To Love the Stars More Fondly (And Not Be Fearful of the Night)

It’s a funny thing to ask someone , Faro 24 thought. But he asked it anyway: “Do you think the world’s going to end?”

“No,” Yimot 70 said. “But it is going to get a lot worse.” He made a funny noise. “Maybe I’d prefer the former.”

“Really?”

“No.” Yimot snapped shut the Book of Revelations that he had been thumbing through (and underlining and highlighting) and tossed it onto the coffee table between them. 

They were in the graduate student lounge in the Observatory, but it was late, later than any other student would want to be up, unless they were in the middle of some fiendish project. And those students wouldn’t be in the lounge sitting around. They’d be hunched over the glowing screens of their computers, their shoulders bunched up to their ears as they tapped-tapped-tapped away on their keyboards. They wouldn’t stir from their seats until Onos shone the first rays through the window, dwarfing the light of Tano and Sitha, the only suns in the sky right now. 

Faro knew what it was like— he had been that student often enough. And, indeed, there was research work that he should be doing— work that had nothing to do with mysticism and invisible planets and eclipses, and instead was about mundane, concrete things, even if they took place hundreds of millions of miles away from where he stood. His research concerned Dovim’s regular plasma ejections, trying to understand what caused the peculiarities of the convection within that sun compared to the other five. 

But once he had come to accept that the math could not possibly be wrong— that there was some kind of dark body sweeping its way towards Kalgash, that there would be darkness and everything that accompanied it— his mundane research had begun to feel as weightless as the breeze. He couldn’t concentrate on it for more than a minute, even if he told himself that it was what he cared about most in the world, that it was the reason he had come to Saro City in the first place. He couldn’t quite make himself believe it. When the world was about to end, what did it matter what Dovim’s corona was doing? Dovim would keep on her steady course through the sky for the rest of eternity, no matter what happened to all the poor fools on Kalgash below.

Faro wasn’t sure if the same feeling had gripped Yimot. He was stretched out on the couch opposite him now, the lateness of the hour making his long, spider-like limbs all floppy in a way that Faro found somewhat endearing. They were there in the graduate lounge together, and Yimot’s research (on the possible life-cycle of Tano and Sitha, trying to mathematically and observationally test the hypothesis that they had once been one solar body that had split in two, some billions of years ago) was equally as abandoned as Faro’s. But where Faro went, Yimot followed— and where Yimot went, Faro followed— so perhaps he was being a bad influence, dragging him to the graduate student lounge at terrible hours of the night, to read books of mysticism and contemplate the end of the world. But Yimot went willingly, so there was only so much blame Faro could take for distracting him from his studies.

“Do you think society’s going to collapse?” Faro asked.

Yimot rolled slightly on the couch to face him, letting one of his hands flop down to trail in the old shag carpet on the floor. “Everyone seems to think it will.”

“I’m not asking everyone. I’m asking you.”

“I’m a solar physicist, not a psychologist or an archeologist or a sociologist.”

“Or a mystic.”

“No, maybe I am that.” He lazily pointed at the Book of Revelations on the table. “I’ve studied it enough by now that if I wanted to become some kind of acolyte of the Apostles of Flame, I could pass whatever recitation test they make you take.”

“Come on, Yimot. Tell me what you think.”

“Why do you want my opinion?”

Faro couldn’t quite put into words what he was looking for from Yimot. “You’re the sanest person I know.”

That made Yimot laugh. “The bar must be painfully low.”

“Maybe.”

Yimot was quiet for a moment. “But to answer the question— yes. I suppose I must.”

“You suppose you must?”

“I’m acting like society is going to collapse, aren’t I? I’m supposed to defend my dissertation in under a year, and I haven’t worked on it seriously in more than a hundred days.”

“That’s not acting like the world’s going to end— that’s just being a depressed doctoral student.”

“Am I depressed?” Yimot asked and rolled onto his back, to look up at the stained drop panels of the ceiling. “I don’t feel depressed.”

“You should ask Dr. Sheerin.”

“Heh. No, I don’t think so. What would he give me as a diagnosis? ‘Pre-darkness psychosis’?”

“I don’t know.” 

“I don’t want to feel like a crazy person, Faro,” Yimot said. “I want to keep pretending like I’m sane. At least until I can’t anymore.”

“Do you think you’ll lose your mind when the darkness comes?”

Yimot was quiet for a little while. “Do you remember that really bad tornado season, about ten years ago?”

Both Faro and Yimot were from the same farming plains region a ways away from Saro, though they hadn’t known each other as children. Their country ways were one of the things they had first bonded over when they came to the university— hearing a familiar accent among all the educated and clipped voices that surrounded them now. 

“Yes, of course,” Faro said. “My uncle lost a barn in it.”

“One of the biggest ones came right by us. We saw it coming, so we all went down into our storm shelter. We had a generator there, so when the power went out it was fine for a little while, but then we discovered that nobody had put diesel in the generator, so we were just all sitting there, waiting until it ran out of fuel and left us all in the dark, underground.”

“Did it run out of fuel?”

“My father decided he couldn’t stand it, so he left the shelter and ran back to the house and got a godlight to bring back,” Yimot said. “He could have died, getting that stupid godlight.”

“Oh.”

“That’s just what it all feels like now. We’re sitting here waiting for the fuel to run out, but even if we could trade our lives for a godlight, there isn’t one we could run to get.” He shook his head. “If my father thought we couldn’t bear the darkness, I don’t know— I don’t think I can.”

“Yimot…”

“What?”

“Maybe— if we think this is all going to make everyone go crazy, maybe we shouldn’t even be here.”

“Here, in the observatory? You want to go home to your family for a few months?”

“No, not really,” Faro said. He laughed a little. “I was just being stupid. Thinking maybe you and I could go do something fun.”

Yimot laughed. “Go down to the tropics and laze on a beach? I don’t know if I can picture you in swim trunks, Faro.”

This felt like about as cold of a rejection as Yimot could give, but he certainly hadn’t meant it. He was just joking, after all, and had his arm draped across his forehead now, like a fainting maiden, wiggling his fingers at Faro with amusement.

“I just— I’m sitting here eight hours a day pretending to do research that doesn’t matter just so I can collect my student stipend. I want—” The frustration finally came out in his voice. “Even if there’s nothing I can do— your dad was right. I just want to find a godlight to hold on to, you know?”

“And you think going on vacation together and ignoring all of this will make you stay sane when the darkness comes?”

When Yimot put it like that, it did sound stupid. Faro sighed and looked out the window. Tano and Sitha were about a quarter of the way up the sky. “No.”

“I wish there was something we could do. I just don’t think there is.”

“So we keep pretending like we need to come in and teach our classes and stare at research that’s not going to get done, just to pass the time.”

“Well, on the offchance that we’re wrong…” Yimot said.

“You know we’re not.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there any way, you think, to beat it?”

“The madness?” Yimot asked.

“There must be, right? Like— there are blind people out there who have never seen light in their lives, or people— I knew someone in the chemistry department who had to drop out because he went blind— an accident with acid gas or something. He’s not crazy.”

This made Yimot look at Faro seriously again. “Are you suggesting that we cut our eyes out?”

“Maybe just one of us,” Faro said. “Then we could stick together. Like the story of the blind man and the cripple. The blind man and the one who’s gone star-mad.” He tried to joke, but he wasn’t exactly joking.

“I’m not doing that, Faro.”

“I know. I didn’t really mean it.” 

There was a long stretch of silence between them, and Yimot picked up the Book of Revelations again and began flipping through it, revealing streaks of yellow highlighter, post-it notes, and scribbled annotations. 

“There has to be some way to get accustomed to darkness, though,” Faro said. “There has to be.”

“It’s not the darkness. It’s the stars,” Yimot said.

“Then let’s get used to the stars!”

Yimot raised an eyebrow. 

“There’s a description of them in there. A thousand-thousand tiny lights surrounding Kalgash like a cage in the sky. It’s lights. We can make a room that’s all dark, get used to the darkness, and then light up the cage of stars. It’s totally possible.”

“And you think this would immunize someone?”

“Isn’t it worth trying? If you don’t want to go mad.”

Yimot considered this for a long minute. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Faro would take that, for now.

---

They built their star-scape in a small warehouse on the outskirts of Saro City, the industrial area down by the river. It was a brick building, run down, with a cracked concrete floor and oil stains all over that couldn’t be scrubbed out. But what was important was that it had a fantastically high ceiling, and they only had to pay a half-year lease up front. After a half year, what would it matter?

They drained their bank accounts setting it up. Faro dipped into his student stipend and borrowed extra money from his family. He felt a little bad, but not bad enough to dissuade him from the course. Once they had started, they couldn’t leave a project unfinished.

Some of the contractors they hired were quite skeptical, and they had to pay them extra to not go reporting them to the authorities. Faro and Yimot said that what they were making was an art installation, but what it looked like to everyone who they hired to modify the building was an unlicensed nightclub. It was funny to think of them getting in trouble for having parties here— this place wasn’t meant for anyone except Faro and Yimot.

They spent all of their time there, once things really got underway. Perhaps their advisors at the Observatory wondered why the two most studious doctoral students had suddenly vacated their posts as completely as they could get away with before being struck from the student register. But Faro somehow doubted that anyone missed them. Even Beenay, who liked both of them well enough, was so consumed by his own troubles that must not have thought about them at all when they weren’t right under his nose.

It was something of a sanctuary. Even if thinking about what they were doing and why put this itching feeling of despair and horror in the back of Faro’s brain, their project was still something that he could pour all of his restless energy into. It gave him a purpose again. 

And it gave an excuse for him and Yimot to spend all of their time together. In that way, strangely, that made this period of terror the happiest time of Faro’s life.

Then, one day, it was finished. There weren’t any other things that they needed to do for their starscape. They left for the night one night, and came back the next morning with the knowledge that they had finished all of their to-do list, and would now have to use the room for its intended purpose. Yimot and Faro stood in the center of the warehouse and surveilled their handiwork.

It was like they were standing in the inside of a camera. All of the walls and the floor and the ceiling had been painted completely black or covered with black fabric drapes. They had industrial lights set up in the center of the room, to allow them to work, but even that glow seemed to be swallowed up by the walls, making it look like Faro and Yimot were paper cutouts of themselves— the only things that held the light— against the black background. Already, it was eerie, and it was only due to prolonged exposure, and watching as the room came together that Faro could stand it without immediately wanting to leave. That, and the fact that Yimot was there with him.

The only furniture was a beat up black leather couch, one that Yimot had found on the side of the road and hauled in to give them a place to sit. It was right in the middle of the room, in their circle of industrial lights, and Yimot flopped down onto it, his legs going every-which-way.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Faro asked. 

“Are you asking me, or are you asking yourself?” Yimot asked.

“I’m not afraid.”

“Then neither am I. Come sit down.”

“Make room,” Faro said as he came over. Obligingly, Yimot dropped his legs down to the floor so that Faro could sit. He sank deep into the couch’s floppy cushions.

“Have you ever been in real darkness before?” Yimot asked. He picked up the remote that controlled the lights and their setup on the ceiling.

“Yes, of course. Not for very long, though. My siblings used to play a game where we’d go into the basement and turn off the light until someone screamed. Then we’d turn it back on.”

“Kids.”

“That’s basically what we’re doing now, isn’t it?”

“Are you going to scream?”

“Are you?”

“I don’t think so,” Yimot said. “But if I do…”

“What?”

“You won’t think less of me, will you?”

“No,” Faro said, and he tried to make it sound like how he really felt. “Will you think less of me, if I’m scared?”

Yimot just smiled, but Faro could see how tense he was. “Do you want the controller?”

“You keep it. I trust you.”

“Well,” Yimot said. There was a moment of silence. “The longer we wait, the worse it will be, right?” 

“I suppose.”

“Are you ready?”

“Maybe I should close my eyes, when you turn off the lights,” Faro said. “And it will just be like I haven’t opened them.”

“You can try that.”

“Okay. I’ll do that.” He scrunched his face up, closing his eyes. Yimot laughed at him, but there wasn’t much humor in the sound. “Do it,” Faro demanded.

He didn’t hear the click of the button, nor did he feel any change in the air when the lights went out. Why would he? But he could feel Yimot tense up on the couch beside him, and hear the change in his breathing. With his eyes closed, it was just like he was blinking. If he kept them closed, then the light was still on outside.

“Did you do it?” Faro asked.

“Yes,” Yimot said, and Faro could hear the strain in his voice.

“My eyes are still closed,” Faro said. “I couldn’t tell.”

“Open them.” 

He knew he had to. There was no point in keeping them closed. He certainly couldn’t sleep through the whole eclipse, even if he wanted to. But it was hard to force himself to do it. The only way he could was by saying to himself, Oh, I’m just going to look at Yimot now. He’s right there. Right there next to me. Of course, when I open my eyes, I’ll be able to see him.

Faro cracked his eyes open.

He didn’t think he had ever been in darkness like this before. Not even when he was a child and had been playing games. This darkness was total, like all the light had left the world completely. His breath choked in his throat.

“You opened your eyes, didn’t you?” Yimot said. His voice was so strained.

“This is horrible,” Faro said. “Why are we doing this?”

“Do you want me to turn the light back on?”

Faro was amazed that Yimot hadn’t already. “No. It’s fine. I can handle it.”

“It’s so strange. I feel like I can almost see things. When I hold my hand up to my face, I can see it.”

“Is there light getting in somewhere?” Keep talking , Faro thought. If you keep talking it will all be alright .

“No. I think— Dr. Sheerin mentioned something like this once. It’s just an illusion. Your body is so used to seeing your hand and knowing where it is that you can trick your brain into visualizing it in complete darkness. It’s one of the first signs of psychosis.”

“Turn the light on then!”

“No. I’m not going crazy,” Yimot said. “It’s fine. It’s normal. It’s temporary, Dr. Sheerin says.”

“How do you know that light isn’t getting in?” Faro asked.

“I’ll put my hand down,” Yimot said. “Put your hand in front of my face, and I’ll tell you if I can see it, or if it was just the illusion.”

“Okay.” Faro reached out blindly, splaying his fingers and waving them in front of where he thought Yimot’s face was. Where he knew it was. He could feel Yimot’s breath on his palm. “Can you see it?”

“No. I can’t.”

“Maybe I’m in the wrong place,” Faro said, though he knew he wasn’t. “Let me move a little, and maybe then.”

He reached just a little further forward, with the gentlest touch he had, put his hand on Yimot’s cheek. Here, in the darkness, it could be an accident. His skin was soft and warm, and even with the terror of the dark, Faro felt some trill of happiness at the sensation.

“That’s my face, Faro,” Yimot said. His tone was still very strained.

“Then my hand was in the right place.”

Yimot grabbed his wrist and took his hand away from his face. It was— well, what else was Yimot going to do if Faro was touching his cheek? It was fair. But when he put Faro’s hand on the couch between them, he left his hand on top. What that meant, Faro couldn’t possibly interpet.

He wanted to ask, there in the dark where nothing seemed real except for Yimot’s voice and the feeling of his warm hand, Why weren’t we contract-mates? Why couldn’t we have spent this time together differently? But he knew the answer, and he didn’t really want to hear Yimot say it.

Instead, he said, “During the eclipse, you’ll stick with me, right?”

Yimot didn’t answer the question, but nor did he take his hand off of Faro’s. “Are you ready for the stars?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Faro said. He braced himself, and his hand on the couch scrunched up into a fist. He tilted his head to the ceiling, straining his eyes to see anything in the darkness. He wondered— he hoped, or maybe feared, or maybe the difference between those things was so small that it didn’t matter— maybe it would be so overwhelming that everything would change. That it would all be some kind of revelation.

Yimot pressed the button to make the stars shine, and the light flooded in.

For a moment, it was dazzlingly bright, as Faro’s eyes adjusted to the light after darkness, but it wasn’t anything revelatory. It was just ordinary light, ordinary sunlight flecking in from little glass-capped holes on the ceiling, dancing across their bodies. 

They both looked up at it in silence for a moment, then they glanced at each other. Yimot looked handsome in the light; Faro felt dim, and like all the energy had fallen out of him as the darkness faded away.

“I don’t feel crazy, do you?” Yimot asked. And he took his hand off of Faro’s on the couch.

“No,” Faro said. “I don’t.”

“Then maybe the world won’t end,” Yimot said. “Maybe nothing strange will happen in the darkness.”

“I hope you’re right,” Faro said. But maybe he was lying.