The Helping Star

There once was a star that shone brighter than all the others. Not in worth or brilliance, but simply because she did things beyond her abilities and traits, and was always willing and able to do what others couldn't. She was the Helping Star.

One night, she woke up to a perfectly beautiful view of the Earth. "Oh, how lovely! Maybe tonight I can finally just watch the Earth and see what everyone says about it. Maybe tonight I'll finally be able to see the glorious mountains and the grassy plains, and the deep, vast oceans. Maybe tonight I'll be able to rest."

Just then, she saw a bright light go whizzing by her. "Help me!" said the comet. "I'm headed for God knows where, and I can't stop! I don't know where I'm going! I'm scared!" The star, seeing just how terrified the comet was, turned her back on earth and started following him. She caught his hand just before he hit the moon, and pulled him back to safety.

"Thanks!", said the comet. "What's your name? Why were you so eager to help me?"

"I'm the Helping Star. I'm here to help people." she replied.

"Oh. Well thanks. I passed all the other stars, and they just ignored me and pretended not to hear me."

"Not a problem, little comet. Try to be more careful next time you go somewhere."

"I will!" said he, and he lit up and flew off towards the distant, much slower this time.

Feeling happy about her valiant save, but slightly worried she had missed most of her view of the Earth, the star went back to her post and sat. She looked down on the Earth, at all the people and thought "I wonder how they all do it. They have all this time to waste; all this time they could be helping each other. I wonder what they do to help one another."

Just as she was going to wonder some more, a baby asteroid zoomed over her head, and yelled "Help me!! I got lost when we were making our rounds on the belt tonight, and I can't find my way back!"

The Helping Star quickly pursued it, grabbed it's little hand and broke it's collision course toward the planets.

"Thank you!", said the little asteroid. "I didn't know how to stop. We're always going, going, going in that belt, and I've never left before! This is the first time I haven't been moving in thousands of years."

"My pleasure," said the Helping Star. "This is what I do. I'm here to help all the elements of space, all the people that come up here. I'm here to show the men on the sea how to get to and fro. I'm here to ensure everyone has a way to go."

"Can you take me back to my mom now? It's cold out here in normal space." asked the asteroid.

"But that's clear across space!" said the Star before she thought. "If we leave now, I'll miss the rest of the night and not see the Earth anymore." But as she said this, the asteroid's eyes started to tear up and it started crying. He was, after all, just a baby, and probably missed his mom terribly.

"Oh, alright. I'm sorry. I know your cold and scared, and you want to be with your mom. She probably misses you, and is scared too." So she took the asteroid's hand and led him back across the solar system to the belt. It took many hours to get there, and when they got there. Everything was in chaos. Nothing like this had ever happened before. But everyone knew where his mom was, and led the star and the asteroid to her.

As the star was turning to leave, the baby asteroid grabbed her and gave her a hug. "Thank you, Helping Star. What would I have done without you? I would never have seen my mom or my friends again. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

The star, touched by the gratitude, hugged him back and zipped across space so she could get back in time to see the sun rise on the oceans. As she rounded around Mars and could see the Earth, she saw trouble starting again. A group of space junk was crashing towards earth, and there was no way they were going to stop themselves.

"Help us, help us!" they cried in unison to her. Because they were so used to just floating around space, they had no way to help themselves, and they couldn't move fast enough even if they could. The star raced towards them, tied a net around them, and tugged them back out of the gravitational pull of the Earth.

When she had gotten a reasonable distance away, she stopped and let them out. "Thank you ever so much, great star of Helpfulness! We would have become 'shooting stars' and would have ended our beautiful float around space.

The star smiled weakly, and said "Of course. Try to be more careful next time. Who knows if anyone will be around to save you. It's not safe to play around planets with gravity." and with that she drifted back toward the earth, tired from the night and full of sadness that this was her normal routine.

As she popped back to her post, she looked at the earth. The sun was already shining on the half she could see, and she had missed her sunrise. In the thousands of years she had been shining, she had never seen a sunrise. Her job started with the setting of the sun, and ended when the sun was already out. As much as she loved her job, she was sad.

As the day wore on, the star, sad and alone, wondered "What would happen to me, if I ever needed help? What would happen if I ever got off course? Who would help me?" And with that, she closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

The next night, when the sun set and the moon rose, and the stars shone in the sky, the inhabitants of the earth saw a sight they would never forget. Up in the sky, the biggest shooting star they had ever seen, or ever would see, was plummeting toward the earth, with millions of little shooting "stars" behind it. To Earth, it was beautiful. But to the sky above, it was a sad event.

That night, the star had been helping a moonbeam find it's way to earth, and had lost her balance. She knew she was going to fall to the earth, and be no more. But she also knew that she would get to see all she had wanted before. She didn't even yell for help, but as she turned around to look out at space one last time, she saw some that made her cry. Behind her, coming from all places of the galaxy, objects were flying toward her, trying to save her. Asteroids, comets, other stars, moonbeams, sun rays, even space junk, were all coming to try to save her. "No!", she yelled. "If you follow me, you'll be burned up, and all the work I did to help you will be for nothing!"

"But what will we do without you? We can't live without a Helping Star," they all cried after her.

She replied, "Help each other. Learn how to coexist, like you are right now. Don't rely on others just to help you, but love each other and help each other. Now please, go back. I can't be helped, but it's okay. You can all learn from me now."

As she said this, she looked back to the earth and saw the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. As she looked toward the horizon, the sun was beginning to rise over the ocean, and she smiled.