Those Who Dwell Beneath the Starless Skies

A sharp and textureless plane of nothing but black was spread flush above the earth. Carmen O'Reilly believed it to be beautiful. Or more accurately, she thought she believed it to be beautiful, anyway. It was beautiful in the way that old pictures of Yellowstone, before the industrialization, are beautiful. The kind of beautiful the old folks shed a tear at. Nature is beautiful. It's just one of those fundamental facts of life. And the sky was nature.

This was something of a fleeting thought in her mind, although far less articulate, as she took a long gander at that great empty slate. It was about 1:00 (on a school night) for Carmen. Articulate thoughts weren't easy to come by. On this particularly cold night, she was fitted with a purple winter coat (a size too big), a fluffy trapper hat that just hardly covered her curly red hair, and a heart locket draped around her neck. She also had a backpack, heavy with food, clothes, water, her old polaroid, and a few other trinkets.

Her extended moment of absolute silence was interrupted by a bleep coming from her pocket. She drew her arm out of her puffy purple coat, and checked the screen on the back of her wrist:

DAN RANGEL: Hey! up 4 sum late nite vr? online with kerry rn if u wanna play

CARMEN: sorry, out on a walk. Another time :) tell kerry I said hi.

She let out a sigh. Her soul ached. She wasn't used to lying, but she couldn't just tell them the truth. A part of her hadn't quite accepted that truth, and it still didn't feel real. And that truth was that Carmen O'Reilly was leaving. And she was leaving for good.

She coughed. The air was getting worse here.

Carmen took a moment to collect herself, and without much of an idea of where she was going, continued onward down the quiet town's main street. It was a rather sad, as far as the old ideal of a main street goes. On the left side was the town park: A fifty by thirty square patch of (fake?) grass, with several planters adjourned with young oak trees, encompassed by a forest of charred trees. On the other side, an elementary school. It was once a police station, which was made obvious through its architecture; What was clearly once a helipad now held a rooftop garden, fastened with fiberglass guardrails. It was obvious where the bay doors once were, with the garage newly christened as a gymnasium. A sign out front read "Greensboro Elementary" with the marquee below fastened with mismatched letters reading "haPpY NEw YeAr! Let'S MaKE 2O68 a GreaT One!" The first P in happy was clearly a crudely repurposed R. In a different time, she would've snickered at that.

Nearly all this great suburban pathos was laced in a pale blue light, casting from beyond the charred trees adjacent to the park. When she was young, Carmen liked to believe this glow was something of wonder, a luminescent remnant of some otherworldly, unknowable source. But of course, it wasn't. It was the result of the daunting brutalist structure known as a SuperMart. The trim along the edge of that great concrete box was a bright, near blinding luminescent blue. She took another moment to watch how the light broke and twisted around those trees, their bark dry and blackened. Without that blue light, they would have remained indistinguishable from the sky.

"Hey!"

A yell pierced the cold winter air, startling her.

"Jesus!" She spurted out, her shoulders jumping high like two haunches of a scared cat, and her head shooting towards the figure.

"Carmen! That you?"

Relief washed away her initial alarm. The blue light illuminated the short brown hair of one Kerry Harrington, her many piercings shimmering on her otherwise shadowed face.

"Kerry, you scared the hell outta me!" She let out a sigh of aggravation, which she immediately attempted to bury with a laugh. "The hell are you doing out so late?"

"Aw, c'mon O'Reilly!" She yelled, still hurriedly making her way to her side. "I could ask the same question of you, and we'd both have no answers!"

"Yeah, that's fair" Carmen yelled back with a tinge of detachment in her tone. "But I think you know what I mean by that,"

"And what do ya mean by that?" She rebutted, trying to hide a smile.

"I mean that-" Carmen paused to restart her sentence, "I just think that it's a little, I dunno, odd, I suppose, that I happen to tell Dan that I'm on a walk, and a couple minutes later, you just happen to bump into me at like, two at night?"

"First of all, babe, it's two in the morning," Kerry started, having reached her, "Second, of all, you're sounding like a conspiracy theorist! Whattaya gonna say next, that the supermart corporation bought that patent to solar panels so only they could use it, and also profit off of the energy crisis?"

"That's not a conspiracy, I think it's true," Carmen responded, half laughing, as well as part coughing.

"exactly!" She responded with an endearing smile. Carmen let out a passing chuckle, and smiled back. "So, as long as you're out here on your long walks through the darkness, how about we walk awhile? I know a great place where we can sit for a sec, and chat if ya want,"

Carmen took a quick moment to herself to think.

"Well, that does sound pretty nice," Carmen responded, looking down. (although, she was mostly admitting that to herself) The two continued along the road, until Carmen followed Kerry into a path between the trees. She continued, until they reached that spot: A clearing on a ridge, beyond the blinding reach of the SuperMart lights. Although it was hard to see in the darkness, some of the trees seemed not to be charred.

Carmen didn't pay much attention to the trees, (or her surroundings at large) and rather sat on a patch of grass aside Kerry. She set her backpack away from Kerry in hopes that she wouldn't ask questions.

"Got any snacks in there? Kerry asked motioning towards Carmen's backpack. Carmen froze, and a slight feeling of panic set in.

"Um, yeah" she reluctantly answered, with a nervous swallow following. She tried to stealthily take a deep breath while zipping open the backpack, and pulling out an opened bag of popcorn.

"Hell yeah, thanks Carmen," She said, reaching in for a handful.

"Yeah, 'course" Carmen responded, her eyes glued to the ground.

"Beautiful spot, isn't it?" Kerry asked. When Carmen turned to answer her, she was met with the sight of Kerry, leaning back, her silhouette lined with the dull light of the hazy circle that was the moon. "Y'know, there used to be stars. You used to be able to see them, I mean. And the moon, it was beautiful too. People used to worship the night sky, I think." Carmen held on to every word as it left her mouth.

"That's interesting," Carmen said thoughtfully, now examining the sky. Her vision was caught by sight of the trees. She began to let out a small laugh of amazement.

"What's up?" Kerry asked in response to the laughter, leaning forward and towards Carmen.

"Nothing, it's just," She paused, as her laughter had bled into the start of her speech. "I don't think I've seen a pine like that since that bad fire a few years ago,"

"If you think that fire was bad, you should see California," Kerry had phrased it like a joke, (as she did most things) but it was clear she wasn't trying to be funny. There was a moment of silence between the two, their sorrow palpable. "It's funny. One end of the country is ablaze-"

"and the other underwater." Carmen finished. She chuckled slightly. "That is kinda funny, isn't it?" Silence absent of tension engulfed the moment once again. She turned back to Kerry, and said "Hey, why haven't you ever mentioned this place before?"

Kerry broke eye contact for a moment. "I go here to be alone sometimes. I guess I always wanted to keep it to myself, like a special thing, y'know?"

"Why are you showing it to me now?" Carmen then took notice of Kerry's sorrowful smile. She had her hand closed, pressed to her mouth, her pointer finger nestled below her nostrils, and her middle resting firmly against the little bump along the center of her nose. Carmen realized she may have been holding back tears.

"Listen, Carmen," Kerry turned to her, her gaze not quite meeting Carmen's eyes, "You- You don't go on night walks. And you've been kinda sheltered most of your life, and you- I don't know. I just wanna say I- I mean, you mean a lot to me, and I'm not gonna stop you but-"

Their eyes met. Kerry's eyes were rimmed with tears, ready to flow down her face. Carmen held the side of her face, and kissed her. There were no words shared. They held each other, Carmen's shoulder dampening with Kerry's silent tears. After minutes, they pulled away, their arms still clinging to each other's shoulders.

"You should probably be on your way, huh?" Kerry said sincerely, her voice strong and sincere, but still trembling slightly.

Carmen nodded, and said "You should probably go back home, too."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, of course," Carmen responded.

"What's in that locket you got?" Kerry asked. "I've always wondered,"

"You know what's sad?" She began to respond, "Nothing. There's nothing in there,"

"Why?" Kerry laughed, still wiping away few rogue tears.

"I never had anyone special enough to put in it," A spark emerged suddenly in her mind. "hold on-" She began digging through her backpack, and pulled out an old camera.

"The hell is that?" Kerry asked.

"A camera," she responded "Now, smile!" A bright light flashed across her. Kerry recoiled.

"Shit! That's real bright, ow!" She blinked profusely for a few moments. "Don't cameras have night mode?"

"Not this one. It was my grandfather's, I think," Carmen waited for the print to finish, and set it down for a moment. "You still carry around that pocket knife?"

"Sure do," Kerry pulled out a sleek black cylinder, and slid a blade out the top.

"Great, lemme see it" She snatched the knife and began carving away at the photograph.

"You don't have one? You're goin' out into the world and whatever, and you don't have a pocket knife? Geez, you tryin' to get kidnapped?" She laughed.

Carmen paused a moment. "Y'know, I hadn't thought about that," She continued.

"Keep it, I think I've got another one" Kerry said.

"Thanks," Carmen said as she finished her work on the photograph. She had cut picture to be a small square, with Kerry's face in the center. She pulled her locket from out of her jacket and held the heart in her palm before her. She slipped the image in, and closed the locket.

The two stood, and shared one final embrace. As Kerry was walking away, she turned around.

"Maybe someday, when I finish school and all that," She started, "Maybe, just maybe, I'll try and track you down,"

"I'm looking forward to it," Carmen smiled, "Goodbye, Kerry Harrington,"

"See you around, Carmen O'Reilly," She said, one hand raised in the air, waving slightly. Kerry turned around, and walked back into the woods.

Carmen sat back down. She had found her hand resting in a patch of grass. Real grass. She smiled, and once again looked at her locket. The overlook had quite the view. You could see the glowing megastructures where Yellowstone used to be, and the tall mining rigs teetering endlessly. She stayed there, for a while, observing it all. But mostly, she stared at that great black void, imagining the stars that used to be.