Searching for Star Blossoms at Midnight

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. Deep black plum blankets highlighted with lavender and violet hues bloomed across a suddenly rosy atmosphere. They swirled and dipped in waves of iridescent color, folding in on themselves one minute and then racing across the vast expanse the next. And below them, in any greenspace that could be found, the Star Blossoms bloomed. Rich navy petals with bioluminescent white flecks and glowing seafoam green veins burst from the earth. Their stems were the darkest shade of green and felt like velvet while their aroma was an invigorating mixture of fresh cut grass and some delicate exotic fruit.

Standing on the porch of the little rented cabin in Yellowstone National Park, just minutes before midnight, I stared at the trees and allowed my mind to wander back to the first time it happened. I was a little girl and I woke from a sound sleep in the bed I shared with my mother in our little rundown trailer. I remember the whole place being lit with a magenta glow that reminded me of the pink neon sign outside the diner where mama worked. I inched out from under my mother’s arm trying desperately not to wake her. She’d worked a double and her back was bothering her more than usual.

I went to the window and stared out in awe at the sky and field behind the trailer park. The way the clouds swirled in on themselves and disappeared into a pit of eggplant purple only to burst into a bloom of orchid and hyacinth somewhere else captured my young imagination. And when I noticed the flowers, growing right before my eyes and glowing with a clear white light that I had only ever seen in stars, I knew that magic was real. No one could tell me otherwise from that point forward.

I don’t remember the panic of the next few days. Religious zealots either claimed ownership as a miracle from their gods or warned it was a sign of the end of times. People on the news and in my classrooms tried, and failed, to explain it. Artists likened it to the Northern Lights and the bioluminescent beaches of Puerto Rico while businesses tried to figure out how to profit from it. I didn’t really pay any attention to the talk. I didn’t care. It felt like the magic was just for me and I didn’t need anyone to explain it.

That’s when I started drawing. Every day for the rest of my fourth grade year I tried to recreate the purple and pink sky lit up by blue and green blooms. When my mother realized how fascinated I was by the occurrence she started making sure to let me out into the field on her nights off. Laying in the grass behind the trailer, just me and her, were some of my best memories growing up. The two of us, out in the quiet just staring at the purple hues that didn’t have names or making glowing fairy crowns out of the magical flowers allowed us to forget about work, or school, or the empty fridge. We were free under that swirling purple blanket. When we were there we weren’t poor anymore. Hungry days and cold nights didn’t feel so hollow or hard when we were surrounded by magic. I no longer felt like I was less, like I was missing something, because now I had my enchanted sky and my glowing petals. It was all I needed.

Fifteen years of what became known as the “Violet Dance,” with its purple clouds and midnight blue flowers that died off at dawn without a trace, brought no insight. Science couldn’t explain it, religions couldn’t cite precedent, and for the average person it eventually became as common a miracle as a snowflake or a rainbow. But not for me. My obsession with the Star Blossoms and the dancing clouds became my ticket out of poverty. By high school I was so good at art and recreating the enchanting glow of the night sky and it’s devoted blooms that I landed a scholarship to a prestigious art school. No other artist or media had been able to capture the vision of the Star Blossoms and dancing clouds like I could, and people wanted it.

I took a deep breath of crisp night air and tried to take in the serenity of the woods around me. It was so peaceful up here. I glanced at my canvas, then my watch, then back to the sky. There wasn’t much I could do until midnight, until the dance started. I had an art show coming up and needed ten pieces to fill the space and two more for private commissions. My easel was set up facing the woods, my brushes sat in different cans on the railing of the porch, and tubes of every color of purple and pink paint ever made were spread out on a table next to me. My white t-shirt might as well have been purple tie dye and my black yoga pants weren’t much better. My brown curly hair sat in a messy bun atop my head and held my favorite brushes until I was ready to use them.

The hour arrived and the sky swirled to life. The violet clouds danced on an unseen breeze and the blooms frantically pushed through the weeds and reached for the sea of purple waves above them. My hands moved without thought. As soon as my brush dipped into the first blob of paint I lost myself and I didn’t come back to reality until the orange rays of dawn broke my trance and banished my muse. My back ached, my feet hurt, and my eyes burned. But the canvas that stared back at me might have been my best work to date. Black silhouettes of trees glowed aqua from below and fuchsia from above. Swirls of purple blanketed a dusty rose sky while Star Blossoms swirled like tomato vine tendrils along the banks of a barely visible river. I wanted to jump into the painting and live there.

I yawned, stretched, and padded my bare feet into the tiny living space that acted as kitchen, dining, and living room. I made a cup of vanilla and caramel chamomile tea before sitting on a barstool at the island to watch t.v. and find my way back to reality. Living the third shift life made it easy to be consumed by my dream world. Daylight held no magic for me and chased me to bed quicker than a Benadryl.

The ancient little T.V. buzzed to life with that nearly inaudible current that only the old tube televisions made. I quickly discovered that every channel was the same breaking news broadcast. A man and a woman wearing suits were sitting behind a desk and talking to another man in a little box in the upper right of the screen.

“That’s right Mike,” the man in the box said. “For the first time in fifteen years, the Violet Dance did not appear in eastern parts of Canada, all of Maine, or the northern most parts of New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. The clouds did not appear, nor did the Star Blossoms.”

“What are the experts saying Patrick?” The woman asked in a voice that sounded like she was reporting on a nuclear explosion or horrific natural disaster as opposed to missing clouds and flowers.

“A whole lot of nothing Susan. No one knows what to make of it. Of course, no one knows why it all showed up fifteen years ago in the first place. I bet it’s going to be pretty hard to explain why it is stopping if they couldn’t figure out why it started to begin with.”

The two news anchors nodded. “Thanks Patrick,” Susan said as she picked up the stack of papers in front of her, tapped them on the table, and put them back down. “Now we are going to go live to Washington D.C. where the President is going to address this sudden phenomena and hopefully give us some insight.”

My breath hitched and my heart stopped. If I had been holding my mug I would have spilled tea everywhere. My clouds and flowers were disappearing. My magic was fading… How could that be? What was happening? And what the hell was I going to do?