A Night's Sky

As she stood outside looking into the night sky on an especially cold winter evening, tears rolled down her cheeks and questions filled her mind. Normally looking at all those stars brought her peace, joy, and many good memories. Tonight, and from this night on, the stars would only haunt her and make her question her choices.

As a child living in the city, she saw so few stars. When her family would take her to the countryside, she would position herself by the open sunroof and stare at the stars for the whole ride. How magical the night sky seemed. So vast and limitless, just like her future.

Time flew by as it does and though she got older, her world remained open and limitless till one day it wasn’t.

She didn’t want much out of life. She was content or rather thought she was content with her little job, little apartment, and little love life. She had dreams, dreams of more but something inside her held her back and caused her to become rutted into the daily grind that was her life.

The night sky would be her confidant. She would whisper her dreams to the stars and wait for some sign. All she wanted was to be told how to pull herself out of the rut that she had so thoughtlessly gotten herself into.

It’s funny how life can carry us down one path and in a blink of an eye, our world is upended into something we dare not dream of. She was pregnant.

Being an ‘older mother,’ she was required to have many tests done on the soundness of her pregnancy. After each test, she would go outside at night into the little park by her apartment and place a hand on her belly and wonder. She would look up at the stars and wish and look for some sign that someone or something heard her prayers.

What should have been joy, was nervous knots. What should have been planning for an exciting future, was instead planning for the end of such happiness.

She dare not call it a baby. It was a sick parasite that had to be removed.

She didn’t understand why she would be teased like this. This had been a small glimmer of hope that life didn’t have to be so unbelievably dull. She was angry and couldn’t be persuaded to feel otherwise.

And just like that, the day came, and the procedure was done. She had hoped to not wake when it was over. What point was there? If there was no hope for a different outcome, than there was no need to go on.

With her eyes open and a deep emptiness that clawed at her insides, she went home to be alone again.

Often, she cried alone in her apartment. There was no one that could comfort her, no one to take away the feeling of hopelessness that settled into her heart.  

She couldn’t convince herself that she could go back to the life she was living before. It was too terrible a thought to even consider. She needed more and finally felt a flicker of drive.

She wouldn’t go out at night and look to the stars for answers any longer. Her ancestors who she had believed were out there in that limitless black sky was no longer a digestible thought.

The earrings that she had worn every day since age 13 and had belonged to her deceased grandmother, were taken off and buried away. This woman who she had idolized and said would be her guardian from the other side, let her down.

Her grandmother was the first person to teach her about the stars. She had even bought her a star making machine of her very own. They would sit together in her grandmother’s windowless bathroom and gaze up at the man-made stars and talk about the different constellations.   

It was these moments from her childhood that would make her so happy when she was alone under the stars. Now these memories made her feel sick and betrayed. She had felt abandoned a second time by this woman who meant so much.

As time went on, she fought hard to break the cycle of her old life. She found a new apartment, new job, and new love interest. She was on a path to escape the old person she was and desperate to escape the life she had.

From the outside, all looked promising. On the inside was a dark storm that never ended. Something deep inside could not allow her to fully commit to this new life.

Like a siren, her old ways were calling to her. Slowly, she gave up and grew comfortable in the rut that she had attempted to leave behind. She felt numb and didn’t care any longer.  

Days, weeks and finally months went by. She was once again locked into her old ways and drowning.

As she fixed her morning coffee and listened to the news before heading to work, she heard what date it was. As if someone had punched her in the chest, she grew weak and had to sit down.

Today would have been the day. A new beginning, a new life. A chance to pull herself out and get herself right because she had someone to strive for. A son that she alone could mold into a good, decent human being who had a chance for something grand.

She left her apartment and headed nowhere in particular. She needed to be swallowed up into the daily chaos of city life. She needed the noise of the city to drown out the voice that was loud and piercing in her head. Again, she just needed to escape her reality.

As the sun set, she found herself walking towards the old park she had spent many evenings in. The trees were bare, and the winter air was biting. She didn’t care anymore. She was crying in the middle of the park and she instinctively looked towards the sky and to the stars that fought to show their brilliance through the light pollution.

She wanted to know why she wasn’t allowed to have her son. She wanted to know why she spent so many years punishing herself in the meaningless life she had created for herself. As always, she wanted answers from some divine voice that could never be heard. As she looked up, the stars continued to sparkle, and this lone woman continued to cry.