Each evening she pulls on her jacket and takes a walk, right at the cusp of when day turns to night, and the pink and fuchsia slowly gives way to a soft velvet of grey. She likes this time, where she can watch the stars slowly reveal themselves, blinking on one at a time. In space it’s all different; the stars are large and bright and fiery hot. But down here they seem so cool and so very small and close, the distances between them measured by the space between two fingers.
She knew differently though. The distances were vast, more than could be traveled in one lifetime, or two or more. Generations could go by and still those distances would not be covered.
“Watching the stars again?”
She turned at the warm and soothing sound of his voice. They met here each evening to walk together. Sometimes they would talk of their days, of the old friends they’d lost and of new ones they’d found. On other days, words simply seemed unnecessary and they would complete their stroll in silence, watching as the stars slowly lit up in the darkening skies.
“Just thinking.”
“About them?”
She didn’t answer, not just then.
They started down the path; a few large rocks lay exposed in the dirt. She knew where each one was and stepped over them, no longer needing to look down, so often had she strolled that way. She noticed that he, too, did not look down, and it made her smile. He had been her companion for all that time.
The silence wrapped around her comfortably.
He understood her well. He knew when she needed the quiet and would leave her to her thoughts. He could judge, too, the times when she wanted to keep her thoughts at bay and then he would talk, sharing the stories that made up his days. They never delved into the past; he too had demons that he didn’t want to face.
She stopped, gazing across the horizon as she spoke, “I was thinking about the distances between stars. You can’t tell that from here.”
He looked up “We have come a long way.”
“I see a bear and a hunter or a harp, and not Rigel, Polaris or Vega”
He laughed at that. “That would make it all simpler for me. ‘Poof!’ And problem planets vanish, replaced by celestial animals.”
She smiled back. “Would it have been better for us never to have left earth?”
A curl had worked loose from the thick braid she wore when she was home, and he tucked it behind her ear. Despite the grey, she was still a beautiful woman.
“No.” He didn’t hesitate.
She thought of all they had lost, but gained too, from centuries of exploring the galaxy.
“No,” she agreed, looking up.
She slipped her hand into his and they set off back down the path.
