The Soul in a Star

Clara sat on the lonely swing set in the park on the corner of 4th Avenue. Dusk had long fallen, and the sky deepened, welcoming the glimmering lights of the stars. She leant back as she swung, and allowed herself to be swallowed up in the stars. The distance between them was limitless, but she raised her hand as if to stroke a star. She imagined the surface was smooth, like velvet, and the light shone through her hand, casting opaque shadows across the land. 

It was New Year’s Eve of 2019, Clara was waiting patiently for a shooting star upon which she would make her wish. There were so many things she wanted to wish for, so many thoughts that ran through her mind, fighting to be heard. They say that dreams are wishes that your heart makes. If that was true, then her heart had made the same wish every night. Her heart showed her a vision, when she sat beside her mother, on a tranquil summer night, on a bridge overlooking a river, looking up at the stars above. In this vision, her mother would trace out a constellation on her hand and point to a star. From the star, the fireworks would begin. For some unknown reason, she could never remember seeing the fireworks stop. After the night approached pitch black, the red, purple and orange flower bloomed across the sky, shimmering before fading ever so gradually into the night. She could never remember anything after that, only awoke every morning with a lonely ache in her heart. But last night her vision changed, and she sat alone on the bridge overlooking the river. It was winter this time, but she still sat in her light blue dress, shivering in the frigidity of the sky. 

~

Clara could feel the cold now, an aching cold that drilled into her bones. The park, once filled with children, and laughter, and mirth, was now deserted, and melancholy. She stood up from the seat of the swing, and walked up toward the see-saw. She sat down on one end, and imagined her mother on the opposite side, smiling at her softly in the night. But there was no one there, and perhaps, in the realities that existed at that moment, there would never be anyone who sat down on the other side of the see-saw. Clara closed her eyes, and stood up, feeling the seat regain its equilibrium under her, assuring her that there was no weight on the other side. She left the park, not glancing once behind her, and turned toward her empty house.

~

In her subconscious, she barely registered her shivering figure, having kicked off the covers on her bed. She hadn’t dreamed this time, only fallen into a meaningless, deep sleep. Blinking in the chilling, moonlit darkness of her room, a cold, empty feeling enveloped her, as if a blanket of ice had been wrapped around her shoulders. She had stripped off all her clothes after she returned from the park, leaving her in only a singlet, and neither had she remembered to close the window or draw the blinds. She got up now, sliding her windows shut, but leaving her blinds open, welcoming the dim light of the moon. She pulled her laptop toward her, staring awhile at the familiar wallpaper that lit up her lock screen. It was a photo of her and her mother, sitting on both sides of a see-saw, goofy smiles illuminated by the setting sun. She typed in her password and watched as the wallpaper faded into a word document, merely a blur of letters and lines in her hazy vision. She swiped viciously at her eyes, blinking forcefully before turning back to her laptop, beginning to read her story. 

Her story took her out of this world, and into the world which she imagined, the world that played by her rules, and her wishes. She had written about a young girl, who wished upon a falling star, and whatever she wished, it came true, but at a cost; it came true only if she gave up a loved one to form another star in the sky. Clara drew on her mother’s stories, about the constellations that created the heavens. 

Clara, my little warrior, remember that when I must leave this earthly world, I will still be with you, only up there, in the stars. Every time you see a new star appear in the sky, it is a loved one, who now can only look upon those they left from the heavens, between the stars. 

She had never finished her story, because she didn’t know how. It ended only with the girl making her wish, and after she wished it, the girl drifted off to sleep, into this alternate reality. Clara wished she could follow, but at the same time, she wanted to stay in this world. To know that once, she had sat on that see-saw with her mother, and watched fireworks from the bridge overlooking the river. 

A shooting star streaked across the sky as Clara was lost in thought, adrift in her stories and in her dreams. She looked up as the star brightened, before dimming as it fell toward the earth. She wished with everything she had, that her mother’s stories were true, that she really was somewhere up there, in a peaceful, perpetual sleep, looking down upon the earth. The star passed in a fleeting moment, but Clara remained still, looking out of her window and up at the constellations, waiting for some twinkling light to affirm her wish. Nothing happened, only the sky seemed to have darkened to a more infinite hole of pitch black, and the stars seemed to grow smaller, become more distant. Some realities may coincide, but this alternate universe either hasn’t been discovered yet, or simply doesn’t exist.

She didn’t know how long she sat at the window, lost in her fantasy of this alternate reality. The earth slowly spun toward the sun, and the stars blinked out from the sky, one by one. The day passed as quickly as it came, and that night, when she sat again on the lonely swing set, the empty seat beside her creaked, swaying gently even after the wind had ceased. Maybe that was the way in which the universe was telling her that her wish had been heard. Heard, but not real. She looked up at the stars again, and asked them who they were.