Stars

We were given a few prompts during this writing exercise and I chose the one “The sight of the stars always makes me dream”. I consume a decent amount of sci-fi media (books, movies, tv) and this appealed to me. Not sure why I ended it the way I did, but I kind of like it. A little more serious/dark than I usually do. I think we had about twenty minutes and this is what came out!

The sight of the stars always makes me dream.

I’d stare up at the endless blackness of night, trying to count each pinprick shining up above, once I learned to count.  Ignoring my mother’s calls to come in for bed and the annoyance of mosquitos buzzing around my patched up knees.  Dad bought me picture books of constellations and kid’s level science facts for every birthday and Christmas and gift-giving holiday.  I pasted glow-in-the-darks stars on my ceiling and drew rocket ships with crayons.  My five-year-old self would rattle off star facts to anyone who would listen (there weren’t many) and grandpa would tell me stories about brave astronauts exploring space.

The sight of the stars always makes me dream.

At twelve, my obsession held strong.  I’d lay awake and dream about adventures among those stars, staring up at the faded glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling.  Picturing myself exploring planets and saving alien species and being the hero.  Flying my spaceship among the stars that waited up there so patiently for me.  I knew so much more now, thanks to the hundreds of books I read and the thousands of videos and tv shows I watched.  I constantly dreamed – dreamed of being an astronaut, part of a crew to discover a new world, like so many crews had done before.  I wanted to be the first human to step on a new planet.

The sight of the stars always makes me dream.

Closer to those dreams, immersed in the Academy, training on flight simulators and free-fall gravity and diplomacy to deal with the aliens we met.  Inhabitants.  I’d learned to say that out loud, since humans were the aliens among them on their planets.  Learning the language of the two intelligent species we already knew about so I could one day join a crew.  Throwing everything…everything…into working hard to achieve that dream sprouted in my childish mind as I lay in the damp dew-heavy grass of my backyard, with stars in my eyes.

The sight of the stars always makes me dream.

Meeting my dreams as I broke through the atmosphere the first time on my first hop to the space station.  Co-pilot, but the grizzled old pilot let me handle everything.  He was a great mentor, taking me under his wing and teaching me things no textbook or simulator had.  I felt prepared for this first leap as I left Earth for good.  It was a one-way trip and I’d never see my family again, but the dream was worth it.  A cumulative twenty-five years of dreams, piled up in my head and heart, scrubbed fresh and clean as we linked to the station to pick up the crew for our mission. 

The sight of the stars always makes me dream.

Nightmares and horror-filled sleep, full of death and blood and loss.  I never dreamed it would be like this.  How could I have ignored all the sci-fi movies featuring war and vicious alien species.  I’d watched them, but those childhood…teenage…young adult dreams…never featured this.  Never featured the destruction of Earth, the death of my mentor, the torture and pain inflicted on prisoners of an intergalactic war we never saw coming.

The sight of the stars doesn’t make me dream anymore.

The sight of the stars terrifies me and makes me weep.