A tale with the stars

Constellation, Shooting stars, star wars, starship troopers, The fault in our stars these are few things that comes to my mind when I think of stars. I am not much of a star gazer, umm I am modifying that statement a bit, I am not a star gazer. I don’t care they exist just like they don’t care I do or maybe they do. I love the moon though. I stand in my terrace and stare at the moon for hours. Coming back to stars because I am determined to talk about them today, aren’t they cute little, shiny things in the sky. They are like these stones in a dress, diamonds in a necklace. They remind me that no matter how dark the times are one should not lose their glitter for that’s who they are! The first time when I read about constellation I was eager to connect the stars and see the kite and the polar bear. I dragged my mom up to the terrace and we connected the stars. I did that every night afterwards until I got bored which was pretty quickly.

I had a best friend in school. I am horrible at staying in touch with people so obviously we are not in touch anymore. But when we were the closest, thickest friend in the planet she tells me, “look at the star and make a wish, if it shines brighter your wish will be granted” (I always tell her that’s BS) She is a girl who believed in fairy tales, wonderland and many such things. Eventually we started believing in them together. I still believe in those not sure about her though. They say marriage changes a person. Nevermind, back to those shiny little ones.

 So, I had a huge crush on this guy at school. We Kept looking at each other at every given chance. We align our desks in a way that we can look at each other whenever we want to. It was pretty obvious that he was interested in me. Everytime he saw me my heart would skip more than 10 beats (I am not exaggerating), it thumps out like they show in these cartoons. Oh! The butterflies in my stomach flutter their wings and fly up to my throat making me feel funny. But I loved the way it made me feel. Now, I realise its dopamine, meh! Nevertheless, it was a beautiful feeling then.

So, after 3 months of continuous staring sessions he picked the courage to come and talk to me. He called me for a chat near a park at my locality. We didn’t have coffee shops then and the kids didn’t carry a lot of money (atleast we didn’t). He told me to come after sunset. It made me suspicious but anyway I went (You know girls!) The park was situated surrounding a water tank that supplies water to the entire town. It was quite higher than the ground level. When we went upto the tank the wind blew stronger and we sat next to each other at a comfortable distance. Silence filled the air and thickened with every passing minute. ‘I love this place’ he said finally. I smiled at him. He had beautiful skin, his glasses shined from the street lights, the long eyebrows and calm brown eyes, wind ruffled its fingers through his thick, straight hair. I was in love and I wouldn’t have cared even if he said that he loved the gutter or my chemistry teacher (Oh! I detested that wretch). I would have still smiled. I realised after few seconds that we were just plainly looking at each other. ‘Why?’ I asked as I stumbled over my own words. ‘Well, because it is quiet, lonely and you see..’ he pointed towards the sky. ‘those little glittery things in the sky?’ He laid over the cement surface of the tank still looking at the sky, ‘I love to see them for hours and hours’ Silence again. I just looked at the sky for a brief minute and looked at him again. It wasn’t easy to keep my eyes off him.

‘What’s with them?’ I asked.

‘Aren’t they celestial?’ he smiled. ‘Look...’ he pulled me closer and wrapped his arm around my shoulder like he’s known me for years. I was only a breath away from him. My heart jumped and sat infront of me, gathered it’s legs and wrapped it’s arm around it and batted it’s eyes. I calmed my breath down as he continued, ‘See that big bright star right there?’ he asked pointing at a star that was bigger than the rest. ‘That’s my brother’ He said.

‘What?’ I guffawed bewildered. There was silence long enough to make me feel like an idiot. 

‘Well, he passed away a couple of years back. So one day I was sitting right here crying, missing him. This one shined brighter than the others. I thought he was communicating to me. That’s him!’ He broke the silence again. His eyes were moist. I leaned on his shoulder.

‘Look, there is a smaller star right next to your brother. Looks like, he found a girlfriend too! Say hi!’ I said after sometime. I was in heaven! He laughed and his eyes shined brighter than the stars.

Among various things that this amazing guy taught me he told me that the people who leave us, whom we cannot be with anymore are in the form of stars. They shine brighter everytime we miss them. They don’t die, they simply become stars. Otherwise, I don’t care they exist!

Keep glittering! Live on J