A small girl, barely past her fourteenth summer, pushed the oars back and forth. They moved and therefore, the rowboat moved. It was a process and a level of unity you could say. You can’t get anywhere without that one thing: unity. And I believe the girl understood that, hence the rowboat and oars. But she failed to understand it completely.

She was alone and there was only so much unity a rowboat and a couple of oars could provide.

The thought eventually struck her when her palms stung and her mouth was dry. She paused a moment to rub her hands and maybe drink some of her cocoa she had made prior to this expedition. The thought came when she was just about to reach for knapsack, and she connected her stinging palm to her forehead, feeling foolish at her mistake.

“Unity comes in the form of people,” She muttered. “At least in my case as I am human. And here I am, in the wide expanse of the ocean, with a boat and some oars.”

And there she was, in the wide, lucent, expanse of the ocean. Alone with no human company to help her on her journey. No one to assist her with the mission she was to go and complete. If something were to happen to her, who would save her? Who would be there? The oars?

For a while she sat. And she thought. Thinking was not something she had done, only hurry. And now she was in a terrible predicament. She contemplated continuing or even turning back. However she was too far out and home was decades away. Soon it would be dark and if she didn’t make it to her destination by midnight, she would fail. She had no choice now but to go on. Her throbbing hands reached out for the oars again…

But her eyes caught something. Something they had not noticed before. As though it had simply appeared on the rampant waters, there lay a rowboat in the distance. A bit larger than hers, it moved steadily and confidently. Towards her.

In short time, the boat had reached the girl’s and the two boats knocked gently against one another. She examined the owner of the boat: a tall girl who looked barely past her fifteenth summer. For a measure of time, they were silent. And then the tall girl spoke.

“The wood of my boat is quite old. It won’t be long before it rots out here. I wasn’t thinking of quality when I got it; only to hurry. I have something important to do and I was hoping-”

“Get in. Please do. Steady yourself; its moves a lot.” The tall girl got in absolute agility and sat opposite the small girl.

“Where are you off to? It’s nearly midnight,” the girl who looked barely past her fifteenth summer asked.

And the small girl, who was barely past her fourteenth summer, responded, “Midnight is the perfect time to catch the stars, my friend. To grasp them in your hands and wonder at the existence of the universe. Midnight is when they shine the brightest, at the stroke of twelve.”

The other girl smiled a slightly wicked smile. “I was thinking the same thing.”