Who's Out There?

As Maria walked into the observatory, she lay her blanket on the ground and looked up at the stars. Space intrigued her. It was so big. She wondered if somewhere out there there was a girl just like her wondering the same thing. She knew, because the universe is so vast, that it was mathematically impossible for extraterrestrial life to not exist, but she still wondered how close. Alone with the stars and her thoughts, Maria chose to look down rather than up as she ventured through time back to the post civil war. As she opened her book, To Kill a Mockingbird, she wad pulled into the story as the stars twinkled above her.