Royally Kissed | ✓

13; the starry night

The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures.

These stars, the high mass ones among them, went unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy. Guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself.

These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems, stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.

So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small because they're small and the universe is big—but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There's a level of connectivity.

That's really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like you're a participant in the goings-on of activities and events around you. That's precisely what we are, just by being alive.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

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—thirteen—

the starry night

AFTER THE MOVIE, Paige thought they were already going home, but when Arthur pulled out of the field and drove further straight from where they had once been, she crinkled her forehead in confusion.

"Wait," she uttered. "Where are we going? I thought we're heading home?"

Arthur studied his wrist watch, eyebrows furrowing because of the lack of light around them. He then simply shot her a smile. "We still got time. More or less ninety minutes. I want to show you this place that's very special to me. Me and my dad used to go there together, also because it's pretty close to where we were living before. Now's the high time to visit the place. Checked the weather report ahead of time so it'll be spectacular tonight, I'm sure."

Paige tilted her head aside and gazed at him in amusement, but also in skepticism. "Okay...? That sounds interesting."

He simpered. "More than interesting. You'll love it."

It wasn't even five minutes when Arthur halt the car right beside a wooden tiny house which seemed like a makeshift restaurant, if the two dining tables inside the place was any indication. Upstairs, she presumed, was the living portion of the owners since she could see the bedroom from the window high up the shelter. It was made with wood all around−both the exterior and interior, the tables, the chairs, the bar counter, save for the different flowers ornamenting the tables and the wooden walls.

Paige could absolutely feel the vibe of being in a small town or that time she spent her summer in New Zealand.

The small bell hanging by the door jingled when she pushed it open, with Arthur trailing behind her. She traveled her eyes around in awe before she saw a couple at the furthest table talking animatedly, with mugs in their hands, the hot vapor from their drinks smoothly swirling up in the air.