Stars

There's one thing I've always loved. One reason I adored peter pan as a child. Stars. Peter lives in the second star to the right! I spent so many hours as a child gazing out my window at the second star. I have the stars mapped on my ceiling, lines connecting the glow in the dark jellies it's made from, their names painted neatly next to them. I didn't have many friends as a kid, but I had my stars, I had my ceiling project, I had my Dad, I needed nothing else. Why would I?

I lay in my bed, staring up at the fading stars; it has been ten years since I started the project with my Dad, five years since we finished it. The city lights now blocked out the stars, but I could still stargaze thanks to my father. He bought me book after book about stars, space, constellations, astronomy, anything he could find. Almost every day he'd come home with a book under his arm. He spoiled me rotten.  I suppose it was because he knew this was coming.

Most girls my age would have posters up of bands they liked, maybe films or TV programmes. I had posters of galaxies, nebulas; the universe was plastered all over my walls. People thought I wasn't normal, and in a way I'm not. I used to be.

Sleep wouldn't consume me, so I got up and padded barefoot out my room, down the hall, down the stairs, into the kitchen, out the back door, across the garden. The grass was wet under my feet, it had been a rainy day today, the clouds had cleared now, but it was still too bright. I lay down in the wet grass, the feeling grounding me as I attempted to see real stars. Only the brightest were visible, but I knew they were all there. I knew which constellations should be showing, which stars were no longer there. Eventually the cold and wet forced me to go back inside and change. I clambered back into bed and was finally taken by sleep; taken to visit the stars; taken to see my Dad one last time before tomorrow. Before I had to say my goodbyes forever.

Dad had died, two weeks ago. He'd been hit by a car, the driver drunk, and died on impact. The hospital said he wouldn't have been in pain. The police shook when they told us. Their hats held in trembling hands, their knees about to give way. One of them, the younger one, started crying silently. Mum sat with her head in her hands, howling. I sat numb. Frozen. My Father, the best man in history, was dead.