Poisoned Stars

Chapter One - So you think aliens could have machine guns?

'Do you ever think about space?'

'Like stars or aliens or what?'

'No, just...space...'

We lay on the cold grass, our backs damp, and with ridiculous smiles on our faces. Steam rose from each breath we took.

'I don't really know what you mean by that,' Tom laughed.

'I'm not sure I know either,' I joined him in laughing.

'I'm kind of cold...' he sat up and turned to look at me.

'You go inside, I'll be in soon.'

'You never get bored looking at the stars do you?' He stood up and I looked at his face.

'No, no, I don't,' I said with great sincerity, I looked back up at the great vastness of the universe and got lost in the sparkling constellations surrounding me.

'Finn?' I was snapped back into reality. 'Finn, it's five am, you gotta come inside now.' He shook my arm softly, 'you're freezing, oh my gosh.' Tom picked me up and carried me into my house. 'Are you ok?' He continued to walk through the house until he reached my bedroom and put me down on the bed.  I was shivering from the cold resonating in my bones, sending an iciness into the room around us.

Tom lay down beside me, 'what were you thinking about?'

'I don't know.'

'Space?'

I was quiet for a moment, what had I been thinking about? I couldn't quite remember. I had been thinking about how small I was compared to how vast the universe was, how big the planet was in my eyes but to the eyes of the galaxy it was tiny.

'I'm not sure...'

'Let's talk about space?'

'Ok.' I hadn't moved since Tom had come inside. I was still lying in the same position he had put me in and was still freezing cold.

'Aliens? Friendly or not?'

'It can't be that simple, just like humans, some will be friendly some wont be?'

'I guess, but what if only the bad ones come here?'

'Statistically unlikely, I think. I mean not only bad people come into your life so why would it only be bad aliens that come to our planet? Aliens in films always have weapons that are far beyond our technology but that probably isn't very likely, some of them would probably have similar technology to us?'

'Like just normal guns?'

'Yeah, why not?'

Tom laughed and nodded his head. 'This is why you're my best friend, your mind is so weird, different. It's amazing.'

We both lay there in silence for a while, my mind was a swirling mix of stars and deeper thoughts than Tom could ever imagine me possible of thinking.

'Are you ok?'

'Yeah, why.' I laughed slightly.

'No, really? Are you ok? Like you didn't move, you were completely out of it...'

'Yes, I'm fine, I promise.' I shut my eyes and began to ponder if I actually was ok. I thought that I probably wasn't. I forgot so many things it was almost ridiculous, half of the time it was as if I wasn't even there. My mind was always cluttered with many things and more often they were darker than I would ever admit to. I decided I wasn't fine but there was not much I could do about it and life would just have to continue as it was.

'Cigarette?' I awkwardly reached into my back pocket, took out a slim cardboard box with a grotesque image of cancerous lungs on it and handed it to Tom. 'Thanks.' Tom stood up and walked over to the small window seat, opened the window and sat down.

'So, what shall we do?' I watched him light the cigarette, a cloud of smoke started to swirl around him, soon filling the entire room.

'What do people usually do at...' Tom pulled his phone out of his pocket and clicked the home screen, 'five fifty seven am on a wednesday?'

'Sleep, probably,' we both laughed. He took a long drag on the cigarette, blowing the smoke in the vague direction of the window.

'Gosh that must be boring.'

'Probably.'

'We could watch a film, go for a drive, plant sunflowers?'

'Sunflowers?' I looked over to him with a confused expression.

'Well, it's night time and the sun isn't out at night, so it seems like the perfect time to plant sunflower seeds?'

'Ok you,' I laughed and stretched out my cold, stiff body. 'I don't have any sunflower seeds to plant, sorry.'

'I have some at home, we can do that when the sun goes down later,' he took a drag from his cigarette, blew the smoke into my room and smiled.

'Why do you even bother opening the window?'

'It makes me seem more responsible.' He shrugged.

'To whom exactly?'

'Good point...' We both laughed at his stupidity and I stood up to get under the blanket on my bed.

'Oh, bedtime? Ok,' he put out the cigarette on the wall of my window and climbed under my blanket. 'This would be really awkward if you had a smaller bed yeno.'

'I remember, don't worry,' I laughed softly. 'Go to sleep.' I flicked the switch beside my bed and turned the light off.

'Ok,' he yawned near my ear and rolled away.

Within a few minutes Tom was asleep.

Although my eyes were heavy with sleep, I couldn't fall asleep. I spent hours staring at the dark ceiling thinking about how bored I was and cursing the fact I couldn't sleep. I contemplated going on my phone to play a game or something but thought better of it knowing I wouldn't sleep at all if I did.

I eventually fell into a semi-peaceful sleep, and dreamt of things I wouldn't fully remember in the morning.