To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

Kira. The name rang like a struck bell. She wrapped herself in it, using it as armor to defend her core, using it as a way to give her/him/it some sense of internal consistency.

“Bullshit. The truth is you don’t want to. It makes you feel good to blame yourself. You know why?” Kira shook her head, mute. “Because it gives you a sense of control. The hardest lesson in life is learning to accept that there are some things we can’t change.” Falconi paused, his eyes hard and glittering. “Blaming yourself is perfectly normal, bu

which was that “. . . the meaning of life, Kira, is moving things from point a to point b. That’s it. That’s all we really do.” “But what about when we talk?” she had said, not entirely understanding. “That’s just moving an idea from in here,” and he tapped her on the forehead, “out into the real world.”

What was, not word-castles and hypotheticals. And right then, what she needed to do was sleep.

We change as circumstances change, like wisps blown on the wind.*

“No, to be free,” he said. “I’d rather struggle and fail on my own than be coddled as a slave.”

Then he clamped his mouth shut and glared at her with fear disguised as anger. His eyes were green, and he looked about as young as Trig, although that meant nothing on its own.

A planet blanketed in black and pregnant with malevolent intelligence. Streamers of fire descending through an evening sky: beautiful and terrifying and heartbreakingly sad

This I learned, meatbag, this and nothing more: when air, food, and shelter are assured, only two things matter. Work and companionship. To be alone and without purpose is to be the living dead.”