Silhouetted By The Silver Abysss

I had followed my parents from the car and into the night and along a path winding through early-autumn air not yet emptied of southern summer’s sweetness and soon the path had led us from the gravel parking across a grassy expanse into the folds of a small crowd gathered at the entrance to the observatory which sat in the center of a clearing in a forest that rose like fingers reaching for the ocean of light above. The astronomer led us around the observatory, mostly walking backwards, informing us of the power of the telescope and pointing out specific constellations we would later have the chance to see through its lens. “Of course, many of what seem to our naked eyes to be stars are in fact galaxies or nebulae.” “What are nebulae?” I asked. The astronomer stopped moving and looked down at me. I couldn’t see her face, her head silhouetted by the silver abyss above. “They are stars that have died and exploded into vast clouds of hot gas.” “Stars can die?” “Oh yes, all stars die. Even our own sun will die one day.” Her voice became a heavy silence that poured into me and filled me with a piercing negative light drowning the world in stillness. I saw the sky burst into sheer whiteness as the trees flattened and the ground rolled and cracked and sent us flying into cold nothing. My lungs pulled no breath, my skin felt no wind, my body felt no distance. The astronomer turned to resume the tour. My father muttered something unpleasant; my mother asks if I am alright. We finished the tour and looked through the telescope; I am still standing beneath that sky, caught in that astronomer’s emptiness.