These people wear braids in their hair and long flowing clothes. They never venture out into the barren desert that surrounds their home, and so their skin is fair and their eyes are light. Long have the people of the oasis lived tenderly under the trees. Their houses are lush, having passed from generation to generation. They sleep in piles of cushions. When the wind whispers through the trees above them the leaves will part, and just sometimes they will look up and see the stars above them. It is during these times that they feel the most alone in the world. The reason that they live on a beautiful oasis that is totally isolated from the world is not so much out of choice, but out of fear of the unknown. None of the people of the oasis have ever seen any part of the world other than the oasis, and the desert expanding as far as the eye can see from it, nor do they know of a trustworthy path across the scorching sands. Normally the people of the oasis concern themselves with their daily lives on their tiny island. They are friendly and loving, and as long as the wind doesn�t blow too hard and the food is abundant, they don�t concern themselves with the desert and what may lie beyond it. When the windy nights come, however, and the leaves on the trees part to show tapestries of stars, the people grow uneasy. The wind and stars bring the calling of a world unknown in tiny sand-filled whispers, impossible to ignore.

One night, particularly windy, a girl was born into the world of the oasis. She had large blue eyes and pale skin contrasted by a tiny tuft of dark hair, all normal traits of her people. Her first breath let out a squall like a gull, and with a mighty gust of wind the first thing her baby eyes saw, framed by thick broad leaves, was a canopy of stars. This girl, eyes sparkling in the blue light, was named Julie.

Julie lived a wonderful childhood on the oasis. She seemed to carry a symphony with her wherever she went. Words were always spilling out of her mouth like waves on an ocean. She had a clarity to her, like a highly tuned note. She made friends and lost them. She laughed and cried. She wore braids in her long flowing hair, and the soft billowing clothes of her people. This is not to say that they weren�t often muddy from fighting by the lake with her two brothers. It was a childhood tinted in gold. She was one with her people. She never thought much of the stars or the sands, except when the winds came. When the gusts blew apart the leaves she could not bring herself to go inside with the others. She couldn�t move from the gale.

Picture her, in the post-dusk darkness. Her hair flying around made a hectic frame for her upturned face, her clothes like clouds billowing around her. The dusk and shadows spreading thickly around the oasis didn�t bother her. Her eyes looked up and shinned every time the leaves parted. The stars sparkled in her eyes. Spelled out words. Called to her. She looked like a dream to the rest of her people, floating in the windy night. Her mother would always have to bring her inside, and even then she felt a longing to run to every window, to see the world outside breaking in.

Other than these times life continued as normal for the girl. Everyday seemed like a full flowered spring on the oasis. Julie loved life there despite the windy evenings. She thought that she would live out her life just as a normal girl on the oasis would. One windy evening, however, while she was sparkling by the edge of the lake, life presented something that she did not expect. Standing transfixed by the glittering stars beyond the trees she was startled back into consciousness by a crash.

Another thick crash sent her running. Surrounding the oasis was a thick foliage of brush and small trees. It presented a barrier between the small world of the oasis and the barren, wasted desert. The people never ventured beyond the scrubby brush, and so it had grown thick and tangled, hard to cross. She was sure, though, running at break neck speed, fabric billowing behind her, that something on the outside was now trying to break through. Not only the stars and their endless light were seeping into the world of the oasis that night, something real was pushing its way in. The world had finally come knocking.

At once when she saw it she stopped lightly. A tall man with dirt covered traveling robes had busted a hole through the overgrown brush. He stood stooped and heaving, and behind him the endless plain of the desert stretched into oblivion, and the jeweled sky shone brightly. The man looked up at her and she saw his face was covered with grime and his long shaggy hair was dirt filled and sweaty. He looked nearly unconscious, and so tired. No one in the oasis ever had reason to be tired or dirty, and he looked like an alien to her. She had heard legends of travelers that had came to the oasis long ago, but she had never seen one, nor her mother or her mother�s mother.

The man took a few shaky steps in her direction, and she wavered, torn between whether she should run to help him or run away. Finally she came to a decision and stammered out a sentence that she had heard in the stories about travelers.

�I bid you tell me you name, good traveler, and where you herald from.� She felt a little awkward after the old, grown up line had left her small mouth, but stood as tall as she could manage anyway.

The man just smiled and let out a small, dust chocked laugh.

�What is your name, child of the stars?� He croaked out, and then proceeded to collapse onto the sand at her feet.

That was the beginning of one of the most important encounters of her life. Afterwards she ran home and her people took in the weary traveler, just like in the old times. They revived him with their water; fed him with their food; and healed him with their herbs dug up tenderly from the wet dirt by the lake, and time as well. It is hard to say exactly how long he stayed with them. Not long. Julie didn�t see him much during his stay, as he was normally sleeping. Rumors ran wild about him, but she found them hard to believe after what he had said to her.

Child of the stars.

The wind continued to blow while he was there, a nagging and yet beautiful call. Like a wild horn blowing. As soon was the man was healed he was ready to leave. The people gave him supplies; food and water for the journey, and plenty of proposals to stay at the oasis with them, promises of certain death on the scorching sands. The traveler was insistent though, he seemed to like the idea of death on the sands more than a quiet sheltered life.

Night had fallen, and the persistent wind was ever blowing when the man left. A small band of the people watched him hack through the brush at the west end of the oasis, directly opposite the hole he had made coming in. He was halfway through the tunnel he had made when suddenly he turned his shaggy head to look back at the crowd. Julie was among them and felt incredibly awkward when his eyes landed on her. He walked straight to her carrying the air of a person who knows much that can�t be explained. She hadn�t noticed the weathered but happy look on his face the first time they had met, and suddenly she felt herself longing to be able to wear the same expression. A strong gust of wind sent both their hair flying, and she closed her eyes and felt the longing grow stronger, the wind pulling on her heart. She didn�t notice him close his eyes too.

�You can feel it.� He said when the gust had passed. It wasn�t a question.

�Yes.�

He nodded, his eyes looking momentarily off into the distance.

�Change is coming for you. Don�t fight it when it gets here.� He smiled and looked right into her eyes. �I recognize that look. Don�t worry. There is more to this world than desert.�

With that he took a step back, thanked all of the stunned people for their help, turned, and walked straight through the hole in the foliage without looking back.

All of the people immediately exchanged glances in his absence. All but one. Julie ran forward through the hole in the foliage herself. She had a half mind to cry out to him, to ask him what he meant, to ask him if she could go with him, but she suddenly found that she couldn�t even move. When she exited the foliage of the oasis for the first time in her life it was like walking outside of a huge house that she used to think was the whole world. She had never seen the desert so clearly, especially not at night. She felt tiny, smaller than the grains of sand she was standing on. She sucked in her breath and stared at the massive sky of stars above her, at the open world.