SOL

The fire warmed up my face, legs, and finally my softly cold hands. It whispered and crackled, contributing to our own conversation, laughing along to our jokes as its warm colors flared and tried to warm me up from the inside out. I shift on the rough log, squished between two of my friends. Laughter and happiness fills the air around me, seeming to warm it up as much is the fire does. The fire spits a couple of flaming sparks in the air and they pop and float up quickly, almost as if they are pointing at something, telling me to look, look up there! I flip my hood off my head, and look up. The giant swirl of stars stands out against the dusky blue of the night sky. So many different colors glow in their different ways, warm and cold, bright and soft, all swirling together and smudging and blending to create one kind of giant masterpiece. Little spots of light in the big, black, empty universe. The stars twinkle, like a reflection of our fire in the cosmos above us, set in the velvety lake of the night.
The smell of s'mores brings me back to Earth. Some people start singing a song, which drifts all around us and connects us in that way that only music can. I look at the fire again. Music is red, I decide, the red of the fire. No, music can be all different colors, but I think that the effect that it has on everything is red. At that moment I also decide that red is my favorite color. Suddenly I can't believe that I've only known most of these people for a couple of months but what I can believe is that I'll have a lot of fun spending the rest of the year with them.
I look up at the stars again, at the big black emptiness of the universe. It really should make me feel small and insignificant, but how can the universe be that big, and that empty, if it's filled with little moments of happiness, kindness, and warmth like this? Maybe each star stands for one of these moments of happiness and friendship. I mean, it's possible. You never know.
My friend hands me a toasted marshmallow, hot and sticky. I look at it for a moment, its golden toasty warmth, how it glows in the surrounding blue of the night. I take one last look around at my friends, everyone. The fire whispers to me goodnight, goodnight Sarah, goodnight.
And here we are, one little speck of light in the big, black, empty universe.