The Stars That Shine Beneath Us

The stars aren’t what they used to be.

My gaze remained fixated on father’s watered-dry countenance as he beamed up into the endless night. The sky lamented what his desolate eyes echoed back. Such profound hopelessness. I didn’t need to see it to know what was up there.

Fighting to feel the pain, my eyes descended upon the paper, crumpled within father’s grasp.

The letter was hardly news. We had both known the instant we had counted down to the last hour of curfew: mother wasn’t coming home. Another army surgical hospital leveled.

How tragic.

I understood the gravity of these circumstances, yet its weight remained alien to my feeling. I just couldn’t draw out a tear. Yet, I knew I would miss mother dearly; I still notice brother’s absence each and every day, despite two years passing.

While my heart yearned to hurt, an uninvited visitor entreated my desires instead.

Scorched by the stars, the river had run dry, and all signs of creation had withered away.

I had feared this look before. “Don’t go, dad!” I pleaded.

Finally, his eyes departed from the above and I instantly realized the depth of his suffering. After brother—after mom—the almost tangible prospect of losing yet another loved one was a likelihood so daunting, it was too much for him to bear. So as he perceived me with regretful certainty, I contorted my face to imitate the sadness of his as best I could, while, underneath, fear materialized into reality.

I moved to deliver to his cheek, a solemn kiss, to which his arms immediately responded. Both of us hugged each other earnestly, neither intent on letting go.

“You’re the best dad I could have ever asked for. I love you so much,” I said, burrowing my cheek into his warm shoulder. And though my delivery of these words were more factual than passionate, I knew father felt my sincerity.

I almost didn’t notice the steady stream pouring down my face, for my heart was pounding to the beat of the fear that ravaged within me.

What will I do when I’m alone?

His embrace tightened, “I love you, Geander. I’ve always loved you. I’ll never stop loving you. Don’t you ever forget that.”

I never forgot, dad.

From my neck, I retrieve the last souvenir I have of father’s remembrance: a golden, heart-shaped time-keeper. For the last time, I press the button to unveil its numbered face, its curved hands frozen in place since the time it was last wound.

Now, as my eyes fiercely scrutinize the clock’s lavish border, I honestly can’t remember a time when I desired more intensely to feel. From where I stand, I can almost hear the ringing of bells, the hymns of happiness and joy. I can almost picture the rows of merry families dressed in bright formal attire. I can almost feel the love and warmth.

But time has not been kind to this once sacred place.

I know very well what love is—I had witnessed it many times throughout my life, but the thought that I would never truly understand it—how could I? The thought torments me.

My heart must have stopped working. Someone must have forgotten to wind it.

Finally, I close its cover once more and regard the engraved initials—those meaningless letters. They belong to someone who lived and died long ago. I never shared any kind of relation with them anyway. Although, there really is something quite telling about this relic's age: it breathes some truth behind the saying that to be in possession of time is to be in possession of immortality. I wonder if father is immortal now too.

Suddenly, I am sharply reminded of my place before the towering cross. That statue had always made me feel small and even more alone. A steady stream of fear gradually pours from my chest into the rest of my body, clogging my veins and choking my lungs.

Despite my refusal to wander up at that menacing sky, I am still tortured by the stars that await me there.

As I stand, frozen before the altar, a variety of painful memories begin to project on the screen of my mind in hauntingly vivid detail.

Upon realizing that I am starting to succumb to the freefall, I instinctively reach for mother’s viola among the candle-lit dedication. When the thoughts grew too loud, mother showed me how to play.

As I slide the bow across the dusty strings, I take my time to allow the old instrument to "play from its heart," just as mother had shown me. Soon the deep, rich melody paints the desolate walls that still remain with warm, rejuvenating color, and for the meantime, its song overwhelms my demons.

Mother used to always remind me that the viola's song was never a lone one: its melody supported a myriad of others. So, I imagine a whole symphony playing beside me.

Suddenly, I don’t feel so alone anymore.

My eyes widen as the song is interrupted by my locked hand. Dead, silent, tense air. Over my pulsing heart, I struggle to hear what those foreign whispers say, but they are close. My thoughts race.

What if they catch me after curfew?

In my hurry, I replace the instrument and dive underneath a half-collapsed bench. The smell of damp decay congests my throat from the rotting floorboards. Immediately thereafter, the muddy wood vibrates beneath my fingertips.

Soon, my eyes lock fiercely onto a heavy pair of grimy boots.

As I stare from behind petrified eyes, I wonder what to do with the revelation that he isn’t an officer.

But there are more.

My eyes bolt to my immediate right where another pair marks his entrance from a collapsed wall.

My breathing becomes heavy and frantic. I pray they don’t hear me. They whisper vile things. I don’t have to look to know that a third presence has joined the company from behind me. I shield my ears but I still hear them.

“Hey Jeffrey, you seeing this?”

“What the hell?”

“Looks like some kind of shrine.”

In formation, the boots approach the cross as my thoughts cry for escape.

“Well, son of a bitch. Check it out, Earl. Bet you it’s real gold.”

“Damn. They don’t even pay us this much for what we do, busting our asses for the sake of the whole goddamn world.”

“Looky here. Guess we’ve found where the music come from.”

“Damn! I haven’t seen one of these in ages!”

“I’m sure it can be bargained for a good price.”

“Hold up. Any of you see anybody leave? Cause I damn well know these things don’t play themselves.”

A forbidden silence now suffocates the hall, leaving only the wretched whispers in their wake, their meaning lost by the wild beating of my chest.

There’s no other choice.

My foot determinately digs into the moss-covered wood as I initiate my desperate escape. But in the same instant, an unfamiliar face beams down at me from beneath the bench.

“Hello there!”

Without a second to even begin to grasp the inescapability I now face—without a second to even breathe—a cry slips from my lips as without warning, my legs slide from beneath me. I'm fighting and screaming and kicking to break free from the rigid arms that now entrap me.

“Well what do we have here?”

“We caught ourselves a wild one!”

His menacing arms continue to move to contain me as I cry and kick and pull, but a realized hopelessness begins to settle in.

“Shh, shh, shh,” the man whispers as he slowly smothers my last remaining energy.

As my efforts quickly wind down, I stare sharply at the tall one—he whispers the loudest. They tell me his name.

Earl.

“Let her go,” he waves.

That man’s dirty hands at last depart from my skin, and Earl extends me his hand, of which I don’t bother to recognize. My chest feels so numb, I instinctively reach for my heart, ensuring that it hasn’t been replaced by a gaping chasm. Finally, Earl surrenders the feigned, polite gesture.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

I can feel the slimy breath of the man behind me as he trifles with my hair.

“Oh, where are our manners? Allow me to introduce ourselves. My name is Earl. That’s Clyde,” he points to the short one whose face is seared into my mind.

“Hi,” he says through a disfigured grin plastered about his red cheeks.

“And that’s Jeffery. Don’t mind him: he’s very friendly.”

My thoughts—they’re so loud now—they’re overriding my senses. Even the sound of my own heart is faint over their screams.

I feel their eyes—those vile eyes.

After a stifling silence, Earl turns to my family’s dedication beneath the cross.

“You do this?”

I just watch in petrified agony as he approaches.

“And them? They look like nice folks” he says, pointing to mother and father in the photo.

Somehow, their faces quell some of my apprehension. “My family,” I finally say after a moment of struggle.

“Really? Shit! Are you sure?”

He holds up the photo to my face, comparing their dark complexion to my starkly pale countenance.

His eyes land on me once more and I feel disgusting in them.

“Damn!” he emphasizes, “Come here Clyde. Look at these eyes.”

Their shadows quickly surround me.

“Two different colors!”

“You know,” Earl returns, swinging his finger, “I’ve seen a lot of women in my years, but none as captivating as you, my darling.”

“And her hair—like snow,” breathes Jeffery with his horrid hands still intertwined in it.

“You know what her hair reminds me of?” Earl then beams at me, “Have you ever seen one of them?”

The question knocks me out of immobilization. “I must go,” I insist as I adamantly step forward.

His hand intervenes.

I know he can feel the beating—the intense fear. But when I look into his eyes, I see no remorse—no love. A truth he whispers the same.

“Hold on a second. Now, you know and we know this little memorial you got going on here could get you in a lot of trouble. Hell—you just being out here is a capital offense. Now we’ll be willing—”

“You’re not supposed to be out here either!”

An ominous look suddenly eclipses his eyes. Any previous imitation of sincerity is suddenly lost.

His hands move maliciously for my throat.

“You know why you’re still breathing?”

His hands forcibly jerk my head up toward the stars but I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Open them. OPEN THEM!”

Reluctantly, my eyes jolt open to perceive that ebony ocean of twinkling sky.

They call out to me.

“Because of us,” He spits,

“The stars—they shine above us—look down on us.

They’re a constant reminder that our enemy does too. We are what keep them there.”

I accept their call.

“So it’s only fair for you to repay the favor,” he concludes, plunging me into those hands that immediately proceed to rip at my clothes.

Hot tears dump down my face, burdened by the mournfulness that released them.

Is this love?

But my body is pulsating. Fear exploding. The drum thundering. The whole world fading. All that is left—

The stars.

Tears spill out over my fingertips. Burning red.

“Oh my God!” reverberates through the chaos.

Screams ignite my ears.

I see the light—hope that binds me. The sensation of tearing flesh—IT THRILLS ME!

“The gun!” shouts the whispers. I immediately whip around toward the one still standing. My eyes move fiercely to perceive the pure petrification upon his face—Earl’s face.

The gun clatters across the floor.

I can’t help but grin. Fear. Finally. Release!

“Y-you’re. You're—”

I contort my head, perplexed by his continued ability to breathe.

Trembling, his eyes fall upon the deep crimson stains—the fiery branches that made a mess of his hands.

“You’re wrong,” I reply.

Finally, he collapses into a pool of thick, hot blood.

“The stars shine beneath us.”