Mother finds me lying in a field, staring up at the stars.

“There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you,” she admonishes, “It’s almost time for bed.”

I sit up with a yawn. “I’m not tired.”

She chuckles and offeres her hand. “Sure you aren’t.”

I take it and we walk back to the bonfire. A soft breeze blows through the fauna disrupting the stillness of the night. In the distance, the light from the fire illuminates the clearing.

“What were you doing?” she asks, seeing the pensive look on her face.

I shrug. “Thinking.”

“About?”  Her eyes are smiling.

“World like ours, but far away. If there really is life on those planets they found. What it would be like there. Things like that.” There is a pause as we both look to the sky. The stars seem so close, like if I stood on her shoulders, I could reach out and touch them.

“Well, at least two planets look promising. They’ve found liquid water, methane, oxygen, even unknown frequencies on one.”

“So you think there’s life on it?”

She shrugs. “I think so. But  we don’t know how they will react to us, should we decide to meet them. They might not be life as we know it.”

“But there is still life out there.” I search the sky for a yellow star, one with surrounded by eight planets. The third from the sun. That’s where they believe life is. And maybe someday, we will visit.