The Stars Could Shine

by : epiphanies

--The stars could shine in a magnificent way, sometimes. Beading across the sky, twinkling down at the silly little people, who all stare up in a wonderment completely unfounded, at least in their opinion. Their opinion meaning the stars' opinion, or, shall we say, opinions. --

Brodka stared down at her notebook for a moment, then slit her eyes into a glare.

Where exactly had she been going with that sentence? Not just the sentence, but the paragraph? What just happened to make her write something invariably odd like that, and then just stop?

She dropped her pen and it fell to the carpet with a defeated and depressingthump.

She thought that she had broken the writer's block. The sentence had just popped into her head - really, there was a popping noise involved - and for the first time in literal months, she had gotten excited over a phrase.

The literal months, so delicately put, were the ones which had just passed in grand tumult, including massive homework piles, stressful tears and job interviews and resulting in Brodka being so incredibly drained that even writing a one-page journal entry had become a chore. It really broke her heart, the idea of anything having to do with writing being a chore, when it really was her one true passion. She had a firm argument against anybody who would say that passions cannot ever be seen as tiresome - that person had obviously never worked an eight hour fast food shift. In fact, the entire idea that Brodka had an original thought left was a marvellous one, considering the extent of real conversation she got at work was, "And would you like onion rings or fries with that?"

Apparently, though, the original thoughts were still lingering about. Unfortunately, she figured she would have to wait another three months to find the rest of her sentence - paragraph.

She heaved a sigh and bent down to grab her pen - one that her grandmother had given her for Christmas and, in fact, had penned the one story that Brodka had actually won a contest for. It had been entitled, "The Story of My Life, Starring The Shy Girl (Trademark.)" Brodka had always wondered whether it was the luck of the pen which brought her the success, or whether the judges just found the name too excruciatingly long to notgive it a prize, and decided to pity her sad attempts to be a real writer withreal talent.

Real writers with real talent - oh, how Brodka could remember the days when she would walk down to the library (as slow as she pleased,) and sit down in five different sections total, just browsing and reading and inwardly commentating on whether the author was a coffee-drinking one or a scotch-drinking one. She usually picked the scotch-drinking ones, although the coffee-drinking ones were typically the pretty amusing Brit-Chick-Lit authors who counted on Western people to overestimate their amusing properties because of the imagination of the funny accents. Hey, it worked for Brodka on those lonely depressing nights, so it obviously was effective.

Brodka chewed on her pen while thinking those ever-endearing thoughts of the library - the dusty stacks in all of their loveliness - and realized that her life really didn't have much of a plot anymore - not that it had ever, really, but it was made up for by her tremendous love for creating plots instead of living them. Now, all she had was... well, fast food and homework. Enough to make a girl burst with social satisfaction.

Brodka wasn't even asking for social satisfaction. All she wanted was a story to go with her paragraph. Even a dim switch light, even a flicker, even the wax from a burnt out candle would have helped her to ignite the story again. That is, if any of her talent that she previously (and hopefully) hadpossessed still lingered around, somewhere within her.

Clicking the butt of the pen again, she scratched out what she had written and replaced it with something new:

--Soft and lonely and possessed, with a crispness in the cold and a cuddly facade in the warmth. Layers, like somebody would wear in the winter, is such a thing, and some layers will never be found. At least, not by people like us, for such things as the sky are not meant to be found, but to be pondered. --

Was this any better, she wondered. It did not matter how many times she read it over, she could not even fathom as to what she really meant by either of these current writings, unless she was writing some massive Freudian slips and she truly wanted to shine down in a magnificent way, she wanted to be watched in wonderment by silly people, she wanted to never be found, like the layers of the night sky. Could this be the deep root to all of her minute ramblings during the very first attempt in three whole months to actually be creative? How depressing it was, she thought, that she could not even write something original. No, no, it all had to be about her, ultimately, and she would be doomed to never escaping it.

A beautiful thought, to never escape oneself. Really, she thought, being in your body is the only confinement that you, as a human, ever have to endure - at least, in these times past the medieval.

--The double-edged sword shone in the moonlight and the fair maiden raised her hand in a simple wave. The glint of the sword gave her a faint feeling of sadness, but moreover, of relief. Her prince would be safe, now. The sky would protect him. --

How she had gotten from the stars to swords and maidens was beyond Brodka, but she was getting admittedly tired of trying to stay on a tangent and constantly getting thrown off of it. She grimaced and tried again.

--All of the world was at peace, with a ringing finality, because the stars were shining and the moon was bright, and the princes were riding safely to protect the sleeping maidens.--

After dropping her pen once more and then retrieving it, crossed her eyes with drooping eyelids and finally slid them shut, writing her last sentence without looking down. It would be her last.

--All order in the world was kept, and for this, there is nothing that an author can do but hope that tomorrow is more hectic. --