The Tarnished Stars

The Sun rose up in the sky, just another glowing orb among the dancing stars. There were no beautiful purple and orange hues, no twinkling little orbs of light. Those things only appeared when there was an atmosphere. Instead, the stars danced across the sky dully, no extra glittering and shining like you would get on Earth. They were just there, existing. 

Chantara loved it. She loved watching the stars and wondering what they were like from Earth’s surface, whether they would glimmer or shine, what the twinkling would look like. She loved thinking about the Sun and how it would look more like the Earth did, big and beautiful. She loved how it rose and fell in an instant, a blink-and-you-miss-it sort of moment. She loved it all.

Of course, the Moon had its pros, too. Chantara liked it fine. She liked the people around her, and she liked how they interacted with each other. She liked the bounciness of the air around her that she was told Earth didn’t have. But the best part was the Earth itself, watching it rise and fall like the Sun, and the way it glimmered through an otherwise bleak sky. 

Chantara had always loved the Earth, with its beautiful blue and green colors brightening up the sky. She loved how it lit up her own small little world full of people who all knew each other. She loved the idea of walking past someone, not knowing who they were or where they came from. 

People are made from stardust, they say. When the universe was created, we all came from one tiny dot of existence, and it just kept on expanding to accommodate us all. We’re all descended from that one tiny dot. 

It was appropriate, Chantara thought, for us to all be connected like that. After all, the stars would always shine, even if they wouldn’t twinkle. They would always exist. Just like people, always going through their lives on a murky path of existence, without rhyme or reason, just made from the dust of the stars. They would always exist, from each generation to the next, as long as the stars would be found in the sky. 

Chantara watched the Sun, thinking again about how bleak it was in comparison to how it would look on Earth. If there was a way for her to go there, she thought, she would in a heartbeat. There was just so much life there, so much color compared to the monochromatic Moon. It was alive, one living, breathing organism like the old stories told. A goddess, a mother, something divine. 

The Earth didn’t just exist. It was powerful. It was beautiful. 

And the stars would twinkle, just like the stardust inside of each and every person. Everyone would be worth something, just like the shining stars. 

Chantara knew she’d never be able to go to Earth, of course. There was no way back. They were all going to be there for generations and generations, a test of time. An experiment. Like stardust. 

Sometimes, Chantara liked to think about what her life on Earth would be like, whether she would be able to laugh and look up at the blue skies and matching oceans. She knew she’d never be able to, but she loved the idea of it, the idea of feeling the grass beneath her feet and letting the wind blow through her short brown hair. She loved the idea of watching the stars twinkle at night, watching them light up the sky. 

Everything would be in color then. It would be exquisite.

She loved the thought of it, just the idea of the beauty of it all. 

Chantara looked up at the sky again, as the Sun started to duck down into the murky waters that was the vastness of space. She wondered how the people down on Earth looked at the Moon, at its different shapes in the sky. She wondered if they related to it like she did to the Earth, or whether it was just another thing to accept and move on from. She wondered what it was like to see some majestic being in the sky and just find it normal. 

Of course, the people around her did, pretty much. There were those who worshipped the Earth, but Chantara never thought of herself as one of them. There were also those who just accepted its presence as reality and never thought twice about it, and that was what Chantara couldn’t understand. 

That was how most of the lunar colony saw it: just something to look at everyday, with no rhyme or reason to its existence. 

But Chantara still loved them. She loved the Moon and the people there. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her life, just that she felt nothing about it was distinctly lunar, to the point where so much of it would be better on Earth, where the stars could twinkle. 

Ah, yes, the stars. Their natural beauty was showing here, but a whole nother way of seeing them on Earth. Their dust in every one of us, connecting her to the Earth, in some, small way. 

She relied on that fact so much, that she could have some connection to the people on Earth, a connection that also brought her closer to her home, as well as her home planet. It made her feel more complete to know that she was made of stardust, just like the Earth and its people, but also just like the Moon and its people, too. 

The Sun was now invisible in the sky, darkening the area significantly. It gave Chantara a cold feeling in her stomach, like there was a pit there swallowing her insides. The Sun gave her hope, hope that she’d someday see the Earth, hope that there could be something constant in her life, like the Sun was there. But, here, it wavered and changed, and the only constant was the tarnished stars in the sky. 

Chantara took a big whiff of the air, smelling all she could. Nothing stood out. Everything was so... normal, so plain and ordinary. 

In her dreams, Chantara smelled the sky. She could smell the stars. She could smell them twinkle. She didn’t know what the smell was, but the closest she could describe it was as Earth. Not the planet, just the soil in the ground, that allowed for things to grow. Something they didn’t have on the Moon.

Sighing, she walked back towards her home, carefully avoiding little plot holes where graters used to be. Most were filled in, like the air was adjusted for living, but the air still retained its slight bounciness, and there were still little filled in areas that were slightly dangerous to trip over. Not many, but still. 

As she walked, Chantara passed by a building in construction. It didn’t used to be there, but each time she came by to see the sunset, she saw it a little bit more completed. It must have strong foundations because of all that time, all those years she passed it by. 

She had always been curious about the building, with its monochromatic scale of blues, the turquoise roof to the dark hues of the door mirroring solid colored walls. Dark like the sky. 

Curiously, Chantara reached for the door, swinging it open. Inside was nothing but blinding light, but as she blinked it away, something caught her eyes in the corner of the room - something bright and red. Fiery, like the sun. Bright and burning.

Chantara turned around, seeing something she had never truly seen before - the bottom was a dark green, contrasted with veiny bright leafs. As her eyes wandered up, she could see the flaming scarlet hues again, small leafs - no, petals - reaching away from a pale white center, as intense and vivid as the sun and the stars.  

A flower, she realized, as she turned to look at the small sign next to the exquisite thing. A morning glory, as the sign read. 

Chantara began to fumble with the light switch, tring to take away the brightness so she could watch the flower’s center as she would a sunrise, but alas, as she did, the flower closed up, shriveling up into a bud. 

Chantara took a large whiff of the flower, bringing it close to her nose, letting the petals tickle against her skin as she reached to turn on the bright, iridescent light. A bright, warming feeling went over her, and not just from the heat of the light. The flower, she recognized its smell. 

It was the smell of the twinkling stars in the sky, the smell of dirt on her feet, the smell of Earth. The smell from her dreams. 

Chantara ran outside of the building, letting the dark blue door fall behind her. She ran to feel the earth beneath her feet, to smell the flowers, to hear the calls of birds. 

But as she looked up at the darkened sky, all she could see were the tarnished stars.