As The Stars Blink Out

The wind blew through my window, and my room was so quiet, I could hear my heart pounding in my chest as I gazed out into the night sky. 

It was like a staring contest with space, but of course, it always won, except for the many small times it would wink and twinkle when it knew you had been staring too long. 

When you desperately needed to get some shut eye.

It was like even the stars knew. And they did know. 

I had guessed no one could relate to what I did nightly, but there was something about the way that the one girl across the road looked up just the same, like she knew, just as well. 

She knew the sky was alive, and she knew it was winking at her too. 

Bella Laine. That was her name. And I knew it well. I didn’t know how, but I had heard many a things about her. 

It was Bella. It was her bright blue eyes that I could see all the way across the alley, and her dirty blonde hair that would waltz with the wind….

There was just something about it that I couldn’t get by. 

What is it I am thinking of you may ask?

How every night she would come home late, flop on the couch and just stare. 

She would stare not at her phone, not at the television, but at the sky. The blackening ceiling above us, with decorated lights that seemed just so beautiful to each and every one of us, we just never saw it as what it really was. 

And I did the same. And I thought the same as the girl. 

The unspeakable thing that hangs in the air like a horrible stench. 

The way the sky will tease and trick you into thinking it is beautiful and endless and wonderful.

I know it has imperfections, no matter what. 

And I just know that there is some end to it. 

Everything has an end, then why not the sky? 

I had spent the evening thinking and debating, until early morning came ‘round, and yet, I still hadn’t had any shut eye whatsoever. 

But neither had Miss Bella Laine. 

I gazed at her, and she gazed at me. 

I just had to. We both knew there was some end to this. 

We just had to find out what, and how. 

Bella made eye contact with me, and I did the same to her. 

She knew what I meant, and I knew what she meant. 

The next evening came quickly, and at midnight we set out to find it. 

We would find the thing that ended it all, causing the whole world to—

Oh, I just remembered that I must keep my mouth shut. There is no way any of this is leaking out. I needed to keep this a secret. 

Bella stared at me across the street when we had finally hit the ground, out of the apartment building. 

I looked at her, and she looked at me. 

We stayed silent. There was nothing to be said about what we were about to do. 

There was nothing to say, nor use actions to show what it was. 

We just knew. There was a connection between us that I couldn’t explain in my mind, nor with words. 

Bella and I set out with silent, shut lips. 

The lever for the power outage was flipped by Bella. 

We watched as the entire city went dark and silent. 

The next one was flipped. 

And then the next.

And the next. 

We had nowhere to go, nothing to do but flip each switch one by one. 

By now if we hadn’t been out, the both of us would begin our staring contest with the stars. 

They were waiting on us, and waiting on us—I could tell by the constant annoyed blinking of the North Star. 

That was when finally Bella Laine had said something, finally breaking the silence. 

“Why?” She asked. “Why are we doing this?” 

I stayed still. 

I shook my head, and placed a finger to my lips. 

“Even I cannot say, Bella Laine. We must stay quiet. We must do what we have to do, and then leave.” I told her. 

“But why? I don’t even know you, but something told me we had to do this...why, Asher?

Even she knew my name. 

Bella Laine, the most beautiful girl I had ever met in my entire life knew my name. 

It was imprinted in her mind, and she knew me as Asher, the boy across the balcony. 

“We are doing it because we have to show the world what this really is. What this world was made for, and this is what we have to do.” 

I knew we both had no idea where this going, or what we were going to do. 

We had to show the world that the sky is much more than just something that hung above us. 

It is a whole different universe, a whole different dimension. 

And it too, is living, and breathing just like the rest of us.

As each city and area was flipped off, each person stepped out of their homes. 

Each person slowly looked up, and viewed it. 

They saw the sky, and they saw what it looked like when everything was dark, and everything was gone, and nothing worked but the thing that hung above. 

Not down, not to eye’s length. 

Above. 

They saw the beautiful night sky, gleaming and lit with tiny specks of light, that we call stars. 

They saw the beautiful painted image from our Creator that spoke to us, and drew us into the beauty of the sky. 

And they heard the slow sound of the sky breathing. 

It wasn’t the normal sound you would think of when your mind wanders to the sound you hear that comes from your lungs, nose and mouth. 

It was a beautiful sound, much like no other sound any of them had ever heard. 

The stars blinked back in recognition, and the moon gazed in awe at the people, including Bella and me. 

Bella took my hand, and I took hers.

The sky breathed on and on, and the people watched as the breathing grew hoarse. 

And the stars began to blink out one by one. 

Suddenly, the breathing stopped. 

The moon had faded. The earth wrattled, and the last thing I saw were the beautiful blue eyes of Bella Laine as the world swallowed us. 

We didn’t perish, but we were swallowed into something beautiful. 

Something that would last forever. 

We would live yet in the skies.