STARS AND PLANETS

Eyes open. I'm looking at myself in the mirror, straightening a bow tie I've only just remembered how to tie. I think of the last time I wore it, conducting a choir, in a sunny park. My face looked younger then. This feels too tight around my neck. I smile, then pull the cord of the bedside lamp. Darkness.

-

Blink. It's ten seconds to midnight and the air is thick with fog and anticipation. A cacophony of voices around me starts reverse counting, in unison, from Ten to 'Happy New Year!' Then the air bursts with a thousand fireworks: stars and planets, and colours and shapes. It's suddenly 2020 and of all things there and then, I feel like praying. I bet I'm not alone, I think to myself, but I worry that I sort of am. Eyes close. Voices fade. Fade to black.

-

I pull up outside. Handbrake on. It's closer to one than midnight now, and the fireworks are long gone. I sigh to myself, not really wanting to go inside. The couple next door appear in the window of their spare room, suddenly lit by indoor sparklers. Their happy faces flicker like an old movie. I see what I think might be love. The sparklers fizzle and crackle until darkness returns. I can't see them any more.

-

I wake up. Weak sunlight streams through the gap in the curtains.

-

My sister sits in the armchair. She's talking, loudly, and mostly about how she'd like to meet a prominent conspiracy theorist. She tells us that it would be her 'ideal' Christmas present, though it would cost £500 for an hour's conversation with him. I'm sitting at the table, reading a book called Stars and Planets. I feel a million miles away, but for some reason, I say:

"We'll all chip in!"

But I don't really want her to fuel this part of her mind. I believe in a round earth, a human royal family, and in the thousands of young people who worked on the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.

Actually though, my subconscious and I just want her to be happy. Nobody in the room agrees with me about 'chipping in', which probably means I'm safe for now. I flick to 'Orion' in the constellations section and look up the average brightness of Betelgeuse.

-

Someone puts the kettle on. The power trips out and we're plunged into darkness. Candles come out. My Dad becomes investigator and fixer, and a small yellow torch is suddenly beaming into the fuse box.

-

I'm home. My electricity works, but nevertheless, the oil lamp leaps into flame. Flickering shadows dance on the walls, and the wick glows bright behind the curved glass. Has it really been a year? Time is so... so fast. And I'm a day late. Tiredness makes my eyes swim, and I can barely see the small text of the Bible this time. The words are in my heart though.

Outside, beyond the window, above the quiet street, far higher than the sultry night-clouds will show me, way past the moon and the long-hidden sun, the stars and the planets spin through the galaxy, just as they have all my life - just as they were designed to do.

I gently extinguish the oil lamp into a puff of spiralling smoke, and go to bed. My eyes flutter into sleep, and a new year, a new decade, a new season begins.