Gemini

The Nepalese Sherpa craned his neck upward as the fireball streaked across the eastern sky lighting up the peaks of the snowy mountain tops like the flash from a camera. He watched as the perfectly round ball flung strings and beads of blue and red liquid light in all directions. His mouth fell agape as his eyes followed the fiery orb across the afternoon sky. “The hand of God!” the weathered Sherpa whispered in a puff of frosty breath. In an instant, the orb disappeared over the peaks and the cold day reset itself. The Sherpa fell to his knees and continued to gaze skyward into the heavens. Moments later, he lifted himself with a grunt and began to walk the final miles to his village, constantly looking skyward as he walked across the barren snow fields. Fifteen years later, as the Sherpa lay dying on his thin, tattered mattress, he would repeat for the first time what he had seen in the sky that day. His eldest son, Akash, listened to his father obediently and with patience. Modern influences had permeated their small village, and such things as lights that seemed to dance in the mountains, spirits that floated across the ice fields, and the existence of the Yeti, were seen as simple folklore in the modern age. Akash dismissed his father’s stories and softly kissed his forehead. “Rest papa,” he said with a sad smile. Unbeknownst to the dying Sherpa and his son Akash, the craft he had seen years ago in the sky carried one lone occupant… a single Gemini, searching for the other.