Stargazing

A short story by L.R. Sims

L.R. Sims is a young writer and aspiring editor from the Southeast of the USA. Though much of her time is spent in pursuit of a bachelor's in English, she still manages to squeak in time for the things she loves, whether that's writing, hiking, horseback riding, or babysitting some of the sweetest kiddos on the planet. Readers can find her most casual writing on her blog, Musings of a Novice.

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The chair whirred beneath the old man as his caretaker steered him to the edge of the parking lot. He could smell the ocean faintly on the air. Leaning back against the headrest, the old man examined the graying heavens. The sun had descended below the western treeline, and dashes of peach and yellow blurred and wore down the blue sky into the gray he now beheld. He blinked a slow blink as the chair bumped over the lip of the pavement into the green on the far side of the parking lot. The grass was due for a mow; he could feel it tickling the bottoms of his socked feet.

His caretaker was a gray-haired woman with many wrinkles, but her age did not match the old man’s; she still had enough verve to steer the electric vehicle that so often held him. Now she angled the mechanism, twisting it so that it faced the intersection that bordered two sides of the health center. The street emitted a dim glow given to it by the old sunshine that reflected down out of the clouds.

“Here we are, James,” the woman said. “It’s 8:23 now.”

One set of traffic lights turned red. A straggling car turned left before the intersection could claim a moment of emptiness. James sighed and adjusted his skull’s situation on the headrest. The other set of traffic lights turned green. Traffic resumed.

James didn’t have to see to know that his caretaker, named Carol, was standing behind him. She always stood behind his chair, palms resting on the handles, enjoying the entrance of the stars with him.

There was the first spark of white now. The graying sky was transitioning to a washed-denim navy. The effect was achieved by the cloud fragments overhead that heathered the dark. Peeking through the heathering clouds were more shimmering flecks of stars.

Relaxing his shoulders into the chair’s cushions, James let out a breath. He loved the stars. They dotted the darkening sky, and as he stared up at them he could smell the nearby gas station along with the ocean on the wind. With a shuddering breath, he folded his weak hands in the blanket draped over his knees.

That sky—my, but it was a beautiful image. He couldn’t help but smile at it. James found himself thinking of his youth. One of the few remaining memories from before his working years was of an afternoon picnic by a lake with his mother and siblings. It had been a warm summer day. The blanket his mother sat on as he and his siblings tumbled about was blue gingham. He had always thought that her sitting on that blue gingham made the prettiest picture, a moment glowing in his memory. As that sweet summer day wore on, he had heard the cicadas buzz in the bushes.

Now he heard the rushing cars with their rumbling engines and the roadside bulrushes in the wind. That navy sky overhead with its scattering of stars would make a lovely picnic blanket, James thought. Maybe one day he and Carol could sit on a blanket of stars. The ride out of the building to the edge of the parking lot was growing more tiring as the weeks wore on. A sky blanket inside could be nice.

James hadn’t always lived in the building behind him. He used to be a plumber who spent his evenings in a condominium with his family. Then his two children grew up and had their own children, and James retired, and it was just him and his wife in that decaying condo watching the stars at night. And then when she died it was just him. The stars were a lot lonelier then.

James hosted many dinners after that, mostly with his children, but also with a few old coworkers when they were still around. He had fond memories of guests around the table, dining in the warm glow of the small glass chandelier. And for every dinner he would sit at the head of the table, and he would bless the food. Then he would look over his shoulder out the window to see the stars, whether the first few of a summer evening or the multitude of the winter dark.

It was well past dinner on this summer night, and the sky was a vast sea of stars now. The turquoise blue that backlit the treeline was all that was left of the sunlight. The street no longer glowed but for the interchanging green and red and yellow cast by the traffic lights on the intersection. The clouds that heathered the dark were dim, and the sky was illuminated by starlight instead of leftover sun rays.

A deep inhale and exhale rattled James’ ribcage. This star viewing did not look the same as in years past. His stargazing companion was not his family, and the patch of sky he admired every night was a different one from his younger days. Even so, the tradition was important to him. Despite living in that brick health center behind him and needing help wherever he went, he insisted on seeing the stars every night. And Carol was almost always happy to oblige.

He could stare up at those blinking, twinkling specks for hours. In fact, he wasn’t sure he hadn’t done just that before. It was a liquid dark in which those bright stars floated, and James was sure he would never get enough of it.

James felt Carol’s lanyard drop onto his shoulder as she leaned over above him to speak quietly. “Are you ready to go in?” she asked.

James’ mouth creased in a slight smile. She was always so impatient. He was fond of her anyway. “Not yet, Carol,” he admonished in whispery tones. “Not yet.”

The stars still sparkled their shimmery language across the sky, signaling back and forth their ambitions for the evening. James liked to imagine that they were discussing what they saw below—the people passing by and the turns that the world had taken since their vision was dimmed by the dawn’s light. He liked to imagine they remembered him from his years of stargazing. He liked to imagine that they remembered his wife, too. After months of stargazing, he thought they might even recognize Carol.

Those glittery pinpricks were like magnets for the old man’s eyes, and the intermittent distraction of cars blurring by did not bother him but rather contributed to the complete picture. Synced with another breath, James slid his elbows up the armrests and settled back, smiling in contentment. Watching the evening’s activity reminded him to slow down his breath and wiggle his toes in his socks and think about smiling.

It was well and truly dark now. The turquoise had long been replaced with navy, and the stars were left to shine alone together. The night was chilly when compared to the summer day. He could feel the cool breeze at his neck.

A bat flew overhead, only distinguishable because its flight blocked a splotch of stars from James’ vision. For some unspoken reason, that was the signal.

James twisted his head toward the health center building. “We can go now, Carol,” he said. He gave the sky a parting soft smile as Carol heaved his chair around and jostled him up onto the concrete to head back to his room in the brick building. James breathed deeply of the sweet evening air before passing through the sliding doors into the facility’s frigid slap of air conditioning.