The Star Thief

The Star Thief

The Star Thief was a lonely soul who had never learnt to dream. Each night he would walk through the streets listening to the dreams of people as they slept. The most beautiful dreams would travel up to the sky and become shining stars, the brighter the star shined the more the dream would come true.

The Star Thief longed to dream like the others, and over time this desire turned to jealousy. He saw more and more dreams coming true, and each night as he walked the streets the stars above seemed to shine even brighter.

One night he became so annoyed that he jumped on to the roof tops and attempted to reach the stars. At first he stood on his tiptoes and reached out with stretched fingertips, his finger lightly grazed the edge of a glowing star. He moved back along the roofline and with all his energy took a running jump straight into the sky. He reached out his arms and grasped at the stars above him, and then he began to fall back to the ground. He hit the earth with great speed, and a cloud of dust billowed up into the sky. He straightened himself up from where he lay on the floor, uncurling his hand to reveal a shining star. It was so small. He knew this must be the dream of a child.

Enthused by his new shining possession he threw a sack over his shoulder and began jumping off the roof tops with great velocity, soaring into the sky. He grabbed handfuls of stars at a time, and by morning there were no stars left in the sky. No dreams left to come true.

At first he was pleased with himself. After all if he couldn't dream why should anyone else have their dreams come true? However, over time that pleasure turned to guilt. He felt sorry for the people around him, without the possibility of their dreams coming true they lost some of their sparkle and their eyes became a dull grey. Even the sound of children's laughter stopped as they no longer wanted to play. The Star Thief had underestimated the power of a dream.

The Star Thief didn't think he had the energy to return all the stars back into the sky by himself, so he hatched a plan. He took each star and planted it into the ground. He watered and cared for it until each star grew into a silver dandelion. The children saw these and ran to pick them. Each dandelion was covered in stars, and each star was a new dream.

Every time a child blew a silver dandelion the stars floated back up to the sky, carrying the new dreams. Before long there were more stars in the sky than ever before. Content with his work the Star Thief lay down to rest, and before long he fell asleep. For the first time ever the Star Thief began to dream. It was a wonderful dream in which the world around him flourished and the people were happy. So as it turned out it was not that the Star Thief was unable to dream, he just needed to wait for the right dream to find him. As the Star Thief slept soundly the star in the sky above his head shone so brightly that it lit up the whole sky.

I wrote that story to go with my illustration ' The Star Thief'- 2017, made with water-based paint on cyanotype paper. I hope you enjoyed it!