Stardust: Miles of Sky
☆ ☪ ☆
Skylar Glass wouldn't wish to be anywhere else in the world.
Not when he was in the middle of a rolling field of green lightened by the bulbs of fireflies; not when the breeze coaxed the oak trees into a waltz; and especially not when he was this perfectly content beneath vast, star-drunk, obsidian skies.
His irises, like two polished pennies painted black in their centers, were almost fully encompassed by dilated pupils that followed the fireflies until they blended in with the darkness in the distance. The spindly silhouettes of his eye lashes on his cheeks — his skin beneath the shadows firm and white like frozen cream — waltzed with the oaks.
Skylar's lean, muscle-dusted body was sprawled in the overgrown grass, the sprigs swaying in frenzies, like a kid in the midst of a snow angel. His chest slowly descended, and for several seconds it was like he wasn't breathing at all. Then his chest rose and sunk again in its own dilatory fashion, letting the world know that he was still on the mortal side of life.
He laid there, not moving, for hours, staring up at the atmosphere and all of its otherworldly, shiny contents. The stars flickered like a million tiny fireballs. He was captivated by them.
Skylar wished he could see the vision of colorful, swirling nebulae in the universe that he knew existed just beyond the stratosphere. He thought of the nebulae like someone pouring paint into the sky, and letting the colors run across the universe like a tilted canvas beneath the moon.
As he laid there studying the sky, he spared a thought for the sky studying him back. Skylar was only sixteen, but he was as defined as a man twice his age and a life harder lived. There was a certain gravity in the strong curves of his jaw and his cheekbones, like polished stone; and a fondness in the way his nose sloped, and how his slender lips curved downward at the edges. A wave of brunette was a mess on his scalp, often reaching down to dance across his forehead and cast shadows over his eyes. He lacked a good combing, but it was inexplicably fitting.
When he smiled, he was like the sketch-lines of fine art: Scratchy, rough, and absolutely brilliant.
In a dark corner of the universe, he found what he had been searching for. Appearing like a cluttered nuisance corrupting the rest of the night, was a cluster of dim stars — dim stars that meant the world to him. They were too distant to be seen individually, resembling a luminous cloud of dust that pulsed to life with clarity. Dozens more of the clouds shone through the darkness. It was like, one at a time, light switches were being turned on.
Just as quickly, the lights were turned off for the night.
It never lasted long. The transaction was hardly fair: He spent countless hours just for a few moments, but it was worth it for him. Each time he saw the beauty of the fleeting stardust, it was etched into his mind's eye to be relived on the nights that the stardust escaped him.
He sighed, pulled himself up from the grass and straightened to a frame of six feet.
The late summer's breeze slithered through the holes in his dark jeans. The sleeves that were hacked off of his T-shirt did nothing to ward off the elements. Goosebumps arose across the canvas of his skin. He shuddered and took off.
The worn soles of his black sneakers padded down the single road that sliced the field down the middle. His lanky shadow meandered around behind him, swaying against the pavement. His hands were shoved deep into his jeans. He lightly bobbed his head as he walked, a song of unknown origins coursing through his mind. He smiled with those bright ivories and chuckled as his influenced disposition envisioned dancing music notes frolicking across the street.
Viridescent leaves spiraled from the tall oaks lining the road. Some of them rained down on his head, while the rest collected at his feet like a blanket. He shook them off.
Those old soles carried him to the outskirts of the city, where the street lights were assaulting and the corruption of humanity shamed the fields. The air in his lungs filled with gas, smoke and muffler residue. The clarity of the fields melted like the first flakes of snow on a warm pavement.
The single road widened to four lanes and white directional lines shot across the cement like the white streaks left in the sky from jet planes. The lines were bright and loud enough to scream under the harsh street lights.
A plethora of liquor stores, gas stations, and fast food chains lined the street on either side. Most of the buildings had paint chipping away — the flecks carried away by the polluted breeze — and run-down foundations. The buzz of the street lights was as relentless as the June Bugs' swarming the bulbs. A light gave out just as he walked beneath it. The pitted sidewalks were littered with trash, coercing Skylar to walk on the side of the street, weaving in and out of the oncoming headlights.
A digital clock in a liquor store's window flashed 2:43 AM in obnoxious, red numbers.
Skylar jogged across the street, bathed in the spotlight of the bright headlights. The driver of the car beside him slammed on its brakes with a loud screech.
The weeds breaking through the pavement of the vacant lot tore beneath his soles as he slowed to a leisurely walk.
He hopped the fence of the lot to find himself in the backyard of a tiny, run-down house stripped of its siding to — presumably — be sold for drug money. The windows were busted out and the backdoor was boarded shut. Perhaps some of the roof had fallen in, but it was hard to tell in the middle of the night. The gate creaked shrilly when he nudged his way out of the neglected yard and carried on.
Across the street, a drug transaction was taking place in front of another dilapidated house. Two darkly hooded figures stood closely to one another, exchanging a "handshake" and speaking slyly. One caught sight of Skylar strolling by. He met the man's gaze. They exchanged nods, continuing on with their nights as if their circumstances were commonplace.
Beyond the squalid neighborhood, Skylar reached the intersection of a busy highway. Waiting for his opening to get across, he began to fish around in his pockets. A smooth something scrubbed against his fingertips. He withdrew a wrinkled cigarette. It would do just as well any, he thought. He had lost his hundredth, possibly thousandth lighter, he discovered as he groped his pockets again. He was lucky enough to find a match, though, a struck it against the bottom of his shoe.
He took a drag. The smoke streamed through his parted lips and nostrils, filling his head with clouds.
The traffic slowed. He tucked his cigarette between his lips and dashed to the other side of the highway. If they were not permanently branded on the pavement, the white lines would have been smashed to dust beneath his heels. He hopped over the divider separating the two opposite-going sides of traffic, and dashed across the other side.
It was astonishing what a division as simple as a roadway could separate. On this side of the city, the quality of life improved by the fullest extent. It was like walking through a time warp or some sort of portal into another world. Multistory homes were carefully attended to with brand-new masonry and not a single nick in the foundations. Windows were not busted, and there were no wooden boards covering entrances to keep out the squatters and the addicts. Meticulously nurtured flower petals gently shivered in the breeze. The streetlights were still as assaulting in their brightness, but the horrendous buzzing was non-existent. New cars were seen through the small windows of garage doors. Lawns were freshly mowed, and not a single piece of litter defiled the suburban dream.
Skylar grimaced. Those luxuries were lost on him. He took another drag of the cigarette, and flecked the ashes in the street.
He passed a few blocks of lavish monotony, and stopped before one of the largest houses in the neighborhood. Ascending three enormous stories, the home was a mountain in his eyes. Its bright whiteness was ethereal. The tall, pointed roof, like a steeple, drilled the house further into the sky. Large, arched windows bathed the inside in sunlight during the daytime hours and washed it in black at night. The porch that wrapped around the house appeared wider than it actually was, but the long, stony steps up to the porch were the most intimidating. The longer you peered at them, the longer they appeared. It seemed as if you would be walking for years until you reached the porch; or maybe the steps would just continue to unravel into forever and you would never get to the house. Even if you were somehow able to conquer forever, the intricate curves of chilling wrought-iron railings would deter you from venturing any further.
Despite how many times he had been to that place — practically living in that house on some occasions — he could never get used to it.
Axing the idea of taking the illusion that was the steps, he cut across the freshly mowed grass with the hope that the sprinklers would not turn on. It happened before, but he made it to the house in time before the sprinklers washed away any traces of his footsteps on the greenery.
By then, his cigarette had lost the cherry. He discarded the nub somewhere in one of the shrubs.
He mounted the interlacing framework of the ivory trellis against the house. The trellis shuddered at the weight gain. The grip of his shoes was almost lost on one of the many diamond-shaped cavities slick with dew. He scaled the trellis to the very tip at the second floor as it rocked against the siding.
Through the window panes and passed the lace curtains, the room was still. The air was black, save for the milky moonbeams streaming through the window. The window creaked when he lifted the glass.
He grunted, condensing himself to fit in the portal. Flecks of loose soil from the soles of his shoes seeped in between the cracks of the freshly-polished hardwood. A groan echoed from the floorboards.
There was a series of scraping noises behind him. The track of the window slipped, nearly slamming closed to shatter the glass into a million sparkling fragments, until he leaped to catch the window just inches before it could. He cautiously closed it.
He navigated the room dexterously, stepping over objects tossed in remiss across the floor.
In the middle of the room, a bed mounted to the ceiling by chains at each corner, hovered like a ghost. Curled into a cat's position wrapped-up in pearly white sheets, a small, feminine figure had claimed the center of the bed. Long streams of black hair cascaded across the pillows.
Skylar smiled and peeled back the sheets.
Her tan skin was paled by the moonlight streaming in through the window. The moonbeams danced off of her soft, beautiful face. She groaned, scrunching her small nose, and sluggishly groping the sheets to pull them back over her.
He tapped her shoulder.
Her silvery voice whispered into the darkness. "No, Mom. It's not time to get up yet."
A deep, hearty laugh echoed around the room. His voice was like the slow, soothing pitter-patter of rain on a tin roof; and it felt like being wrapped up in your favorite sweater in the middle of a frosty December.
"What?" she mumbled, her hazel eyes shooting open.
He waved his hand in front of her face. "Brennyn, it's me."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "What is it, Sky? Is it your mom, again?" she asked, genuine concern laced in every syllable.
Skylar, shrugged. "She's, uh... she's away and I don't like bein' by myself. Can I stay?"
Without a second thought, she scooted herself from the middle of the bed and coaxed him in with a groggy smile. "Of course you can stay."
His weather-stained shoes were abandoned in the clutter on the floor. He climbed beneath the sheets as the floating mattress swayed back and forth.
Brennyn scurried into the heat radiating from his body. He draped a bruised arm over her small frame.
After a moment, she inhaled deeply and grunted.
"Are you high?" she grumbled against his chest. "You smell like pot."
"Don't worry about it," he said. "It wore off hours ago."
She muttered something along the lines of "bullshit." Any other day, he would have put up a fight, but he was too tired to care as the illusory tendrils of sleep pulled at his conscious.
"You better not try to grope me, Sky," she muttered between burrowing herself deeper into his warmth and the sheets.
Barely a minute later, she cursed loudly into the night. His calloused palm accidentally swept across her chest.
"Asshole," she laughed, and slapped him across the chest.
His chuckle was the last sound before the chorus of their slumbering breaths blended them into the night.
☆ ☪ ☆