Days are meaningless to me. However, there is some pull inside of me to measure my life against them. A pull that only grows stronger over time. It is a new day now, as for which day exactly, I cannot say, I lost count a long time ago. I watch the other stars around me, glinting fiercely. I don’t think about them or watch them much, but I take the time to wonder if any of them realize a new day is starting. I like how days both start and end in the dark. The dark is the only place where I can truly shine. Beginnings and endings are my favorite part. I move my attention away from stars and focus it on earth. I do not do much as a star, but what I can do is watch. Boring, I know. Every day, I watch someone different. They don’t know I’m there, following their day, but I’m there watching. And if the person I’m watching ever looks up at the stars, I jump. Overtime, I’ve learned things about human customs and cultures. I know that it makes them feel lucky, special even, to witness a shooting star. One thing I know very little of is the geography on earth, but I zoom in into one of the continents and my sight falls upon a little boy. 

He looks to be about seven. He is sleeping, and I know it will be hours before he wakes up. But just like days, hours are meaningless to me. To pass the time, I look at the little boy’s surroundings. He is sleeping on a bed, in the corner of a small room. The bed frame is made of wood and still retains its brownish hue, but everything else is blue. The boy’s shirt is blue, and the big quilt he is half under if made up of squares varying shades of blue. The wall is blue, and so is the large beanbag, bookshelf, and the dresser. The room is so sparse, there aren’t even any books. I briefly wonder why the bookshelf is there, for it appears to serve no purpose. The only other non-blue thing I see is a small stuffed lion, with the word “Simba,” stitched into the side. I take a moment to ponder what the child’s name might be. Some names I hear thousands of times, other names only come around once. After a very long time, or perhaps a very short one, the door opens and a women steps in quietly. Her appearance matches the boy to a tee; they share the same broad nose, coffee colored skin and high cheekbones. The woman crosses the room and gently nudges the boy awake. He opens one eye, and then slowly another. I look the window and it’s still dark, but the dark has a certain warmness to it now, an invitation, instead of the deep silent night it used to be. I look back at the boy and he has already gotten out of bed and is putting on a different shirt, while what I assume to be his mother is picking out a pair of pants from the now open dresser. She says something to him, and he responds. I can hear what people say if I want, but today I am just content to watch. His mother leaves and the boy continues dressing. 

There is a sense of melancholy in the air. I wonder what the day has in store for this boy. I don’t usually get attached to the people I watch for the day, and this boy is no different. I merely watch with detached interest. The boy finishes dressing and walks out the door. He walks through what I figure is the living room, but all along the wall are big boxes. Some are still open and stuffed inside are clothes, dishes, books, and other trinkets. I realize this family, however big it is, is in the process of moving. Whether to or from this house I can’t say. But if I have to guess, probably moving out of this house. There is a sense of the connectedness to the boy’s walk, the way he steps on certain planks on the hardwood floor, and how grabs the doorframe with one arm out wide so he can twirl around into the next room. To me, that seems like something you only do in a house you’ve grown up in. But I’m no human expert after all, I only see the small snippets of life. He steps into the kitchen, and I see the same woman from before pouring milk into a bowl of cereal. The woman pushes it to the boy, and he sits down and hastily starts to eat it while listening to his mother. No one else comes into the kitchen which I find surprising. The house seems too big, the boxes too many, to be home to just two people. The woman fills up a thermos and grabs her keys, wallet, and a book. While she is collecting her things, the boy finishes his cereal and places the empty bowl in the sink. The woman hands her son a jacket, which he puts on, takes his hand, and they step outside. The sky has lightened considerably, but now there is a breeze in the air that brings a bitter cold. Mother and son get into the car parked in the driveway and the are off. I, of course, follow. They ride in silence for a while, or maybe not long at all. The woman keeps her eyes forward, her hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel. The boy shifts around in his car seat in the back. The sense of melancholy has only grown worse. Finally, the woman turns on the radio. A man’s droning voice fills the car. She pushes a button and now heavy metal takes its place. She continues clicking through stations until she finds one playing jazz. The music touches me in a way that makes me feel as though I have never heard music before. The song is a little bit sad, but a little hopeful too. The boy doesn’t acknowledge the music and instead stares out the window, twisting his fingers together. 

The inside of the car is bare, just like the house, but the clock on the dash reads 12:00exact. I don’t know when they left the house or long they’ve been driving, but I do know that the darkness is completely gone, and the day is halfway over. I keep watching until the woman pulls into the parking lot of a huge building. She steps out and shivers, then opens the door for a boy. Once he is out, they walk inside and up to another lady sitting in a big desk. They trade sentences, but the lady shakes her head and points to a sign that reads, “Visiting hours start after one (1).” From this I glean that they are here to visit someone, most likely the third member of their family. With a sigh, the woman turns around and says something to the boy. They walk back out and get in the car, and this time they drive to a restaurant. Their lunch is mostly silent, following in form the way the rest of the day has gone. I can tell they are both lost in their own thoughts. They finish up, the woman pays, and they drive back to the other hospital. 

Words on the building now stand out me, words I didn’t see the first time. They say, “Bell Crest Hospital.” I’m sure that by now it’s after one, and I’m right because the lady now gives them directions, and they move past her; the first obstacle of the day defeated. I watch as they climb stairs and walk through hallways. At the end of one hallway is a blue door which they enter. In the center of the room is bed. Another woman lies in the bed with her eyes closed. She appears to be in her early sixties. As the boy and his mother approach, the old lady opens her eyes. They stand around her bed, and the women hold hands while exchanging words. The old lady is hooked up to a machine and the boy stares at it. He reaches his hand up to touch it, but his mother slaps it away before he can. I study the old woman closer; she looks very frail and I can tell she is about to die. I’m not sure how I know, but I can sense her life essence fading. 

Humans have such short lives compared to me. That’s what makes them so interesting. Most humans waste their precious. Of course, I only see one day, which, in the grand scheme of things is not much, but so many times people have just sat around all day, so it makes me think that is the norm. Humanity has changed so much since I first came into existence. When you’re around for longer than most things around you, they tend to move in slow motion. However, it is disconcerting when everything still changes. I can hardly move around in the sky or have any sort of connection with anyone or anything. All I can is glow until I burn out. Because even though humans have such short lives, there is this permanence about them. They touch so many lives, bring forth so many lives, that part of them is always living on even after they are long forgotten. When I burn out, no one will notice. It is this permanence that I long for. I focus back on the boy. He has climbed on to the bed next to the old lady. The woman is reading out loud from a book. They stay that way for a while. Although the woman is speaking, a heavy quiet drapes over them all. The kind of quiet when you’ve done all you can, and now you just have to wait and see how things will play out. The mother is halfway through the book before the old lady starts coughing. The boy, who had fallen asleep, wakes. The woman pushes a button and a man and woman in scrubs rush in. The man lifts the boy up and into the arms of his mother and points out the door. More people rush in, and after they cross the doorway the woman and boy walk out of the room and sit down on a bench facing it. Both of them are crying. The woman because she knows, same as I do, the fate of the old woman, and the boy because his mother is. The boy whispers something to his mom, and she tries to soothe him. Her efforts are futile because it is hard to comfort someone when you’re crying yourself. 

The man comes out and I know he has to be the one officially breaking the news. More tears. The man is so young, he still has so long before someone says the same about him. I wonder why they give the job to someone so young; it seems cruel. The boy and his mother re-enter the room and immediately stiffen at the sight of his dead body. Even though I knew she would be dead, it gives me a shock too. Only moments ago, I had seen her as a living, breathing human being. Now she is just a mere husk of who she used to be. It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone die, but it does give me pause. It’s been so long since I was created, I have no idea how much more time I have. That is my biggest similarity to humans. But time has not stopped for the boy. The day rushes ahead of him, once more bringing darkness. I can tell the day is almost over. The boy is sleeping again, and for the second time I wonder what his name is. He has seen such sadness at such a young age. I remember the lion back in his bedroom and the strength he has had today. Leonardo. Strong lion. Although there is a slim chance that is actually his name, I would like to pretend it is. I know I will never see him again, and I still know so little about him, or what happened today. But that’s ok, I was only ever meant to see a snippet. It’s funny though, how much you can learn about someone from just one day. 

I look back at the boy and he is in the car again, awake. Even though today has been so hard, for the first time he actually looks peaceful. My last vision of the boy is him tilting his head up, staring out the window, looking up at the night sky. Just as the day is about to end, I pull my vision out and stare at the stars, unmoving around me. For the first time, I feel a slight sense of being apart of something. Perhaps no one will notice when I disappear. But I was here. I contributed to the vast expanse same as everything else. My sight is transfixed on the stars around me when I feel a rumble growing louder and louder from my center. Perhaps it is my imagination, but I think the stars closest to me glow a little brighter. They glow and glow and glow until I shatter into a supernova.