The sky was a deepening shade of periwinkle, with clouds streaked in gold and pumpkin hues, their edges glowing like embers from the setting sun. It was the kind of evening he’d found himself in often, waiting breathlessly for that switch in the universe—the Golden Hour. It’d been years since he was able to capture a night so clear. 95% visibility and not a cloud in sight.
If van Gogh could paint the stars, he could capture them—in all their brilliance, like specks of fine dust fluttering through an open room. They were a small particle lit in the universe, and tonight it was his to capture.
It would be a long night. He would need to let his telescope record for at least eight hours. A small pit fire crackled to the side; layers of brick settled around it to minimize any light sources. The embers licked at the brick around it, dancing in some sort of tribal motion. He put out the flames, letting the last of the warmth seep into his hands. He wanted as little pollution as possible.
He was here for her.
He’d go there to see her whirl around him like she had when she was alive, as if he’d been the center of her world—God knows why. She’d flash him a smile and he’d close his eyes and wish on it if only to see her again someday, knowing it was never. Some nights, he swore she winked at him.
Somewhere upon the fourth hour, he’d dozed off, nestled within his lawn chair with an open beer wedged in the grass at his foot. Silver-grey eyes unopened, allowing themselves to wander upward and make sense of the time, finding only a shift in the stars he didn’t know had been possible.
The River of Eridanus shifted slowly, reassembling itself in the side profile of a woman’s face. It was her, smiling clearing in the night as if the river of the damned had brought her back to him if only for a moment’s glance.
A brow there. A cheekbone there. The freckles he would trace at her cheek and the angel’s kisses down her neck. The silly tuft of hair that always fell over her left eye as she would tilt her head with every shy smile.
He reached for her in the void, his hand trembling. But the stars did not blink, did not move as if she’d finally decided to show herself and rest all in one breath.
And in that stillness it was enough, “There you are…”
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