In the endless, silent darkness of space, Kora flew. She was neither a star nor a planet. Kora was a comet. To herself, she seemed just like a large, muddy snowball. She was made of ice, pebbles, and cosmic dust, and she felt ordinary and ugly.
Whenever she flew past the twinkling stars, she would sigh quietly. The stars were so perfect! They shone with a bright, steady light and looked like diamonds scattered on black velvet. They sat elegantly and proudly in their places.
“Look at them,” Kora whispered to herself. “They are so magnificent. Each one is like a little gem. And me? I’m just a frozen lump of dirt.”
She flew on and on, for ages, and her journey was lonely and cold. The stars seemed distant and unreachable to her. Sometimes it seemed to her that they were whispering among themselves and laughing at her clumsy, dark shape. “Why can’t I shine like that?” she asked herself. “What if I tried to shake all this dust off myself? Maybe I would be whiter then.”
She tried. She shook herself violently, until a few specks of dust broke free. But they just got lost in the darkness. Nothing changed. She was still just a dark sphere flying through the emptiness.
“Never mind,” she said sadly, though it mattered to her a great deal. “I’ll try something else. I’ll try to spin faster, maybe I’ll gleam!” She began to spin like a top, but the only result was that she became dizzy. After a while, she stopped, tired and even more disappointed. It seemed that no attempt was working. Her core was filled with sadness.
One day, she felt something strange. It was not the cold she was used to. It was a gentle, faint warmth, as if someone were stroking her cold surface from a distance. And something else. She felt an invisible force gently pulling her in one direction. It was not unpleasant. On the contrary, it felt curious and exciting.
“What is this?” she wondered. “Where is it taking me?”
She let herself be carried by this mysterious current. The warmth grew stronger and stronger, and ahead of her, she saw the source of it all—a huge, glowing sphere full of light and energy. It was the Sun. It looked so powerful and warm that Kora was a little afraid. What if it melted her completely?
As she drew closer, her surface began to change. She felt the ice within her awaken. Gently at first, then more and more. Tiny clouds of gas and dust began to escape from her surface.
“Oh no!” she panicked. “I’m falling apart! Now I’ll be even uglier! All this dirt is flying off me!” Panic seized her. She tried to fly away, but the Sun’s invisible bond was stronger.
But then she noticed something amazing. The gas and dust escaping from her did not get lost in the darkness. The Sun’s breath, a gentle solar wind, was pushing it back and shaping it behind her. She looked behind her and couldn’t believe her eyes.
Stretching out behind her was a magnificent, long tail. It glowed and shimmered with a thousand colors. Some parts were as blue as pure ice, others as golden as dust lit by the Sun. The tail waved and danced behind her like a bride’s veil. It was far larger and more radiant than any star she had ever seen.
“Is… is that me?” she whispered, stunned.
Suddenly, she understood. Her beauty was not on the surface. It was tucked away deep inside her. That “ordinary” ice and that “dirty” mix of dust and pebbles were, in fact, a treasure. They just needed the right moment and the warmth of the Sun to reveal themselves in all their glory.
Kora was no longer sad. She felt proud. She flew around the Sun, and her magnificent tail shone behind her like a beacon in the dark. Even the stars, which had once seemed so perfect to her, now looked different. They were still beautiful, but her beauty was of a different kind—it was dynamic, vibrant, and unique.
She knew that when she moved away from the Sun again, her tail would gradually disappear, and she would once more be just a silent, dark pilgrim of the cosmos. But it no longer bothered her. She knew her beauty hadn’t vanished. It was merely sleeping inside, waiting for its moment to shine again.
And so Kora flew on, with a new secret in her heart. She no longer compared herself to the stars. She knew that everyone in the universe has their own place and their own way to shine.
What do you think, children? Try looking up at the sky with your parents one evening. You might see the stars, the Moon, and if you are very lucky, perhaps even a comet with a magnificent tail. And when you see it, remember Kora and how the greatest beauty is often hidden inside, just waiting for the right time to show itself to the whole world.