Captain grabbed me by the shoulder to reel me in closer. With our faces huddled conspiratorially close, Zee began her story.

“LONG, LONG AGO, a little girl made a wish upon a falling star...

‘I WANT EVERYONE’S WISHES TO COME TRUE!’ She said.”

“This is very nice but can we please stay focused--” I protested before Captain shushed me and continued.

“This is important, Mister Snippy. It is you who must stay focused. Now, this little girl only wanted what was best for everyone. It was her one true wish! Alas wishes sometimes go awry..."

"Her wish ended in catastrophe..."

"What kind of a catastrophe?"

"One with not enough cute cats," Zee muttered. "One filled with too many impossible things in one place."

"Hrm?"

"There were too many rules in her way. She faced against them and lost her bestest friend in the whole world. As she stood there all alone at the end of all things, lost in absolute darkness... In her desire to undo her wish, to do better... she herself became a star."

Imagine, if you will, a shooting star soaring through the sky in reverse, absorbing its trails of powder as it travels backwards in time, forever and ever... collecting pieces of itself, absorbing them into itself, getting bigger...

You see, she was determined to meet her best friend again. She would fix everything, no matter how long it took. A thousand summers? One million winters? One hundred million years? Imagine, if you will, blindly throwing a spoon over your left shoulder in an attempt to make it land into your teacup.

It’s not possible on the first try… but with infinite attempts, anything can happen-- even if you become terribly bored in the process, even if you become someone else entirely. Infinity doesn’t care about you. It consumes you. It changes you into itself."

The last word uttered by captain was distinctive, exceptionally clear, a voice that I remembered hearing on the train long ago.

Captain’s purple goggles glittered as Zee peered intently into my eyes. I didn’t know what to say. After a moment I told Captain that stories about little girls and shooting stars weren’t very helpful in our current situation. Zee tsked at me.

“MY POOR SNIPPY. See, even a simple exercise in imaginings of the infinite is difficult for yous. All those brain-bugs are crawling back and forth in your cranial space, yearning to be let out.”

Captain gently tapped my head to punctuate the last phrase.I didn’t argue. Sometimes you had to know when to give it a break.