2006 THIRD PLACE

FOCAL POINT
Raty Syka
16 years old, Virginia

It has been three days, two nights into my week-long stay when my phone rings. My voice on the line, my muffled "hello," must sound thick with jet-lag. She, on the other hand, sounds chipper and bright, her usual self.

How's it been going?" she asks, conversational but concerned.

"Well, I've given the talk before, it's not a big deal," I reply, sinking onto the starched hotel mattress and rubbing the lethargy from my eyes.

"Well that's good," she says. I can hear her rummaging around the kitchen and can picture her with the phone held fast to her cheek with a propped shoulder.

The line goes silent for a moment, even the hustle and clash of dishes and cellophane pauses through the receiver. She says, "You know, I don't really like cooking for myself," and then, "I miss you."

"I know."

"Hey," she says, her voice lifting a little, "tonight I want you to do something for me. Will you?"

"What is it?"

"I want you to go look at the moon."

"The moon!" I exclaim. "Why? What for?"

"Tonight at eight o'clock I want you to go outside and stare at the moon for a few minutes. I'll be sure to look at eleven here, and you go at eight your time. This way, we'll both be looking. Think of how far away we are, wouldn't that be comforting?"

"I guess," I sigh.

The night is bright by the time I step outside, making everything seem silvery with brilliance. I gaze at the moon and am suddenly overcome with an image of her, perched on the window seat in the kitchen with a fleece blanket and a mug of tea, staring wistfully at the sky. We are not looking at each other, yet somehow she is staring back at me.

The moon is universal, I think to myself, seen from anywhere in the world and only obscured by its own cycles or the atmosphere. I wonder if anyone else is gazing at it as well, unaware of the fact that I am considering them. Where are they? Have their lives dealt them circumstances that are as comfortable as my own? Better?

What would it be like, if people everywhere were to pause at once, and all turn their focus to this universal landmark? Like a Muslim call to prayer facing Mecca, would ten thousand faces turn skyward in unison? In a glorious moment of pure and absolute togetherness, everyone in the world could act as one. And in the few seconds that it would last, every individual on the planet might imagine their finite existence as one of many, innumerable, as well as their ultimate connection to humanity.

Thousands of miles apart, our gazes are reflected at each other. When I return home after the long plane ride, my suitcases stacked in the front hallway, we will sit side by side on the bench in the kitchen and I will tell her these thoughts that come to me while staring into space, and she will smile. Together we will sit, shoulders touching, surrounded by a silence that is the manifestation of a peace that the world has yet to discover as a whole.