I was very young then, perhaps only 10. My parents had taken my sister and I to Sarawak, on the island of Borneo for a holiday in December.
We took a boat through the rivers leading deep into the rainforests, and stopped at a longhouse to spend the afternoon and the night. It was a nice place; very close to nature, and friendly inhabitants.
The sky slowly turned from blue, to gold, to grey. And finally, it became dark.
But yet not dark. As the very last rays of the sun faded away, everybody began to look upwards, up at the night sky.
Perhaps my mind has exaggerated the memory, but what I saw that night was the most beautiful sight ever to cross my young eyes.
The sky was full of stars, not just singular, blinking motes of light, but clusters upon clusters of jewels, entire galaxies unravelled before me. What I once knew of as a set of dots positioned nicely on a black background became a swirling, living constellation, dancing its way across the heavens, as it had since the birth of Heracles, as it will when the Earth returns to stardust.
The sky gained volume; certain clusters appeared to be in front of others. I suddenly knew that I was staring into the face of infinity, that beyond the burning gems lay more, and beyond them, the entire universe itself.
I am nothing.
My younger sister, who was not particularly religious, closed her eyes and whispered, "Jesus save me."
Perhaps she saw, beyond the eternity laid before us, the cracks in the darkness leading the way to heaven.