sometimes you have to believe to see
My father was one of the three wise men. An astrologer by trade, using charts made of camel leather inset with stones, in a variety of sets to the ready for any paid expectation.
Any merchant to nobility helps them hear what they want from their celestial advisors, the stars. Wisdom from afar buys absolution. A brutal reign. A red campaign. Blame the stars.
My father, however, worked toward a world better by losing the razor edge of humanity. He conscripted stars by co-opting their charts, for sometimes you need to believe it to see it.
Sometimes you hardly believe what you see. My father and his brothers followed a stone falling from the sky, brilliant in descent, expecting to find angels prised open a heavenly exit.
But there in the hallow, in a manger of earth, by cradle of crater, lay one not of their own; small as a baby under a beacon that out-shone the mid-day sun. My father, his brothers—and me.
