A Light in the Sky

Kareem improves his self-confidence.

A Light in the Sky

Kareem's relationship with high school was difficult, being one of the many students who entered classrooms totally unnoticed. In addition, his relationship with the teachers weren't the best either. Being an average student, he often felt overlooked by the teachers while they tended to concentrate on those who excelled in their studies. However, he tried not to let is invisibility get him down.


He relieved his earth-bound frustrations by looking to the stars. In space, people weren't a problem. Only discoveries awaited, and secretly, he hoped he'd be able to discover something one day.


The teacher was reluctant to accept Kareem as a volunteer when he asked for an assistant to accompany him this weekend to a nearby observatory for real research. The twelve-inch refracting telescope, built in the 1950s, left Kareem awestruck. Kareem wanted to spend the cold night looking through the telescope, but was disappointed when the teacher replaced the eyepiece with a CCD camera to photograph the nearby Andromeda Galaxy. Instead, he was hastily shuffled into a small room containing multiple monitors where the data is collected and analyzed. Kareem's task was to examine each photograph, a boring, but important task.


The doorbell outside the small room sounded. Kareem eased opened the door to find the teacher holding a small bag of food and passed it to him, an unexpected gesture. While eating, he spotted a new star not seen on previous images. Successive images showed the new star growing brighter as time passed, so he notified the teacher, who confirmed Kareem's discovery and mentioned it could be a new supernova. Excited, Kareem's joy bubbled, but the teacher had another surprise for him. After final validation from other observatories, the 'new star' could be named after him, freeing Kareem from his invisibility forever.