Do you know those mild summer nights where you would enjoy summer break by laying down on a meadow, gazing up to the seemingly endless sky and watching the stars appear one by one as your eyes gradually adjust to the darkness? Letting the soft, warm breeze caress your skin while you’re getting lost in deep thoughts about your life, maybe about the universe, maybe about love?
Because of the remote area I lived in, there was barely anyone up at night. Even in the middle of the day you could consider yourself lucky to ever witness a car passing through the streets and even if you did, it was most likely one of the neighbors.
I used to make myself at home in our garden and spend the night outside due to the pleasing temperatures even throughout the later hours. I would fall asleep laying in the grass, listening to the leaves rustling or in some nights, I would listen to the silence when there was no wind. No matter how often I did this, it kept on being a magical experience for me.
When I first heard of star signs, I tried to make them out in the sky vainly but relentlessly. Even if I didn’t find the official ones, my childish mind created its own signs and soon enough, the sky was full of new creatures consisting of stars. I tried giving some of them names, a horoscope meaning or a story as of why they were the sign they are. There were hordes of lions in various directions, knights in armor, I even saw cars in the sky eventually. All brought forth by the mind of a child.
I started to get used to seeing the signs I liked the most and almost immediately recognized them when I looked at the night sky. That’s when I began to make stories with them. The Lion sign, which was my favorite of them all, was the main character who had to fight the knights that tried to hunt the other lions. There was also this other sign that made me chuckle every time because even though I imagined it being human, the stars forming the face were so deplaced that the sign looked almost silly.
The reason why I remember the story so well is because at that point in time, I had spent most of my time either outside watching the stars or inside trying to develop the story more. Oh how I wish it stayed that way…
My parents grew worried about me since it wasn’t normal for a child my age to be such a fanatic over star signs. They supported me at first, but I could tell by their expressions that after I proposed to swap my sleeping cycle to sleep at day to be able to watch the stars all night they were seriously concerned. They had a talk with me telling me that something was wrong with me and that they wanted me to stop being so obsessed. Even though they insisted on loving me despite everything, my puerile mind made me angry at them and I ran outside, into the woods connecting to our garden.
That night was the first time I talked to Leo, the lion star sign. I was so angry at my parents, how could they forbid me the one thing I loved most! While I defiantly sat in the woods, I used my children’s creativity to make Leo talk away my frustration. Of course, he agreed to everything I said as I was the one giving him a voice. I shouted out all the anger I felt in that moment and Leo kept chiming in with even the stupidest and most infantile statements.
Wiping some tears, I calmed down and laid on the ground exhausted from my rage. The feeling of being able to let out everything bad was so relieving, I felt free from all burden. I closed my tear-stained eyes and it was like I was floating. I heard Leo tell me to get up, but I was so exhausted that I stayed put and only stared upwards to the signs I loved so dearly. I reached out my hand and it felt like they came closer to grab it and take me to wherever they lived. The rustling of the leaves became faint and I focused on my friends more and more. I was almost able to get a hold of them, they were so big close up that I couldn’t even see one end when I looked at the other end of one of them. The silly man was there too, his face even more distorted than before. I let out a chuckle, watching the stars forming them sway and making them seem like they moved.
The closer I floated to them, the less they looked like the signs I once knew. Pairs of stars gathered around me as if they wanted to welcome me but I felt like a stranger. Slowly getting uncomfortable, I turned my head in every direction, only to realize they seemed to come closer. All the secureness Leo provided to me vanished and I searched for him without success. He had seemed to have dissolved into individuals as well as the other star signs. I could make out silhouettes of creatures that creeped closer as I hesitantly floated towards them, but none of them only slightly resembled Leo.
Then one of them blinked. For the tiniest part of a second, two stars went black and enlighted again. Jerkily I turned around, breathing faster. “What was that?” I thought to myself, watching the distant lights grow bigger as they approached me from all sides. The silhouettes gradually gained clearer edges and I could make out slender, pitch black bodies, following the pairs of stars they had as eyes. I was panicking when I realized that those things were alive, alive and coming for me!
Leo wasn’t of any help anymore, he was merely a composition of many of those eerie inhabitants of space which I had falsely trusted as a friend for so long. That’s when one of them sprinted forwards, the others following its example and dashing towards me. Their glowing eyes we humans foolishly described as stars blinded each other and formed shadows on their faces. I screamed, not only because of the sudden convergence but also because of the sight of their creased faces which were far beyond any human imagination.
I woke up to the sounds of a police siren and my parents sitting next to me, crying and holding me close relieved over having found me. I was taken to a hospital and they checked me over, but I was free from any physical injury. My mind though was broken, I became crazy after seeing the faces of the ones orbiting around earth. It needed a few months of intensive therapy to get me out of the apathetic state I was in and another year for me to be able to speak again. When they asked me what I saw, I only screamed and wasn’t able to perceive anything else for a while so they stopped.
This happened when I was in grade school, I am in college now. I’m completely fine, since I thought this was only a child’s imagination going wild which isn’t necessarily uncommon. The reason why I am writing down such an old story now is last night.
I saw them blink again.