My Sola System =

by Shan Zada

In the silence between two thoughts, I built a universe.

Not the one you see through telescopes or in textbooks, but one deep within me. A private galaxy where the rules of time bent to emotion, where stars weren't burning gas but pieces of my memory—glowing, distant, and untouchable.

I named it The Sola System.
Not Solar, because it wasn't the Sun's.
It was mine.

I, Sola, was both the Sun and the architect.


---

It began in my childhood, in a house where silence roared louder than any storm. I was eight when I learned that people can orbit each other without ever truly touching. My parents lived in the same home but were galaxies apart, caught in gravitational routines of politeness and pain.

So, I invented planets.

Mercuro, the closest planet to me, was shaped by my father’s fiery anger and fast apologies. It spun too fast for anyone to live there.
Venuse, shrouded in mystery, was my mother. Beautiful, but too hidden behind clouds to ever understand.
Terran, my ideal Earth, was my sister before she left. Full of life, laughter, and questions.
The others? They were dreams, fragments of moments, emotions I couldn't name.

Every night, I’d lie in bed and close my eyes. The darkness behind my eyelids turned into a star map. I’d travel from one world to the next. Sometimes I was an astronaut; sometimes I was a god.

But I was always alone.


---

By the time I turned sixteen, the real world grew heavier.

School became a battlefield. I wasn’t the type to fit into constellations others built—wrong clothes, wrong skin, wrong questions. They called me “space case” when I zoned out in class. They didn’t know I was charting new planets, saving dying moons.

One day, I met someone who didn’t mock my silence.
Kael.

He had a telescope and a mind like a black hole—deep, mysterious, and always pulling. We met in the library during a rainstorm, both hiding, both waiting. He saw my doodles of planets in the margins of my notebook.

“Is this your system?” he asked.
I froze. No one had ever asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “It’s my Sola System.”
He smiled. “Can I visit sometime?”

And so, for the first time, I opened my universe to someone else.


---

We mapped it together.

He added a moon called Kaelia, orbiting the lonely planet Solara. We created a language of stars, a calendar of eclipses. I had never laughed so much.

But even stars collapse.


---

It was during winter break when he vanished. No warning. No messages. Just gone.

I later found out his family had moved. No goodbye. No explanation.

Just space.


---

For months, my system dimmed. Planets fell out of orbit. Stars died in silence. The sun within me flickered, unsure if it was worth staying lit.

Then came the dream.

I was floating through my own system. It was cracked, abandoned. The planets whispered:
"You forgot us."
"You gave up on us."
"You let Kael be the only visitor."

I awoke with tears. For the first time in months, I looked up at the night sky—not to escape, but to rebuild.


---

Years passed. I grew.

I studied astrophysics—not because I wanted to be an astronaut, but because I needed to prove that my imagination wasn’t foolish. The stars outside reflected the ones inside.

I never saw Kael again, but he became a myth in my system. A fallen comet. A reminder that visitors come and go—but suns must keep burning.


---

Today, I’m 27.

I teach kids about galaxies, telescopes, and gravity. Some ask why I call the Sun Sola.

I tell them, “Because names have power. And every one of us has a system inside. A private solar system where our memories live.”

I go home to a small apartment filled with star maps, glowing models, and a window facing the night sky.

My Sola System still spins.
Not perfect.
Not complete.
But alive.


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Epilogue: A Message to You

If you ever feel lost, if people call you strange, quiet, or distant—know this:

You are not broken.
You are building a universe.
One memory, one planet at a time.

Let them orbit.

Let them shine.