Rays.

The grass slipped beneath my ankles, and I felt it catch and release me as it shook in the wind. Each breeze was a sheet; it filled over my chest and head, poured around my arms and neck, and settled in the grass like I had. I took a deep breath, and opened my eyes.

The stars shimmed above, thin wisps of milky clouds floated like ghosts across the sky. The starlight pierced the veil, and shone into the future.

Each stars light travels through space and time. Reaching from the past to the present. When you look up at the sky, you’re looking into the past.

That’s what he had said. Maybe it was true. He could read the constellations. He saw them better than I, his eye gazing through the glass as his hand scrawled down notes.

You must always remember this, Uma. What you see is not there. And may never have been.

For how sharp he saw the world and the outer, it was never through his own eyes. He had kept one eye pinned to the sky, and it remained pure white ever since. The other seemed to look through everything.

Was it worth it? What were you looking for?

I looked at the stars but they were blank to me. Maybe they always would be. That wouldn’t stop me from looking. And one day, I too would see.