The Stars Went Out

 

I wasn’t sleeping; I watched them go. Without a word, without a warning, the stars slowly winked out of existence. I watched their twinkling lights fade away into an inexplicable and mysterious silence. The learn’d astronomers were of no help. They muttered in their observatories about gravitational collapse and neutrino distortion waves. “These things happen,” they told us. “What can you do? But there will be other stars in other galaxies. The universe is very large you understand…”

Maybe they are right. The universe is vast and strange. I’ve heard stories like this, and believed them I suppose, stories of unholy stones transported across Siberian wastes by train. I’ve heard the villagers whisper of the mark of the devil burned into pale flesh. I’ve heard rumors of celebrity gladiators left to starve in forgotten obscurity. I’ve watched self-righteous mobs parade through the streets with fascist icons held above their head. And all of this seemed normal, I guess.

The stars went out and I dreamt of people stabbing and cutting themselves with large kitchen knives and broken shards of crockery. They could not be restrained. If we accept the interpretive principle that we are each individual within our dreams, this might be somewhat revelatory. I wasn’t sleeping, but I could do nothing to stop them. I saw them extinguished. My eyes are fine; reality’s out of focus.

Still, we were happy in their light for a time. And I remember hope.