I don’t understand why I’m here. My mind is in a whirl. I feel as though I’m in a dream. I don’t know how I came to be here and I certainly don’t know how I came to be looking into golden eyes that were the exact reflection of my own.
I blink at the small boy kneeling in front of me, a dimpled smile lights his eyes. He gently pets my head. I detect a muted scent of biscuits and orange juice hanging around him as I rub my nose against his palm. When a gruff voice sounds overhead, we both flinch. I follow as he quickly darts upstairs. We emerge into a small wood panelled dining room. An old weary looking man sets two bowls on the table. They eat in silence. I wonder why I’m not given any food.
After dinner, the boy walks me to the front of the house. I run out the door, my tail wagging as I run across the vast lawn, mad with joy. The boy chases after me, laughing.
All the running around and chasing tires us out and soon we settle down together on the short grass of the lawn. The sun has set completely. The boy sighs happily, he sits leaning with his hands on the grass. I cuddle close to him. The chilly winter night knows no stars, the sky is a vast black canvas.
“You’re my favourite,” he says.
I smile at him, and we see a single star blink into existence in the night sky. He stares at it in wonderment. “ I love ice cream,” he says. Another star appears in the sky. The boy chuckles, and I bark as we understand that the night sky is a canvas meant for us to paint as we like.
He looks at me expectantly, and I jump around barking until another star dots the sky. He laughs at my enthusiasm, I’m glad to know the sky understands my love for biscuits.
“I love my parents,” the boy murmurs.
I wait for a star to show up. Nothing happens.
“Where are they?” he whispers, the three stars reflecting in his hopeful eyes.
I jump into his lap, he looks at me as I try to convey to him that I don’t know where mine are either. As a tear slides down his cheek he softly says, “Do my parents still love me?”
A single bright, burning star appears along with the rest. The boy smiles softly just as the house’s electric lights switch off and we hurry off to bed.
Every night ever since then immediately after dinner we both raced off to the lawn, played until the sun had set completely, then sat together and told the sky and each other all about everything that made us happy. Though he spoke with words and I in barks we understood each other perfectly. The cold winter nights weren’t cold at all with him next to me, night after night we filled the stars with our joy and cheer. Nights passed and we filled the sky to the brim, the stars overrode each other. We lost count of the nights and the stars we’d seen together. I’d loved him only one winter, but I knew I wanted them all. The boy and I were inexplicably tethered together. Under the sky every night, though I gazed at the beautiful stars, his eyes were always on me as if I were better than any stars the sky could show him. Everytime he looked at me his eyes took on a soft, delicate quality that made me feel like my periphery was blurring. I still don’t understand how I came to be here, but now I do understand why. I’m here because the boy needs me with him. His happiness is tied to my smile. My eyes are a reflection of his own. I am whoever he wants me to be because his mind and mine are but the same, we are intertwined in every which way.
Sitting on the boy’s bed, looking out the window, I’m starting to get a tad impatient. I’ve been waiting a long time for him to come fetch me to go see the stars outside. Too restless to keep still, I decided to go find him. Hearing strange voices in the dining room, I creep in.
I see the boy sitting at the table, a woman and man looming over him. While the old man and strangers talk with each other, I try catching his eye. He doesn’t look at me. His usual scent of orange juice and biscuits has vanished; there remains only the salty scent of tears and the husky tang of fear. His face is a mix of terror and confusion. I begin to feel his panic too. I bark at him, the adults don’t bat an eyelid. They never do. He still doesn’t notice. Even as I move closer to him I know he won’t notice. I keep barking, but it’s like he can’t - or won’t - hear. Do something. Say something, I plead with my mind. My efforts are futile, I’m forced into silence when I see the glazed look of his eyes. There’s nothing I can do to reach him.
Suddenly, he gets up. The two strangers take either one of his limp hands and start leading him out the door. I follow, defeated, the strangers lead him up to a car. I bark one last time, and he turns around for the first and last time. An unwept teardrop silvering his golden eyes.
It’s been awhile since that happened, but it feels like yesterday. Every night since then I’ve sat under our stars. The stars - our memories - will always remain a bridge between us. It still hurts me how he never listened. Yet every night I rush into the lawn in hopes of seeing him fly by on one of the shooting stars. Though the boy is gone, the stars are still littered across the night sky. The memory of him paints the sky in diamonds. Every night when I rush out, the stars reflect in my watery eyes and my watery eyes reflect in the stars as they cry and the clouds surge over my head, closing my only way to the one I love so much.
The periphery of days and nights blurred. Sitting under stars, I felt myself grow weaker everyday. I didn’t want to run if he wasn’t chasing me. I didn’t want to be happy if not for him.Did he laugh without me to make him happy?
This night was no different. I sat waiting for my dreams to come true, when I heard the soft crunch of grass under feet.
I looked up and saw him.
The boy knelt down next to me, the look in his eyes was soft and wistful. He was back, I don't know how or why. I felt the numb beating of my heart, there he was in front of me. My dream. Except…my dream was a small boy who smelled like juice and biscuits. My dream was a boy whose eyes laughed even when he wasn’t smiling. My dream was a boy who looked up at the sky and named a million things he loved. The boy in front of me isn’t my dream. He smells different, and though his eyes are still golden, the look in them is older, wiser. Whoever kneels in front of me is not that boy. Though I can’t recall that boy’s face I know that it is him I love. I don’t know who this boy is. All I know is that he isn’t the one I used to sit beside, he isn’t the one I laughed and raced with. I know he’s not the one for whom I gave all the stars in the sky.
He nods at me, his smile pained.He knows that all we share is this lawn and the past. But we also share the stars in the sky. He is different now, but those stars are a scar of our past.
His golden eyes are filled with tears, in their reflection I see myself blurring, I see the stars we named together, I see his smile and I see myself fade. I fade, fade, fade. Now I’m mere stardust littering his past. A part of his mind I always was and it is his mind I must return to now. Yet nothing can erase the memories I made with him. No one can erase our stars.
The stars tell our story
Tell me,
Who will tell yours?
- Aisha Iqbal