The Fairy Lights Under Phoenix City

Chapter 9

Aphmau was restless in the hospital. They didn't let her go anywhere. There were only so many channels on the clunky little TV they kept in her room. She was bored and miserable. Aaron could only visit so much. Work hours and visiting hours conflicted, so his busy schedule kept him from seeing her. Aphmau was left alone with her thoughts.

She remembered several things during her stay at the hospital. A picnic with her mother and her father.

It was on a bright summer day. Perfect picnic weather. Her father had packed flatbread sandwiches with black olives and homemade salads. He had a cigarette in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other. There was a great big smile on his face while he watched her make a bracelet out of the tall grass and wildflowers. Yellow bitterweeds and blue long-spurred violets. Purple fall aster and red cardinal flowers. The sweet fragrance got all over her fluffy purple dress and pollen spilled out of her hands.

Sylvanna stroked Aphmau's hair back and put a hat over her head. "The sun's getting higher in the sky. Don't want you to get sunburned, Mija."

Aphmau grinned at her mother.

Her father held out a sandwich. "Come on, Mija. You need to eat. Then we can play."

Aphmau quickly ate her sandwich and took her father's hand, forcing him to drop his cigarette and follow her as she led him to the pond to catch waterbugs and dragonflies.

The next memory came a day later. It finally answered a question she'd been asking herself ever since she could remember.

Why did she always buy those stupid little honey candies if she was never going to eat them?

Her father always had them on his pocket. He'd fish them out every once in awhile, offering her one. When she refused to take them, he'd shrug and pop them into his own mouth.

"Honey is nature's gold." He would always say. "And it never spoils. Eating lots of honey with keep you healthy. And eating candy will keep you smiling. You always want to get two birds with one stone, my girl. Remember that."

Aphmau thought about it. In her old house in the suburbs she probably still had them, sitting on a shelf. Almost ten huge jars with hundreds of honey candies. Everytime she went to the store, she would always buy a handful. But she didn't like the candies, so she never ate them. But some part of her could never bear to just throw them out. So she kept them in large jars, just sitting in her house by the window sill that held all of her house plants. Honestly, she liked them that way. They smelled nice. They glimmered in the sunlight like golden decorations and she found them comforting. Her father had been right. Honey is nature's gold. She had never seen the value in it until she remembered that little memory.

Another memory came to her when she was having her sponge bath. A memory of going to a carnival with her family.

It was another summer night. Perhaps the same day as the picnic. Aphmau couldn't tell. The air was hot and humid. Dust took the air as they walked down that dirt path. Her parents were talking about something, but Aphmau couldn't hear them. She was focused on the field beside them. She could see the sparkling green lights of fireflies flickering between blades of grass. Just above them, stars were beginning to peek from behind thin clouds that stretched over the summer sky. Aphmau loved stars. She'd always looked up at them with a sense of wonder. Now she could remember her father teaching her about the constellations. The Enki belt, the Irene constellation, and her favorite, the Shad moon.

It wasn't a star, but it was named after the god because of it's dark quality. Made entirely out of carbon, it was basically a giant ball of coal orbiting a planet. The only reason such a dark object was visible from Earth was because of it's carbon quality. It was covered in huge diamonds, which covered the surface and sparkled, making it look like a giant star. Aphmau always thought it was the best representation of Shad the Destroyer. Dark and dense, but also shining with good qualities. His love, his devotion, his fight for good.