Astrogation

3 AM. This is the dreaming time. Uncertainty hangs in the air like so many spider webs. It hits me as I step out the front door, makes me second-guess every breath I take. The voice inside is insistent: Where are you going? What are you doing? You shouldn’t be here. Get back inside; the show is on, don’t wander the halls.

Nothing moves save the breeze. It feels oddly comforting, like a cool hand laid upon my cheeks. Silly. Dad once told us that the winds are nothing more than ripples in an ocean of air, and the sun is what stirs it. Like a pebble thrown into a pond. Cause and effect.

I look up at the sky, a flat grey ceiling tinged an ugly shade of beige by the reflected city lights. “Nice night,” I say to no one in particular.

“Stars would be nicer,” Dennis mumbles inaudibly, but then adds “It could be worse.”

He knows I’m not too crazy about the stars. When I was a little girl, nine or ten, I suddenly developed an intense fear of the night sky. Our family had gone up to the cottage for the weekend. That evening after dinner, Dad and Dennis decided to watch some movies, so Mom and I went out onto the porch. She sat in her favourite hand-carved chair and spoke to me, told me things that went in one ear and out the other yet still managed to leave a little something behind. After a while, we fell asleep.

It’s true what people say about the countryside. Night is completely different out there. Not just the sights, but the sounds. In any given field, there’s something like ten crickets per square meter. Together, the thousands of crickets create a noise that, to unaccustomed ears, is like the roar of the ocean: vast and eternal. But once in a while, for some reason, the crickets all stop at once, and it feels very much like the world has momentarily ended.

Fifteen years ago the crickets by my cottage decided to stop singing, and in doing so they jolted me awake. I looked up, first at my mother’s sleeping face, and then at the sky. The absolute silence made me feel like I was the only living person on Earth, like every galaxy, every nebula, every sun, every world, every soul in the universe was looking down at me and me alone.

My problem with the stars isn’t a phobia; it’s stage fright.