Zeb stared up at the dark sky. And began shrinking.
As far as he could see, the pinpricks of stars radiated across the far-flung heavens. Heaven. He smiled at the thought, wondering just where God's Mansion was supposed to be - somewhere in one of the radial arms of the Milky Way? Or maybe in the Andromeda Galaxy, our near neighbor? He kept looking up, toying with this idea and that, finding himself growing smaller and smaller as a result. Well, shoot, he thought. Aren't there over fifty galaxies in our little backwater block of the universe? At least from what we can see of the universe, anyway.
Then, a fun thought: What if Heaven is inside Sagittarius A*, that massive black hole at the center of our galaxy?
On and on he thought, staring at that impossibly huge sky, knowing that the longer he stared, the smaller he would get. So small, that he began to feel like no more than a jot. A speck of dust. Completely crowded out in significance by all the galaxies, super-clusters, planets, comets - and whatever the hell dark matter was - that combine into making up the universe as we know it. Just a speck. Nothing more.
And that's when Zeb had his Cosmic Moment. He realized that he may be just a speck, but that's still something. Which is better than nothing. That means that in this universe with its teeming billions of components, he numbered among them. He belonged.
© Jeff Stilwell 2012
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