition at all. 

He could be sarcastic, sassy, or downright mean if he felt like it, and he often did. His fingernails were painted a proud yellow, pink, green, purple, and blue neon mix that caught the eyes of almost everyone in Axis. Penny didn't think they even sold those colors at either of the two convenience stores the town had, run-down as they were.

Or at any of the mysterious, mirrored stores on that long, winding street full of all the same convenience stores that appears off Main St. on Sundays, although Penny hadn't explored that as thoroughly as she was sure Jasper hoped they would have.

As Kane's snoring lulled Penny to sleep, Jasper stayed awake, staring at that dark, shining, endless sky, already planning the next adventure.

He blinked sleepily up at it, smiling, and his eyes slid closed.

And the sky blinked back.

****AUTHOR'S NOTE****

This was so fun! I can't wait to write more Axis, and I hope you guys enjoyed this one!

Hopefully sometime in the next two weeks! Until then,

Have a lovely day, boys, girls, neither, both, or in-betweens!

-pix