by McKenzie Twine
Staring out the window of my childhood home, I imagine a life different than my own, but one
that is also very much the same.
A young boy runs next to a girl of a similar age. Their age is not the only thing that is similar.
They both had their father’s love of the stars and their mother’s desire to create something lasting
in the world. When they would run around at dusk, just as the stars were starting to appear, they
often wondered what type of universe existed out there in the stars, beyond what their father and
his colleagues could see.
When the boy and girl were just children, the stars were the place they held all of their dreams. I
could be a doctor one day, the boy whispers to the girl causing an eruption of giggles. She
believes that he could be anything he wants to be, but the thought of growing up seems like his
worst decision of all. He does not know what the world knows. That one day, he will transform
into a comet and burn up as he enters Earth’s atmosphere, never leaving behind more than a
small crater filled with memories, loneliness, and pain. The fictional worlds they have created
are better than the combination of every good thing about this world.
Out in the stars, there could exist a world without war, where young sons, brothers, husbands,
and fathers did not die for the pleasure of another man’s vendetta. Women would not have to
pick up the crumpled pieces of their homes and try to piece them back together again. The hope
is that once the pieces return for the second time, that will be enough to keep their homes safe
forever. War takes away that hope, and unfortunately, the second time is never the last time they
will have to hold on to something with their life.
The little girl held on to her brother as tight as she could, not knowing that the last time she saw
him, smiling and looking boyishly handsome, would be the last time she ever saw him alive.
Dreams of him are of no consequence. They fail to capture his soul, and like the sarcophagus,
they only hold his physical form. The stars, however, are a different story. When she peers out of
the window of her new London apartment and see the stars decorating the sky, she remembers
his eyes looking back at her, full of life and unimaginable dreams. In the stars, she sees a
different future, a different world, one where she never had to lose her home.
