8 February 2002

Work, blah, Hall, blah, blah, blah. Same old same old. I'm even boring myself. So today you get a bit of fiction instead of a journal entry.

He was dead, after all. After all they had done, after all they had endured together, after all had been said and done, he had looked up at her, the dull green of his eyes made duller by pain, and he had tried to speak, and then he had died.

She looked up at the stars. He had always loved them. "Did you ever as a child pull a blanket over your head to hide?" he had asked, laughing. She had loved his laugh. "And looked up and seen the light shining through the tiny holes in the cloth? And it's warm under the blanket, and even though it's dark, you know - you can see because of those little holes - that there is light out there. That's what the stars are: They're the light that leaks through."

They had laughed together and made love under the stars, and now he was dead, and the stars still shone. She tried to take comfort in that; tried to believe that he had merely moved out from under the blanket and was waiting for her in a place much brighter.

But she couldn't quite make herself believe it, and anyway she missed him now, missed his warmth and his laugh and his arm around her waist as she looked up at the stars.

She'd heard the whispers at the funeral, as she'd stood - dry-eyed, as she had been since those green eyes had looked at her for the last time - as she'd stood beside the grave, calmly listening to the priest. "Unfeeling!" some had hissed. "Callous, uncaring-!"

Others had been more kind. "She's in shock," they'd whispered in pity. "I'm sure she would feel better if she could just cry."

The others had cried enough - they had cried until she wanted to strike out at them, shake them and yell, "We are burying him in the ground, not the sea!" But she did not give in to the desire. Let them deal with their lesser grief in their own way, she had thought, looking down into the grave. My pain is too great for tears.

And the grave had been filled, and the others had gone away, leaning on each other's arms. And she had stood by the grave, looking down at the place where he was. The arms that had held her, the lips that had kissed her, the throat that had laughed...

And when night fell, and the stars came out, one by one, she had looked up and counted them. In vain she looked for an unfamiliar star, or a familiar star missing, some sign that the universe grieved, or only acknowledged the loss.

He had loved the stars. Was it not right, she wondered, that something he loved so much should mourn him?

The stars made no answer, keeping their secrets.

"Why?" she whispered, though she felt it must have been a scream. "Why?" Why was he dead? Why hadn't the world stopped turning when the light left his eyes? Why did the stars continue to shine?

The stars keep their secrets, and so they did not answer her questions, though they winked at each other knowingly. But neither did they tell anyone else when finally she fell to her knees over the grave, and watered it with her tears.

--Liz