Night of Open Skies

In the summer days of my childhood, nights carried a magic of their own. There were no coolers, no air conditioners—only the wide-open sky above us. After dinner, we would fill our water pots or bottles and climb up to the terrace, ready to surrender ourselves to the night.

There, with my siblings, we spread out our beds and bedsheets, making our little world under the stars. We laughed, whispered, and played mischievous games, the kind that only children know how to invent. The warm night air carried the fragrance of the earth, and the sky seemed endless—so close we felt we could touch the stars.

Then, as always, our grandmother’s voice would call us closer. She would settle us beside her, and soon the night grew still except for her stories. They weren’t real—no history, no logic—yet they were alive, full of wonder. We listened as though every word was a treasure. Her stories wove dreams into our young hearts, carrying us away into worlds that existed only in her imagination.

When the stories ended, she would lift her face toward the heavens, eyes twinkling like the stars themselves. “Come, count them,” she would say. And so we did, pointing at constellations and scattered lights across the sky. But the stars were too many—each time we reached a number, we forgot, and then we would start again, laughing at our own mistakes.

Sometimes, we even whispered to the stars as if they could hear us, asking them questions, sharing secrets, or imagining what it would feel like if we could reach out and hold one in our hands. Slowly, somewhere between our laughter, our counting, and our little conversations with the sky, sleep would creep in without our knowing.

We slept peacefully under that open sky, with nothing but the stars as our blanket. Now, years later, though we live in comfort—air conditioners humming, soft beds beneath us—we often struggle to find that same peace. Perhaps it was not the place, but the simplicity, the innocence, and the company of those nights that made our sleep so deep and our dreams so sweet.