Stars We Buried

The desert was quiet the night we buried the stars.

Not real stars, of course—we were just children. But at thirteen, what mattered wasn’t reality, but the believing. And we believed fiercely, the way only kids on the edge of growing up can.

We buried them in jars: tiny glass containers filled with glow-in-the-dark stickers, firefly wings, glitter, and scribbled wishes. We gave them names. Leo called his Sirius, after the brightest in the sky. Mina’s was Andromeda, because she liked the sound of it. I named mine Echo, because I didn’t want my wish to be forgotten.

We buried them just outside the old radio tower where no one went anymore—just past the cactus line, where the sand grew cold and silent and the sky spilled over with stars. We dug holes with our bare hands, then stood back and looked up.

“This way,” Mina said, brushing dirt from her knees, “if we forget who we are, the stars will remember.”

We believed her.

We grew up. As kids do. Mina moved away first—her family couldn’t afford to stay in the dying town. Then Leo drifted. He stayed longer, long enough to start smoking and get his heart broken by a girl who loved storms more than people.

I stayed.

For years, I didn’t visit the buried stars. Life got crowded—college, bills, funerals. Dad passed. Mom followed. The town shrank more. But one sleepless night, thirty-three years later, something pulled me back.

I parked near the cracked fence of the radio tower, flashlight in hand, and walked out into the night. The air smelled the same—dust and dry heat. Coyotes cried in the distance. The stars above looked so sharp, I felt like I might bleed just staring too hard.

And there, after some fumbling, I found them.

The jars were still there, buried shallow. Their lids rusted, their glow long faded. But the scraps inside—wish-paper, old charms, a plastic dinosaur from Leo’s collection—still held shape.

I dug them all up. I didn’t cry until I opened mine.

Inside was a note. Faded, water-damaged. But legible:

> I wish to never be forgotten. I wish to find my voice. I wish my friends never leave.



I remembered writing it with sticky fingers and a heart full of fear. I remembered Mina watching the sky like it was trying to talk to her. I remembered Leo saying he wanted to become a star himself, if nothing else worked out.

I thought that was just kids being weird. But now, standing in the dark, I wondered if he meant it.

That night, I made calls. Mina, surprisingly, answered on the second ring. She lived in Oregon now, with two kids and a husband who fixed guitars.

“You remember the stars?” I asked.

There was a pause. Then: “I think about them every time I can't sleep.”

I didn’t need to explain. We agreed to meet.

One week later, Mina and I stood together under the same desert sky, older and heavier with years, and waited. Leo was late. Typical.

But just as we were about to give up, we saw headlights. His truck sputtered up the dirt road like it had twenty years ago, spitting dust and heat.

When he got out, Leo looked like time had fought him and only half-won. But his eyes—his eyes were the same.

We didn’t say much at first. Just hugged longer than we needed to.

Then we reburied the jars—cleaned, resealed, wishes tucked inside again. This time, we added new ones. I wrote mine on a napkin from Leo’s glove compartment:

> I wish we remember how to be whole again.



Mina placed a small photograph in hers—a picture of the three of us at fifteen, with messy hair and wide eyes. Leo just dropped in a new glow sticker and smiled.

We stood in silence as the wind picked up.

“I always thought we buried those stars to hide them,” Leo said at last. “But maybe we did it to keep from losing them.”

Mina nodded. “We were keeping pieces of ourselves safe.”

The stars above blinked, ancient and indifferent. But somehow, I felt them listening.

We stayed until dawn.