Omar and the Crumb of Light

Far out in the dark, something hummed. It was a long, rolling hum, low in the middle and soft at the edges, and it made the near stars shiver just a little, the way spoons shiver on a shelf when a cart rolls past.

Omar lifted his head to listen. He was a unicorn, small and gray as a rainy morning, with a horn no longer than a new pencil and hooves that clicked when he walked. Around him the whole herd was drifting along the star path, the way they did every ordinary evening, while the comet went humming by.

"Listen to that," said Finn, walking beside him. Finn was a unicorn too, a bit older, with a fringe that fell over one eye and a habit of naming things. "That's the comet. I call it the Hummer."

"You call everything something," said Omar.

"I call your left hoof Pebble," said Finn. "Because it's gray and it's round and it goes clack." Omar looked down at his left hoof. It did go clack. He had never noticed before.

Ahead of them, the grown unicorns were doing what they did at the end of every day. Each one lowered its head, waited, and caught a small star on the tip of its horn, the way you might catch a snowflake on your tongue, only more carefully. Then they carried the stars home and hung them above the meadow.

The meadow needed them. From far off it was only a smudge of green in all that dark, a floating field of cloud-grass where the herd slept. With a hundred small lights hung above it, it looked like a birthday cake seen from a long way away, warm and gold and waiting.

Omar had never caught a star. Not one. Not ever.

"Some horns are slow to wake," said Nana, who walked behind him with her big soft hooves and her horn lit up gold like a lamp. "Mine was slow too. Don't fuss."

"Mine took four whole evenings," said Nana. "The first star I ever reached for bounced off my ear and went home with somebody else. I stood there with my ear ringing like a bell." Omar thought about that. It helped, a little.

But Omar did fuss. He wanted a light of his own. He wanted to carry it home and hang it up and watch it glow all night above his sleeping spot, and he wanted the other foals to look at it and say, whose is that one, and someone to answer, that one is Omar's.

"Ready?" said Finn, who was already trotting ahead. "Here comes one. It's small. It's a good one. I'm calling it Button."

Omar ran at the star. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, ears flat, tail up, and he got there too quickly and too loudly. The star bounced off the tip of his horn with a little tink and skittered away into the dark.

The star slid off. Omar tried again.

This time he stood still, very still. He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut and made his horn as ready as a horn could be. Something brushed his ear, cool as a drink of water. When he opened his eyes, the star was already past.

"Too still," said Finn. "You have to meet them halfway. Like this." Finn tossed his head, easy as a nod, and a star settled on his horn as if it had been looking for him all evening.

Omar tossed his head. He tossed it too hard. His horn swung around and caught nothing at all, and a small star spun off sideways and landed right in the middle of his own tail.

He sat down on the star path. His tail glowed. It was, he had to admit, a very silly glow.

"My first one fell in a puddle," said Finn, sitting down next to him.

"Finn. There aren't any puddles up here."

"There was that night," said Finn, and he looked so serious about it that Omar snorted, and then both of them laughed until Nana gave them a look over her shoulder.

Nana came and stood beside him, and her horn made a warm gold circle on the path. "Do you hear the Hummer?" she asked.

Omar listened. Under the click of hooves and the swish of tails, under the far quiet hum of the planets turning, there was the comet, humming low and slow out in the dark.

"The old ones say a horn wakes when it hears a song it likes," said Nana. "So stop chasing. Just listen."

Omar looked at the stars going past. "I've tried three times," he said. "What if my horn is just a horn and nothing else?"

"Then you'd still be Omar," said Nana. "Now listen."

So Omar stopped. He let his hooves settle. He let his ears go loose. He let his head drift down until his horn pointed at nothing in particular, and then, without meaning to, he began to hum.

It was the comet's hum, the long low one, and it came out round and rumbly and not quite right at first. He wobbled. He went flat. A star went past and he kept humming anyway, because humming felt good, and because nobody was watching except Finn and Nana, and they didn't mind.

Then a small star, no bigger than a pea, drifted down and settled on the tip of his horn like a bird deciding where to sit. It glowed. It was a crumb of a glow, a speck, a very small light indeed, but it was his.

"Oh," said Omar. "Ohhh."

"There," said Nana. "A little light is still a light."

Finn leaned in to look at it. "What are you going to call it?"

Omar thought about it the whole way home. He thought about it while the herd drifted down the long path, past the slow glitter of a thousand small suns, past the cold clean smell of the high air that always made his ears feel sleepy. He thought about it while the stars behind them dimmed one by one and the dark got soft and the meadow came floating up beneath his hooves.

"I'm going to call it Om," said Omar at last. "Because it's small, and it's mine, and it hums."

"Hello, Om," said Finn. "I'll remember him."

"Why do you name everything?" Omar asked.

Finn shrugged. "So I don't forget any of it. There are a lot of stars."

By then they were home. The herd spread out over the cloud-grass, and the grown unicorns hung their lights up high, one after another, until the meadow filled with a gentle gold, like a room when someone opens the curtains slowly.

Nana hung Om above Omar's sleeping spot. The little star glowed, tiny and steady, and made a soft circle no bigger than a pillow.

Around the meadow hung the other foals' lights, big and small, gold and green and one that shone a faint, pleased pink. Om was the smallest of them all, and it was the one Omar looked at last before he closed his eyes.

Omar curled up with his tail tucked in and his horn tipped sideways. The cloud-grass smelled of cold clean air and clean sheets, and the whole meadow was quiet now. Far out in the dark, the comet kept humming. He hummed back, very quietly, until the two hums were the same hum.

The stars turned. The meadow breathed. The night went on, slow and calm and cool and clean, and the small light above him burned all night long.