The Two hundred and forty sixth story

 Once upon a time there was a christmas light who thought the stars were also christmas lights and did not understand why they wouldn't talk to him.

the Hundred and Fifty Seventh Story

Once upon a time there was a troupe of fireflies so well synchronized that they could dance out perfect star maps.

The Hundred and seventeenth story

Once upon a time there was a pond who loved the stars so purely that even on the stormiest nights, her surface remained unruffled in order to give their reflections somewhere quiet to sleep.

the Ninety Eighth Story

Tonight walking out to my car, the fireflies did their best to act as stars, taking advantage of the cloud cover to make their own brand new constellations, with lightning and just a hint of remaining dusk creating, for just a moment, every few minutes, an image not unlike distant nebulae as a backdrop. The world is beautiful, and it is beautiful regardless of whether we notice it.
The world doesn't care about us. It doesn't paint the sky in the hopes of making a living off the framed and matted print. It doesn't sculpt driftwood to make the building of an osprey's nest easier. It doesn't regulate the orbit of spheres to give a mathematician joy. The world is beautiful and it has always been beautiful and it will always be beautiful. But I sure hope, selfishly, that its beauty will contain fireflies for a good long while yet.

Here's a Secret: I aspire to the selfishness that the world has in creating beauty.