A Star to Bring You Home

Jacob stared at the TV in confusion. The news man was acting funny. It was making him uncomfortable, and he didn’t like it.

Momma liked to watch the news whenever this man was on. At least when she was awake enough to do so. She liked to sleep a lot lately.

“This hottie is the highlight of my day!”, she would say, giggling, while drinking her “special juice”. Jacob normally just found him to be very boring. Not today, though. Today he looked all sweaty and scared. And he kept yelling strange things into the camera.

“This is some kind of sick joke, right?! This… this doesn’t… They would have said something… Before now, they would have said something, right?” The news man was trembling and laughing erratically. “What does this even mean? It’s all over then? There’s no escaping that… that thing coming down from the sky? What...?”

He seemed to be listening to someone speaking to him from off camera. “Calm down? Are you insane? They tell us the world is about to end and I’m supposed to be calm?!” His voice was rising higher and higher in volume as he edged over from disbelief into sheer panic. “What’s the point, Phil? Why are we even still here? Screw this!”

He stood and ripped the microphone from the lapel of his jacket to yell directly into it. “We’ll all be dead soon, like in what, in what, in twenty minutes? Is that what they said? Twenty! Minutes! Why even tell us at all? Thanks for nothing!” He then proceeded to do a rude gesture to the camera that Jacob knew was very, very bad and that he was never, ever allowed to do.

Eyes wide and unblinking, the news man pointed a shaky finger at the camera, and spoke in a quiet, despairing voice: “If any of you can get to your loved ones in that bullshit amount of time, go now! God knows I won’t… I’m not gonna make it… home…” He then collapsed to the ground and started bawling uncontrollably and clutching at his face. “Julia! Julia, if you’re watching, I love you so much, baby! I love you so-” The video cut off and was replaced by a bunch of words that Jacob could not read, since he was only four years old.

Jacob was really scared now. He decided to run to Momma’s room for help, even though she could be just as scary sometimes. Especially if she’d had too much juice, like she had today.

It hadn’t always been that way though. Back when Daddy was still around, Momma was always smiling and laughing with Jacob and giving him the best hugs in the world.

But then, Daddy had to go away to fight in a war, since he was a soldier, and it was his duty. Jacob didn’t understand the meaning of “duty”, but he understood that Daddy was big and strong and was going to help people. And so, Daddy fought, and he fought, and he fought.

And then he died.

Jacob understood that when someone died, it meant they had gone away and could never come back. They had gone to a better place somewhere, a new home where they were happy.

So even though Jacob missed his Daddy terribly, he wasn’t sad about it because before he left, his Daddy had made him a promise. He said that if ever anything happened to him while he was fighting, he would turn into a star way up in the sky. If that happened, then all Jacob would have to do was look at up the stars and find the brightest one. Daddy would make sure to always shine the brightest so that Jacob could find him and know that he was being looked after.

It was harder for Momma though. Momma stopped smiling with Jacob. She stopped laughing with him. She stopped giving him any hugs at all. Instead, she was always angry and yelling at Jacob to shut up about his “star nonsense”, so he tried his best to never bother her.

But this time was different. Jacob was very frightened by the news man and he desperately wanted a hug from Momma, even though she might get angry.

He ran to her bedroom and found her sprawled across the bed, fast asleep and tangled in the sheets. Empty bottles and cans of juice seemed to be everywhere, and the air smelled very sour. Just as he was about to try and shake her awake, he got a good look at her face.

She was smiling.

And not the scary, ugly smile she sometimes wore while being very mean. This was her sweet, beautiful smile. The smile that Jacob missed so much.

“Mark, there you are”, she mumbled. “Where… you been?... Miss you...” She was dreaming of Daddy, and she was smiling. Jacob couldn’t stop staring at that smile. He decided that she needed this dream more than he needed a hug. He could be a brave like Daddy.

“Love you, Momma”, Jacob whispered and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Sweet dreams. Daddy’s watching over you too!"

Since Momma couldn’t help him, Jacob decided to try the next best thing: the park. The park was Jacob’s special place. Almost every day, he would run there, just a block down the road from his house, to hide from Momma’s screams and her scary smiles. He would slide down the swirly slides and climb the colorful structures until he forgot his troubles. But his absolute favorite thing to do at the park was swing as high as he could on the swings. Higher and higher, kicking his feet back and forth, back and forth, until eventually, finally, it was as if he was touching the sky.

The sky where Daddy now lived.

Jacob left his house and quietly shut the front door behind him so as not to disturb Momma. He needn’t have bothered though, for there was enough noise and chaos outside to drown out any noise Jacob might have made. It was a wonder that Momma hadn’t woken up.

There were sirens and alarms blaring from seemingly every direction. Someone had even had the presence of mind to activate the old air raid siren to send its long, mournful tones across the city. Yet instead of the warning it was meant to send, it seemed to play the part of the final death wail of a doomed planet, a swan song to send Earth into oblivion.

People were running through the streets clutching their children, or their valuables, or themselves. They were screaming, and crying, and yelling and praying. They were driving cars at full speed down the roads, over sidewalks and front yards to try and escape the inescapable.

Even though Jacob tried not to look, he was pretty sure he saw a car run straight over some of the running people and then just keep on going. All semblance of order and sanity had fled humanity in the face of its destruction, and it was not a pretty sight.

Now on the verge of tears, Jacob tried to stay calm. He could see the park just ahead. And so, keeping his head down so as not to see any more of the scary things happening around him, he ran as fast as he could towards his special place.

As soon as his hand grasped the rope of the swing, Jacob felt a swell of relief wash over him. He had made it and now he could swing until he touched the sky.

Settling into the comforting embrace of the cracked leather seat, Jacob finally dared to look up. And that’s when he saw it: The biggest, brightest star he had ever seen. So big in fact, that it seemed to swallow up the entire sky. Bigger than the moon, bigger than the sun, and it wasn’t even nighttime.

“Daddy!”, Jacob screamed with glee. “You came for me! And Momma! You were in Momma’s dream! Have you come to take us home with you?” The tears he had tried to keep in earlier were now streaming down his face, however their source was no longer fear, but joy.

Jacob began to swing like he had never swung before as the star grew bigger and bigger above him. He pumped his legs with all his might. Higher and higher he soared, laughing all the while, until eventually, finally, the sky itself seemed to reach down to the little boy on the swing.

Jacob had finally touched the sky.