A soft chime echoes in the quiet sanctum. My computer, an ancient relic by today's standards, lights up with an incoming message from Dakar. It's Amina. The name itself feels like dawn.
I hesitated at first, unsure if I deserved to share this burden. But months ago I had stumbled on her work: a brilliant astrophysicist mapping ripples across the sky. Now, in the soft glow of my lamps, we speak through the ether as strangers with a secret. Her voice, curious and kind, drifts through the speaker.
"I've been seeing something unusual on my spectrograph," she begins, and I lean forward, heart alight. Every instinct urges me to be cautious, but her trust makes me braver. We discuss the anomalies: gravity waves where there should be calm; flashes of light with no source.
Dr. Amina Diallo is part scientist, part poet. Her questions probe deep holes in my conscience. Is it right to keep the truth from her? As the stars wheel above, she describes an African myth that inspired her research: The Sky Maiden who weaves the threads of time. I almost laugh, because I am the one meddling in those threads.
She doesn't know me, not really. All she knows is that someone, somewhere, is trying to make sense of these ripples. As we talk, I can almost picture her framed by maps of constellations, stacks of books in French and Arabic, a gold crown of hair braided with silence.
When I finally confess that I have felt these disturbances myself, she listens without disbelief. The echo of her acceptance comforts me. For the first time in years, I am not alone in the night. We make a fragile plan: I will monitor my desert sky; she will chart the data that trickles across the oceans.
We end our call as the Sahara night deepens, and I am left holding a quiet thrill. Somewhere out there, a scholar is looking up at stars and thinking of me. The world has grown a little smaller tonight, and a little larger in possibility.