Martí and the Light Kept Safe

Martí and the Light Kept Safe

That afternoon, Martí came home from school stepping only on the pale paving stones. The village smelled of warm bread and rain that still had not made up its mind. At home, he put down his rucksack and looked out of the window. The rooftops looked like still boats. On his table there was an empty glass jar, with a red lid. He used it for keeping small treasures: a marble, a feather, a question. Today he put nothing inside. He only thought: ‘If the sky could fit in here…’

After supper, the village grew quiet and low: shutters, plates, a faraway dog. Martí was already in bed when he heard a tap, tap, tap on the glass. It was not the rain. A sparrow was looking in from the window ledge, very serious, with a red thread on its leg. Behind it, a spark spun round and round as if it were looking for a door. Martí swallowed. He could call someone. But the spark did a somersault. And curiosity got the better of Martí.

The window did not open: it became sky.

Martí did not fall. He floated. Beneath his feet appeared a small rocket, as if it had been waiting for him all his life. It had red fins. He liked that. ‘Am I the pilot?’ he whispered. The rocket answered with a friendly hum. Through the little window, the darkness was enormous. Three things shone there: a blue cloud, a ring of dust and an asteroid where a crystal of a thousand colours was beating. Martí rested his hand on the control. There was still a little farther to go.

The asteroid was so small that Martí thought if he sneezed, he would send it flying. The Crystal beat in the centre, slowly: thump… thump… thump. Its colours looked tired. Martí climbed down from the rocket and said nothing at first. He placed his palm on a warm facet. Then he heard a whisper, not in his ears, but behind his eyes: ‘I have lost my shine.’ Martí felt a hollow place in his tummy. ‘We’ll look for it,’ he said.

The rocket followed a trail of tiny sparkles. They were not stars. They darted away and came back, like fireflies that had learnt to swim. Martí pressed his nose to the little window. At school he liked maps; here they were not much use, but looking slowly was. He saw that the sparkles were all going in the same direction. ‘That way,’ he said, proudly, in a small voice. The Crystal, curled up in a corner of the rocket, gave a slightly braver thump.

At the end of the trail appeared the Smiling Star. It was so big that the rocket looked like a crumb. Its light filled the cabin. Martí had to half-close his eyes. ‘We need a little bit,’ he said. ‘For a friend who is fading.’ The star smiled wider, and that was almost too much. A tongue of light reached out towards them, warm as summer. Martí took a step back. ‘If we touch it like that, we’ll burn,’ he thought. The Crystal trembled without a sound.

Martí sat on the edge of the rocket, with his feet dangling over the night. The Smiling Star waited. Even its glow seemed to breathe more softly. He had never felt so small. And yet, inside his chest, there was room for a star, for a sad crystal and for a new question. There was still a little farther to go.

Then the star sneezed out a flare.

The rocket shook like a shoebox in the hands of a giant. Light came in from every side, too alive to stay still. ‘I can’t carry it!’ cried Martí. The Smiling Star drew in its rays, flustered. The Crystal was hardly beating at all. Martí searched in his pockets: a rubber, two crumbs, nothing useful… and the jar with the red lid, which somehow had travelled with him. He lifted it uncertainly. ‘What if it escapes?’ But the jar shone inside, as if it had heard.

Martí did not open the jar all the way. Only a crack, just enough for a spark to fit through. ‘Gently,’ he asked. The Smiling Star blew with care. The light slipped into the jar and became round, small, calm. The red lid closed with a click that sounded like a promise. Back on the asteroid, Martí held the jar close to the Crystal. He did not pour the light out: he let it peep through. The Crystal drank that glow in tiny sips. And then dawn broke in a thousand colours.

When Martí blinked, he was in his bedroom. The window was a window. The village slept beneath its same old rooftops. On the table, the jar with the red lid looked empty. Looked. Martí held it to his ear and heard the tiniest thump, like a heart made of colours. He smiled without making a sound, because some adventures wake up if you name them too loudly. In the morning, on the way to school, he looked at the pale paving stones, the dark ones, and also the gap between the two. There was still a little farther to go.