To the stars through difficulties

stolen glory

Twinkling of stars is a scientific phenomenon which occurs due to atmospheric refraction. This my sister had told me once. What is atmospheric refraction? I wondered aloud to her.
She had laughed then, a silvery, musical laugh that simply made me feel pure bliss everytime it passed her lips.
If being able to listen to her laugh had had a price, I'd have robbed the earth of all its cents.
"For understanding atmospheric refraction, you must understand what refraction is first," she explained. "It is, simply put, the bending of light as it passes from one medium to another. For example, air and water are two mediums, as the light passes from air- the rarer medium- to water - the denser medium. Much like this, the earth's atmosphere has many layers to it- troposphere & stratosphere and more. Each layer varies in density and thus the light from the stars entering the atmosphere goes through very many refractions and at last twinkles to entertain us."
It was a fascinating subject. I grasped her hand, which was relatively larger than mine for I was 6 years younger than her, and took her to the balcony.
Tell me more! I said. Show me!
How little I had been.
There it was again. The beautiful laugh. I flushed with sheer joy at having made her laugh.
"Do you know," she began once again to take me on an another virtual adventure. "that the stars we see now, their light took a thousand years to travel to the earth? What we see is the past. They are million, trillion light years away from us and thus appear point sized."
I gasped, "No way! Can we time travel?"
"No, that may not be possible for now but that is a very clever idea. Maybe someday the machines would be invented, but not in our lifetime..." She had said this last bit sorrowfully. I grew sad to see her sad.
In an effort to try to change the topic, I asked: "Tell me! Would you rather visit the past? Or the future? If you could."
"Future." It was a one word answer and her eyes held that same fierce determination to them as they so usually did when she talked about how she would become a scientist one day. I pouted at the difference of our opinions. Past was much more fascinating, being able to see how such technologies came into existence!
Seeing me pout, she asked: "What is the matter?" She seemed surprised. Perhaps she had expected I'd rather visit the future with her.
"Oh! I don't understand why you'd rather visit the future. Past is much better, I'd attend balls everyday and wear dresses every day, see how our country was brought up, perhaps." I had rattled on and on and she'd laughed every time I mentioned something even a little bizarre. At least I had made her laugh, a flush creeped on my cheeks as I once again had the sole chance in the entire world to hear my intelligent, precious, rarity of a sister laugh. Little had I known, the past was a brutal place for women. I'd imagined being born as a victorian noble woman, an aristocrat, with not a care in the world, in perhaps the 18th Century England. I still yearn for the past but my reasons have become entirely too different from the original. I'd guide women and cause rebellions, fight the repressive systems and help them fight, too. The history in the present world would be drastically changed. In another world, women would have always had equal opportunities, never having known the repression, only the traces of it. Traces which I'd helped remove in another world, perhaps.

Another night, my sister once again took us to the balcony. She was overflowing with joy and excitement to tell me something new, something she had learnt from those ridiculously large stacks of books she always had her nose buried in.
"The stars!" She said, simply, panting.
"The stars." I agreed, waiting for her to continue.
"The stars you see in the sky are not real, they're merely images." She cried, her eyes wild, her hair frayed. "We have been looking at the wrong ones this whole time!"
I grew bewildered. I voiced one of my million questions which had arisen with the sudden proclamation. What is that supposed to mean?
"Do you remember how I had once told you that starlight enters the earth's atmosphere and goes through multiple refractions and at last the star-"
I cut her off with my burning desire to show her. To show her that I had not merely remembered, I had it seared into my brain, each word that she had said that day, like a seal.
"Appears to twinkle." I finished. She smiled. I smiled, too, for her smile was too irresistible and infectious.
"Yes. Not only does it twinkle, but it also forms an image resembling the actual star, and the star's image lies quite far away from where the actual star is. It is called 'apparent position'. We have been paying our attention to merely the images of the stars." She explained, seemingly happy at having attained such glorious knowledge. It may not have been new to the world of science, but it was very new to us. Us who had been foolishly smitten with these images of stars.
I trembled, this knowledge felt powerful, but also like a burden. I did not want to bear such burden. Burden of knowing that my whole life had been built on illusions. All this time, we had been paying attention and heeding homage to not the stars, but to their images. It may not mean much to other people, but it meant a lot to me.
"Show me. Show me where the actual star of that image lies." I said, trembling, pointing vaguely with my small, chubby index finger at the star- no, at the image of the star- which shined the brightest in the clear sky.
She raised her finger as well and pointed to a spot, a blank spot filled with darkness only, away from it's image.
Fearing my suspicions had come true, I began to cry, for all my childhood had been full of the concept of the stars, filled with admiration for them. Simply put, my childhood had been entirely built on mere images. I have been full of delusions. I felt disillusioned. As the tears streaked my face, I hastened to wipe them away. I could not show my sister that I was this weak, even as I cried I felt bizarre and impossible.
"Oh, don't cry," She began, soothingly. Her voice was but a comfort in such a moment. "It is all right. Images of stars are stars nonetheless. They're borne from stars, they're their descendants, so to speak. The stars themselves raised them, like wolves raise their pups. Think of the real stars like this: they're gods, always watching upon us but never showing themselves truly to us for their true divinity may destroy us and may wipe our existence. Gods are kindhearted, they do not mean to cause harm to us, so they send these images, lesser versions of themselves but still somewhat like them nevertheless. The images are like demigods, heroes of the mortal realm, but belonging halfway in Gods' realm. These images are the same which had guided lost sailors in the sea long ago, who do you think they'd rather worship? The images who at least showed themselves and guided them, or the stars who had sent the images to help them?"
"The stars?" I replied, wiping away my tears.
"No, they'd worshipped both. For it was the images who guided them, and it was the stars who sent these images to help them." She smiled.
She's too kind, I realised.
"Tell me! How to locate where the real star lies?"
So she told me. Pointing slightly astray from the images, she told me the actual position of every star I pointed to. She taught me how to locate them.
What about that one? And that one! The one with the dullest twinkle? I think it is quite like myself.
"No, it is not at all like you." She said, fiercely overprotective. "You are that star." She was pointing to the brightest star in the sky, whose actual position I had asked about the first time. I sighed in disbelief.
"If you think me a bright star, then so be it. But I'm second only to your brightness. The image of the brightest star you speak of is not really the image of the brightest star, but it is of you." I said, solemnly, nodding to myself, pleased that my way with words had pleased her. She laughed. I smiled, the tears were entirely gone now, as if they had never been there. As if my face had never known how it felt to cry.

That night I had stayed up, thinking about how these images stole the glory and honour of the real stars. I accused them with my silent, meaningless stares through the window and pointed jabbings of my chubby little fingers. I then remembered how the real stars never showed up, but instead sent signs- these images- to show us that they existed. Maybe they didn't like such open glory, they were selfless. They became blank spots in the sky themselves to help the real blank spots achieve glory and burn brightly. They were like my sister, never looking for glory, only to help others, to enlighten others. My sister was a real star, and I an image of her. It strangely became easier for me to accept the circumstances now. After all, how long could you really accuse and reject yourself? I was merely an image of my sister, stealing all her glory for myself. No, the images weren't like me, they didn't steal, they simply reflected the power, the beauty given to them.
My last thought before falling asleep was how I would traverse through all kinds of disasters if only it meant I could be by her side forever. Such a rarity she was.

(author's note: don't take this too seriously, this story was made purely for the purpose of metaphorical entertainment. this is merely the result. as if the stars could do anything about their glory being stolen, as if they chose this fate, this destiny. this is written from a child's perspective, a female child, around the age of 5 or 6. i know she's too smart for her age. i made her like myself.)