Stars in the Ocean

The world is full of beautiful and mysterious things. Often we overlook those that seem so small. What might be a random empty package to one person could be a life-changing adventure for another. A raft in this dark ocean of life.

Tali stared up at the ceiling, trying to find the words. “OK, so hear me out. Lightning.” She bit into her morning bagel, chewing on the meal and her thoughts, before adding. “Maybe he was thrown out, just abandoned in the dump, hit by a powerful bolt of lightning, then! A spark of life zipped through him! And alone in the trash he found his child.” She was pacing back and forth now, rallying herself into another chaotic brain storm.

“Maybe, or it’s a malfunctioning drone. That has our address in its saved history.” I could remember when the world looked magical. So when I spoke, I did so softly.

“Dad! He needs a name.” She said, lifting the empty box like a small child. Cradling it in her arms.

I sipped at my coffee, debating on playing along or pointing out she was too old for these conversations. “Boxtharamul,” I suggested.

“I like the effort, hate the contribution. How about Bert?” Tali lifted the box in the air and held it up toward the light. “Yup, looks like a Bert to me.”

I looked out the window, knowing it was that time of day. Every morning at 9:10, the drone would come to see us, more accurately to see its box. The malfunction machine had been stuck in this pattern for three months now.

“Papa can decide!” Tali rushed to the door. Swinging it open and greeting the low hovering drone with a wave. “Hello, Papa!”

“Don’t call him that.” I couldn’t help but smirk. She was a year shy of getting her driver's license, yet when she let her childish side out, I didn’t have it in me to correct her.

Much too often we lose that magic young. I had never really known it. At her age, I was fresh out of the foster system, trying to fight off addiction, and deal with the scars that came along with a life that required such arrangements.

The truths of the world dimmed the halls in my mind at a young age. It wasn’t until I had become a father that I could see the faintest of lights. By any standards, I was far too young, not much older than her now. But like other beautiful mysteries, I somehow had made it work. Somehow, my halls knew the warm touch of light. Enough to push back the deep tides.

“Papa, it is about due time you name your child.” Tali pushed the box out, holding it up to the drone.

It beeped and pivoted in the air. Inspecting the package for damage, then once it had decided we had taken good care of its child, the drone pressed its cold fiberglass frame against the box.

“First suggestions.” Tali coughed and cleared her through. “boxtharamul.” She smiled and shook her head in disgust after presenting my suggestion.

The drone hovered there for a moment, processing the information. Then with a loud “bbbbbuuurrrrrmmmm” it rejected my proposal.

Tali laughed before clearing her throat again. “Yes, as I expected.”

“No need to be smug.” I threw a piece of her half eaten bagel at the back of her head. “Plus that was rigged. Watch.” I stepped forward and also cleared my throat. “Second Suggestion, Bert.” I dropped my face in the best stay after work kind of way.

Confirming my conspiracy suspicions, the drone first looked over to Tali before responding, when the conspirator nodded in approval, an expected “Toot toot” decided the empty box’s name.

“That’s that.” Tali said placing the box on the floor.

The morning ritual had begun. The drone would spend the next couple minutes hovering around the box and beeping at its adopted child. Before unloading some small pebbles onto my counter top and hovering off to retrieve more packages for its routes.

“I can’t believe you called the post office to complain. This is great!” Tali gave the drone and their child some space.

I remembered back to three months ago, I had been avoiding my mail. Had dipped into a rather deep depression, and I did not have the energy to receive any more flowers or get well packages. When the drone first started to beep and tap at my window, I responded less than friendly. Yelling at the machine and threatening death by cat.

Then, when I realized it was trying to deliver an empty box, I had unleashed the cat onto it. The chubby feline was less than agile, and after a few steps, it also fell into a deep depression.

“In my defense, I thought it was broken. Even after I threw out Bert, it brought it back twice.” I drank the last of my coffee and lowering the mug, revealing Tali’s unimpressed raise of her brow. “Sorry, it brought HIM back.”

“That wasn’t so hard.” She gave me the same half smile I gave so many others when I was trying to push their buttons.

“Let’s not forget, I was the one that decided to keep him.” I parried their smirk with my own.

“I didn’t know about Bert.” Tali pressed their hands to their chest. “Our love had not yet been discovered. My little black heart only knew loud metal music and formidable eyeliner skills. Now, as an older sibling, I am committed to what is best for Bert.” She flickered her flawlessly placed lashes.

“You still only know make up and metal.” I shot back, now smiling with both sides of my mouth.

“Well, now I can pass that on to them.” her dimples matched mine down to the smallest indent.

An approving “Toot toot.” Rang out from the other side of the room.

“Hey, you parent your kid, and I will parent mine.” My smile warmed the cold, dark waters in my mind.

“Hey, Papa is a part of the family.” Tali stepped between the drone and me, playfully breaking up an imaginary fight. “He supports Bert in the best ways he can, while we help in the ways we can. Sometimes that means metal and makeup.”

Regardless of how dark the world might have been, how alone in this void I had often felt. Seeing her smile, playing this game with her. Our version of dress up or tea parties, carrying that magic into our everyday life, it was a light. She was a powerful star in the middle of deep space.

“Ok, I have to get back to work. Close the door behind Papa.” I said. The moment I stepped out of the kitchen were our entrance was located, I stepped into the void.

It wasn’t just Tali that was the light in my mind; it was the people I had met, these relationships I had created. When my halls darken and opening those doors had become difficult. Many would drift away. They sent the occasional message, trying to keep updated, trying to be supportive. But when days turned into weeks and weeks into months, those flickers of light just floated further into the distances, until I couldn’t recognize the difference between them, reaching out was forced and faked, I tried to capture the night sky in the ocean’s reflecting. Creeping closer to drowning.

After my workday was done, I stepped out of my office and walked down the hall to Tali’s room. It was deathly cold; winter snuck up on us in the last couple days. Knocking on the door, I called out. “You still up?” there was no response at first. When I turned to go into the living room, I heard her jump off her bed.

“More flowers came for you.” She spoke like someone at a sick relative’s bedside.

“Oh, yeah.” I spoke like a thief, someone stealing her happiness, or that light she fiercely held on to. Maybe that was the only reason she held on to the magic of the world. Trying to show me it still existed. It was ironic how often children tried to nurture their parents.

“It was from uncle Ty, he said get better soon, and had a number for his doctor.” Tali didn’t open her door, but stepped closer to it. “Are you sick again?” She asked, a tremble in her voice.

“Oh no, just migraine and stuff, lack of sleep I think.” I covered.

“That makes sense.” She covered as well. We both played this game. Her being my perfect mirror.

For better or for worse, most single parents raised a version of themselves. I wanted Tali to be the better version of me, while still being herself. In a way she was, and in other ways I would never know.

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of fresh coffee. No matter how deep my ocean was, the day never stopped. Getting out of bed was not an option, rather a responsibility. Papa had to see Bert, and Tali would be there to press my buttons. It was the warmth that started my day. The light that reminded me the dark was just a moment in my life, not my actual life.

“Look!” Tali raised Bert to me as I walked into the kitchen.

“Wow.” I responded to the eyeliner scribbled onto Bert the box. “He is the prettiest box that ever prettied.”

Raising one hand to flick from side to side, Tali spoke in a voice that was less than humble. “I know right, I’m the best.” They only allowed humor to complement themselves, not confident enough to accept any form of true boasting.

“I think you are pretty great.” I said, reaching for my coffee.

“Max homo, Bro.” she said, in her best man's voice. A voice her last girlfriend absolutely hated, so one she spoke in exclusively, when pressing her buttons.

“Bro, who made you this way?” I was already half smirking, forgetting about the cold.

“You! You made this.” She met my half smile.

I scooped up the pebbles from the counter and placed them in a bowl that Tali had so fondly named “Bert’s college funds.”

Tali bit into her bagel and looked up at the ceiling again. “So why do you think Papa keeps coming back?” She smiled at me, not wanting my honest answer.

“Well, it’s his kid. He can’t take care of the box out there, and if you love someone, you care more about their wellbeing than your own, at least as a parent. I am just glad he checks in and supports him the best he can.” I said. My smile was less than modest. She wasn’t the only ones that could play this game.

“Is that what you wanted your mom to do?” She didn’t call her grandmother. The depths of this world didn’t allow that.

“What?” I said, feeling a breeze come through the window.

“When you were in foster care?” Tali chewed on her bagel. “It’s healthy to talk about it.”

“Nothing to talk about.” I covered. “It was a long time ago and was just something that made me stronger.”

“Yeah.” She just continued to chew. Her cover had slipped. And some of the colder parts of me sneaked out.

“Hey are you ok?” I asked, knowing she had asked the same of me last night.

Like a perfect mirror, she responded. “Oh, he’s here!” her mask was flawless, she was that star in the void. I knew it wasn’t real and deep down. In the depths of the waters in my mind, I knew I needed to speak with her. Yet, I kept diving into the ocean’s night sky.

She grabbed Bert and opened the door. I sipped at my coffee before standing at the entrance.

It wasn’t Papa there this time. A dark light in the shape of my brother stood there.

“No, it’s 9:10. Papa should be here.” I said, holding the empty box.

Ty leaned towards me. “Who?” the puzzled look on his face was replaced with concern. “Can I come in?” he asked, already stepping into the door.

“No, I’m expecting company.” I placed Bert on the counter, tapping my fingers together in frustration and confusion.

“You haven’t been answering my messages. Are you ok?” he asked staring at the box. “That’s not what I think it is? Is it?”

The feeling inside my heart started as warmth this morning, was now a raging flame, consuming and burning the soft flesh.

I pulled on the open door. “Please leave.” I said, unable to find my mask. “Bert’s father will be here. We just want to see him.”

“The drone?” Ty looked at my door. Outside of it there was the scattered pieces of a delivery drone, with the word Papa painting on the husk.

Smashing the door against the wall, I yelled out again. “Please leave.”

Ty wasn’t scared. It may have been the tears on my face or the shaking of my legs, but he saw past my false rage. “We missed you at her funeral. They played videos from her social media and yours. Sometimes I forget how much like you she was.”

“I want to be alone.” I lied. I just didn’t know how to be around anyone else. The world was a void without her. Seeing the light of others just reminded me of how dark my mind was.

Ty tried to reach out to me. “This isn’t healthy. Let’s just get some fresh air. We don’t need to talk, just walk.”

I stood there, my smirk long gone. “I am not hurting anyone here. Just let me be. I need to be here in the morning!”

“Her ashes arrived in that box.” The words were knives. “The last thing she would have wanted is this.”

“I can’t leave.” I was stuck in the ocean, this boat stuck drifting in circles. I knew what staying here meant, but I wasn’t brave enough to swim.

Ty took his coat off and sat down across from me. “Then we will just sit here.”

The darkness inside me was too much. “I wasn’t there that morning.” I struggled to spit out the words. Her whole life I had been there, because I knew how it felt to have no one come for you.

“It was an accident. No one could have known.” Ty reached out for me. Holding me as I cried. “Tali loved you, and you were a great father.”

His words didn’t change the boulders in my throat, the ripping in my chest. My dark halls had become a maze without her light. Knowing this wasn’t what she would have wanted didn’t change the structure. It didn’t light the way.

When I had cried and reinsured Ty, I would respond to his messages. But when he left, I walked to Tali’s room, still too scared to open the door, to step into the cold.

“I know you’re not there, but for now, can you be?” I whimpered into the darkness.

A voice I knew I would never hear again asked through the door. “Why did Papa adopt a box?” she asked.

“Because he thought he could keep something above the ocean.” I whispered to the void inside myself. My words; nothing more than a drop in the void, making insignificant ripples.