Star Shot Read Online Free
Author: Mary-Ann Constantine
stopping it he finds the Rainer cd and puts it on. Gets another beer, lets the song do its worst and puts his poor head down on folded arms and cries.
Where we areââis among the stars
The reason the house is cold is because it is suddenly colder outside. Cold enough to stop blossom, to spread an ice-film over grass. He knows that the night is clear and the air is sharp and northerly. And that even here in this city, inside the orange fug, the sky is laid bare and there are stars, her stars.
So many waysâthat weâdonât die.
When the sobs let go of him he finishes the beer and washes his face in cold water. Then he opens the kitchen door and stands with bare feet out in the yard, looking up into the space left him by variously angled roof-lines and the neighbourâs holly. It is not enough. And before he knows what he has done he has pulled the bolt on the back gate and is out in the alley, hands deep in his pockets, cold feet heading for the park. The gates are locked but he knows the old ways through, and can still push between twisted railings into iced mud and undergrowth. He knows exactly where he is and should know how to find the path, except that it is pitch black and he stumbles around for a while with scrubby trees scratching his hands and face before breaking out onto the tarmac. He is making for the wide-open bit with the day-time view of the northern hills; the sky will be big enough there. He walks hard and fast, head down, the big Oxfam coat wrapped round his t-shirt and boxers; and wonders if there are others like him, or not like him, elsewhere in the huge park.
Leaving the path he strikes out across grass, wet and cold underfoot, the sky expanding above him until it is enough. Then he stands beneath it, neck craned, turning slowly to take his bearings and find Janeâs patch of sky, her office, her place of work, the place that now absorbs her totally. A concentration of faded light. Stars dissolve if you look at them directly; he knows, because she taught him in this very place, the trick, the way of half-looking that captures their fugitive presence.
But into his head slinks the wolf. A dark grey shape slipping through a back gate swung open, nosing at a kitchen door barely ajar, heading for the stairs. All the stardust in the universe cannot stop the panic that now sends Dan running through the park with cold air tearing his lungs, towards the trees and the icy mud and the bent railings; down the back lane and into the yard where he bolts the gate and slams the door and storms up to the bedroom, where Teddy is deeply and comfortably asleep on his back, his arms thrown out as if in flight, breathing beautifully. Dan drops his coat on the floor and, covered in mud, climbs in and wraps himself shivering around his son. His raw feet thaw into a grateful pain.
13.
A sorry mess of dead frogspawn. Translucence clouded, like the eye of a fish filming over, whiteish-grey. A week ago he had rejoiced to see the sudden clumps of jelly, that first sighting always unexpected, however much he expects it. Blighted by the sharp breath of this frost: the waste, he thinks, not for the first time, though he knows there is still hope for more. A fragile coat of ice across most of the pond. He walks round it once, checking for signs of life noted two days ago, but things are holding back again now, like the waiting buds, the creatures have slowed right down. It will come in a terrible rush when it comes, he thinks, and runs over possible permutations for the different species, the effects of the delay on their patterns of growth, their chances of breeding, of survival. It wasnât always bad. There would be surprises as a consequence of this cold.
And it means he can still plant trees. And planting a tree this morning, ahead of all the tasks that lie waiting, would be a good thing, a way of quelling the nag of anxiety, his apprehension that everything is about to be disrupted. It is a
Where we areââis among the stars
The reason the house is cold is because it is suddenly colder outside. Cold enough to stop blossom, to spread an ice-film over grass. He knows that the night is clear and the air is sharp and northerly. And that even here in this city, inside the orange fug, the sky is laid bare and there are stars, her stars.
So many waysâthat weâdonât die.
When the sobs let go of him he finishes the beer and washes his face in cold water. Then he opens the kitchen door and stands with bare feet out in the yard, looking up into the space left him by variously angled roof-lines and the neighbourâs holly. It is not enough. And before he knows what he has done he has pulled the bolt on the back gate and is out in the alley, hands deep in his pockets, cold feet heading for the park. The gates are locked but he knows the old ways through, and can still push between twisted railings into iced mud and undergrowth. He knows exactly where he is and should know how to find the path, except that it is pitch black and he stumbles around for a while with scrubby trees scratching his hands and face before breaking out onto the tarmac. He is making for the wide-open bit with the day-time view of the northern hills; the sky will be big enough there. He walks hard and fast, head down, the big Oxfam coat wrapped round his t-shirt and boxers; and wonders if there are others like him, or not like him, elsewhere in the huge park.
Leaving the path he strikes out across grass, wet and cold underfoot, the sky expanding above him until it is enough. Then he stands beneath it, neck craned, turning slowly to take his bearings and find Janeâs patch of sky, her office, her place of work, the place that now absorbs her totally. A concentration of faded light. Stars dissolve if you look at them directly; he knows, because she taught him in this very place, the trick, the way of half-looking that captures their fugitive presence.
But into his head slinks the wolf. A dark grey shape slipping through a back gate swung open, nosing at a kitchen door barely ajar, heading for the stairs. All the stardust in the universe cannot stop the panic that now sends Dan running through the park with cold air tearing his lungs, towards the trees and the icy mud and the bent railings; down the back lane and into the yard where he bolts the gate and slams the door and storms up to the bedroom, where Teddy is deeply and comfortably asleep on his back, his arms thrown out as if in flight, breathing beautifully. Dan drops his coat on the floor and, covered in mud, climbs in and wraps himself shivering around his son. His raw feet thaw into a grateful pain.
13.
A sorry mess of dead frogspawn. Translucence clouded, like the eye of a fish filming over, whiteish-grey. A week ago he had rejoiced to see the sudden clumps of jelly, that first sighting always unexpected, however much he expects it. Blighted by the sharp breath of this frost: the waste, he thinks, not for the first time, though he knows there is still hope for more. A fragile coat of ice across most of the pond. He walks round it once, checking for signs of life noted two days ago, but things are holding back again now, like the waiting buds, the creatures have slowed right down. It will come in a terrible rush when it comes, he thinks, and runs over possible permutations for the different species, the effects of the delay on their patterns of growth, their chances of breeding, of survival. It wasnât always bad. There would be surprises as a consequence of this cold.
And it means he can still plant trees. And planting a tree this morning, ahead of all the tasks that lie waiting, would be a good thing, a way of quelling the nag of anxiety, his apprehension that everything is about to be disrupted. It is a
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