“Paper Stars”

Abbey Hebert

.....As the sky wails and screams, I realize that I can almost hear him laugh. Rather than joining my ex-husband and lawyer, I stay in my wooden chair located next to the only window in my house. Disregarding the sky’s harsh spits on the window, I stare at the paper flowers I’ve glued to the bottoms of the walls. Another yelp from the sky begs for my attention, and when I look outside, I see a mysterious star shoving the sun, who then abandons all laws of stationary placement and falls hopelessly towards Earth looking more like a ball of ice than fire. It’s a pathetic sight I am glad to have witnessed. 

A knock disrupts the uncomfortable and lonely silence in the house. I open the back door as soon as I reach it and see a man standing there with raindrops embroidered into his skin. I don’t know how I know it, and you don’t have to believe me either, but I know that he is Sun. He seems heavily distraught, his aura leaking immense displacement. Copious amounts of wrinkles highlight his mouth and his forehead. My fluorescent lights shining yellow like fireflies are less bright than Sun’s skin, which is so pale and cold yet encaptivating.

A rather maternal nature evolves within me, and the first instinct I have is to invite him inside. As he crosses the threshold, he stumbles weakly, almost powerlessly, and just about falls again, farther and farther from his conventional place in the sky. His shaking hand reaches out to grab my forearm, and he is cold, and I am confused. Why is he cold? Isn’t he supposed to radiate heat and warmth?

My arm tingles from his tight grip. We walk at his slow pace, his body tilted towards me as if we were on an axis. His eyes deviate from how eyes are supposed to look, yet I could hardly tell since he could barely open them. Human beings do not have the ability to interpret how one feels through eyes, and since Sun does not seem to want to talk, I am left with my own questions about his emotional state. Is he relieved, sad, angry? I want to know how he feels about being pushed from his natural place, if it even is his natural place anymore. Once we reach my kitchen, we sit at my caramel-colored table, and I can’t help but continue to scrutinize this man sitting across from me.

His hair is a faint shade of gray like smoke as though he is older than he appears to be. As I watch him, he watches my stove, studying the slits where the fire usually comes out. His fascination with such a mundane object fascinates me. “What are you doing?” I ask.

Sun has a longing look in his eyes, and his hands keep colliding with one another awkwardly, his fingers turning red whenever he’d forcefully intertwine them. “Can you turn that on?”

“What, the stove?” 

He nods. 

The fire is erected once I turn the metallic knob. Like pieces of molten lava shoot out of volcanoes, the tongues of fire are ejected out of this shiny canon. Out of what was cold a minute ago burns a fire perfected with splotches of yellow and red and orange like a melting sunset. Sun, in his pitiful glory, starts weeping. He looks so broken, as though he’s made more out of glass than fire. 

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

Once he blinks, water flourishes under his eyelids, and soon tears gently walk down his face. I never thought I’d see a combination of fire and water, and confusion pinches my brain; how can these two opposing forces co-exist? “I want the fire in me again.” His cries are cacophonous sounds. I reach my hand out to cut the fire on the stove short, hoping to also lessen his amount of sorrow and despair. “It’s not even by me anymore.”

I don’t know how to comfort Sun, but I feel a strong obligation to since he is the reason that my flowers on the walls thrived. Once I take in Sun’s appearance, I am both baffled and disappointed for I previously believed he was omnipotent. Crimson scratches and cuts birthed by branches of trees (he hit many while plummeting towards us) decorate his body. Dried up streams of blood stain his pallid flesh, and my maternal nature requires me to ask if I can clean him up. My attempts of care fail because he starts weeping.

“Red is the color of fire, and if you wash it off, I won’t have any more fire in me. Even just having red on me makes me feel like I’m up there.” He points a shaky finger towards the sky. This is why the stove was so godlike to him, for it gave him heat and warmth.

I ask, “Are you tired?”

He nods.

“Can you walk to bed?”

As Sun stands, his legs shake. Exhaustion can only be suppressed and ignored for so long; therefore I know that he is bound to fall eventually. “I might be able to crawl.”

Picturing Sun crawling provokes laughter in me, but I suppress it after considering the malevolent effects it would have on him. Sun is supposed to be one of the most powerful, sedentary forces of our solar system, yet even something that is considered natural and stable can fail and become too tired to continue. Picturing Sun crawling now depresses me.

“Why don’t you hold onto me?” I pat my arm. It is an uneasy thought that I have to and can easily carry Sun. Our positions have shifted, and I seem to be what Sun needs in order to survive.

I watch him. I watch him as he nods. I watch as he looks down at his feet nervously. And when he speaks, I watch how his lips move. “You’d do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’d just be the first thing anyone’s really done for me.”

“Well it’s kinda hard for us to help you when you’re all the way up there.”

“That’s true, I guess.” He looks right into my eyes, as if there’s a highway that connects our two pupils, one directly to the other. “But I still help you when I’m all the way up there.”

I walk over to him then bend my elbow, and I watch his legs shake when he slowly stands up. As we move, I observe. Our feet make uneven sounds; mine are loud and demanding (plack! plack! plack!), and his are quiet and soft, so soft, in fact, that for a moment I wonder if those are his footsteps or if the storm outside has relaxed and little droplets of rain are patting at my windows.

Just as he’d lay horizontal in the sky, he so lays horizontal in my bed, and he utters a quiet but genuine “Thank you.”

My feet drag me to the door; I tell myself Sun needs rest. Leaving is challenging, though, since I don’t quite remember the last time I had a conversation with someone who isn’t a lawyer or divorce attorney or therapist. And, as my feet cross the threshold, I realize I am abandoning the possibility of making a real friend, a real connection. My voice is soft and smooth when I say, “It’s nice to have company.”

Before I depart from the room, he calls back, “Wait.” 

I study him lying in the bed. His hands rest uncomfortably near his mid-thighs and it seems as though he has never been taught how to rest. Muscles all around his body are clenched anxiously as though he has a reason to be precautious and overly aware.

“Do you know what loneliness feels like?” 

“Do you?” After he nods, I ask, “But didn’t you have all of the stars up there with you?”

“They were pretty far away from me. You know, they shine during the day, too, and they feel like they don’t really get much appreciation for it.”

“That’s not your fault.”

He turns on his side, facing away from me and staring at the wall. 

“Goodnight, Sun.”

“I’ve never been told goodnight. Only good morning.” He stays silent, and I assume I have said the wrong thing. “Goodnight.”

I leave the room and rush to my office, letting Sun regenerate. Light is still blazing through the windows, even though it is well past 8 o’clock. I want to blame that star for obliterating the sole purpose of night, the darkness. Instinctively, I walk towards the drawer and reach around until I feel the familiar textures of scissors, my yellow pen, and paper.

While Sun is asleep, I work. The star who burns brighter than Sun causes the sunlight of day to appear at night, and it is thick and overwhelming though my windows; I guess the storm has stopped. My hands rush back and forth, and I am reminded of how Sun used to constantly rush through his orbit, trying to please both sides of the world at once. Staring at the walls, I recall how I used to sit here when my husband yelled at me from the threshold, cursing me for wasting my time with this stupid project. As I think of this, it dawns on me to thank Sun for nurturing and supporting the flowers I’d draw and cut out while restricted and abused in my marriage. I always put the flowers next to the window, close to the Sun’s caring embrace. I try to remember if anyone has ever thought about thanking Sun, and it depresses me because I can’t think of one.

I cut and color while Sun rests in solitude.

The walls seem to mock me. I remember how the walls used to dig into my neck whenever my ex-husband held me there, threatening me. Ignoring the taunting thoughts, my hands start moving quickly again, creating not only Sun’s escape, but mine as well. The yellow paper has successfully captured Sun’s smile, something Earth hasn’t seen in a while, in their bright hue. I rush to Sun’s room, quietly though, for he is asleep for the first time in 4.5 billion years. As soon as I step into Sun’s room, I start to work again, taping the stars along the ceiling and the walls, creating a faint illuminating light in the dark room. 

Sun’s eyelids open, and his golden eyes are revealed. I move closer to him and sit in the chair next to the bed. I’ve hated this chair and this room (it was my ex-husband’s) since the finalization of my marriage, yet in a room embellished with glittering celestial bodies, it does not seem so horrible. 

Sun studies the stars and the erratic pattern by which they are strung throughout the room. The room suddenly turns into an observatory since Sun’s attention is focused on them.

“The Earth is so ugly from above.” My fingers go numb, and I’m scared that Sun hates my surprise. “But it’s beautiful right here.”

We stay there for the next couple of hours, two pitiful beings, trapped in the same room of alienation with yellow stars taped on the walls and a lawyer and ex-husband who have stopped waiting by now, I’m sure. The light from the other star is blocked by thick walls. 

Sun weakly stands and his body starts vibrating. He shakes his head at me and grabs the nearest star, ripping it off the wall. Using the excess tape, he places it directly in the middle of his forehead. Then, he tapes one to mine.