quiet place where the ground was slick with mud
and the air smelled like fading flowers.
She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, but she knew René was still with her.
She felt his cold, plastic hand guiding her along by the arm – as though he’d been to this place many times before and knew the way, or could at least see where he was going. She
also heard his voice.
“Duh-skusth,” he said.
Ellie struggled to understand him. Disgust? Disguise?
They stopped. René grabbed her chin and tilted it upward. “Duh skusth,” he
repeated, this time with a heightened tone of seriousness, a respect bordering on awe.
Oh, the skies – René was directing her attention to the stars overhead. They were several times larger than any stars she’d seen before, and each glowed with a different
vibrant color. Even more surprising, they were unstable. (No, more than unstable.
Liquid .) They throbbed and melted and trickled toward the horizon, leaving behind trails that looked like neon candle wax (or painted pus).
Ellie followed the course of a melting, pulsating green star until she began to feel
dizzy and nauseated. Her head started to pound in synch with the palpitations.
She shifted her focus to a blue star, hoping a more soothing color might settle her
nerves. It didn’t help. It was too globby and too pale; the injured, blotchy blue of a bruise, not the rich blue of eyes and oceans. Each time the blue star throbbed, she imagined it
pumping diseased blood through the veins of all creation. She cringed, slipped, and lost her footing.
She heard a familiar whirring sound as René yanked at her hips to steady her.
Gooseflesh ran up the back of her neck, followed by a shudder, followed by a wave of
bitter embarrassment at how weak she must have just seemed to him. She’d gotten used
to a number of oddities over the last two days. So why did she find this bizarre sky so
uniquely disturbing?
She had only a hunch about the answer. It was one thing to feel increasingly
comfortable around a deformed creature like René, or even to accept that degeneracy was
everyone’s inevitable destination. But it was quite another to face the reality that stars, too, could devolve into something broken and freakish and wrong.
The arc of the universe was long but bent towards degeneracy.
It was too much for her exhausted senses. Yet, she needed to be brave and stare at
the sky. Anxiety and awkwardness no longer had a place in her life. A bizarre serenity
began to take hold of her. Yes, she was broken. What of it? In this place, the stars were too.
Like trickling raindrops on a windshield, the purple, red, green, orange, and blue
stars began to coalesce. Their colors mixed and darkened at the points of contact, while the trail each had left in its wake remained the original hue. Ellie decided an infected, deformed sky was a beautiful sky. She sighed.
René uttered a soft, approving moan and patted her on the back, as if to acknowledge
her progress in adjusting to her new surroundings. Then he led her onward. She followed
without questioning.
René did not seem the least bit troubled by the blackness at ground level. Ellie
trusted this meant all was well. She kept her gaze fixed on the broken sky and slipped
into a peaceful sleepwalker’s trance.
When she came to, the trails of starry wax-pus had finished their courses for the
night and trickled below the horizon. No new stars rose to replace them. While the sky
had once seemed sick, it now seemed dead.
Ellie wondered how long she’d been sleepwalking. Obviously, some time had passed
(how much, she couldn’t say). She had little endurance for hiking. Ordinarily, she wasn’t able to stand more than a half hour of it before turning back. But, despite apparently
journeying far longer than that, she felt rejuvenated.
René grabbed her chin once again. This time he tilted it downward, back toward the
ground. Something cast a flickering yellow glow in the
and the air smelled like fading flowers.
She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, but she knew René was still with her.
She felt his cold, plastic hand guiding her along by the arm – as though he’d been to this place many times before and knew the way, or could at least see where he was going. She
also heard his voice.
“Duh-skusth,” he said.
Ellie struggled to understand him. Disgust? Disguise?
They stopped. René grabbed her chin and tilted it upward. “Duh skusth,” he
repeated, this time with a heightened tone of seriousness, a respect bordering on awe.
Oh, the skies – René was directing her attention to the stars overhead. They were several times larger than any stars she’d seen before, and each glowed with a different
vibrant color. Even more surprising, they were unstable. (No, more than unstable.
Liquid .) They throbbed and melted and trickled toward the horizon, leaving behind trails that looked like neon candle wax (or painted pus).
Ellie followed the course of a melting, pulsating green star until she began to feel
dizzy and nauseated. Her head started to pound in synch with the palpitations.
She shifted her focus to a blue star, hoping a more soothing color might settle her
nerves. It didn’t help. It was too globby and too pale; the injured, blotchy blue of a bruise, not the rich blue of eyes and oceans. Each time the blue star throbbed, she imagined it
pumping diseased blood through the veins of all creation. She cringed, slipped, and lost her footing.
She heard a familiar whirring sound as René yanked at her hips to steady her.
Gooseflesh ran up the back of her neck, followed by a shudder, followed by a wave of
bitter embarrassment at how weak she must have just seemed to him. She’d gotten used
to a number of oddities over the last two days. So why did she find this bizarre sky so
uniquely disturbing?
She had only a hunch about the answer. It was one thing to feel increasingly
comfortable around a deformed creature like René, or even to accept that degeneracy was
everyone’s inevitable destination. But it was quite another to face the reality that stars, too, could devolve into something broken and freakish and wrong.
The arc of the universe was long but bent towards degeneracy.
It was too much for her exhausted senses. Yet, she needed to be brave and stare at
the sky. Anxiety and awkwardness no longer had a place in her life. A bizarre serenity
began to take hold of her. Yes, she was broken. What of it? In this place, the stars were too.
Like trickling raindrops on a windshield, the purple, red, green, orange, and blue
stars began to coalesce. Their colors mixed and darkened at the points of contact, while the trail each had left in its wake remained the original hue. Ellie decided an infected, deformed sky was a beautiful sky. She sighed.
René uttered a soft, approving moan and patted her on the back, as if to acknowledge
her progress in adjusting to her new surroundings. Then he led her onward. She followed
without questioning.
René did not seem the least bit troubled by the blackness at ground level. Ellie
trusted this meant all was well. She kept her gaze fixed on the broken sky and slipped
into a peaceful sleepwalker’s trance.
When she came to, the trails of starry wax-pus had finished their courses for the
night and trickled below the horizon. No new stars rose to replace them. While the sky
had once seemed sick, it now seemed dead.
Ellie wondered how long she’d been sleepwalking. Obviously, some time had passed
(how much, she couldn’t say). She had little endurance for hiking. Ordinarily, she wasn’t able to stand more than a half hour of it before turning back. But, despite apparently
journeying far longer than that, she felt rejuvenated.
René grabbed her chin once again. This time he tilted it downward, back toward the
ground. Something cast a flickering yellow glow in the
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