Farming over the clouds

There was a fire—huge logs stacked in the middle of the beach. She sat a little apart from everyone else.

The fire barely lit her face, catching the single tear that slipped down her cheek.

The wind stirred her hair as she tried to keep it from her eyes. She smiled once, looking out at the sea.

The sky was still faintly blue, darkening as the first stars began to appear.

It was getting cold. The wind was strong, and she wanted to move closer to the fire—but she was keeping a secret.

She whispered to the first star she saw, her words leaving her mouth like smoke.

The smoke drifted upward toward the star until it vanished.

Then she wasn’t alone anymore. He climbed the small hill and sat beside her on the fallen trunk resting on the beach.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he said.

“Which part?” she asked.

“The whole thing,” he replied, staring at the sky. “We’ve been farming stars for years, and it doesn’t feel right anymore.”

She raised her hand as if gripping an invisible rope.
“Let me show you something,” she said, pulling downward.

The white smoke she had whispered earlier reappeared as a thread, still connected to the star. As she drew it closer, she said,
“I’ve been letting them go back up just before they fade. Up there, I nurse them back to full strength.”

He looked at her, then at the sky, and whispered. A thin thread of white smoke extended from him, intertwining with hers.

Suddenly, he felt the star’s life force—the same one that had nearly evaporated from extraction days earlier.

“But how?” he asked. “Where do you get the energy?”

“The trees,” she replied.

He looked at her, confused, saying nothing. She understood and continued.

“I didn’t understand it either. Somehow, the energy we take from the sky is also being created here. If I connect to the roots of the trees, I can send that energy back up and refill the stars.”