Once, There was A Library in my Closet

The Little Star

"Wake up, hon. It's time to put on your spacesuit."

August, 3076--

"Sleepy..." Willy replied. He rolled his dainty hand over his face.

Waxing moon, post-solar eclipse--

"You're gonna miss breakfast, my munchkin. Get up."

Six new constellations drawn--

Willy, a bright child not three feet tall, remembersed the day his mother first told him that he was the greatest little astronaut the world would ever see. He paraded through the house in his spacesuit, pretending he was flying through the air like the astronauts he had seen in movies. They were brave, even though the dark void was scary. There was something magical to a kid who knew nothing of space. It was a place where one could fly, where one could pick up glowing dots from the sky and put them in his pocket, where one could drink the galaxies. It was an endless game of connect-the-dots and mancala alike. 

"I'm jumping so high," Willy laughed, hopping tirelessly in the living room as if gravity didn't exist.

"Careful, hon," Willy's mother warned, "You don't want to fall and break your helmet."

At the age of three, Willy was sent to the Fillman County preschool. None of the other little kids were wearing the same suit as Willy. He didn't mind; he simply wanted to play with the other kids. Most of them only asked why he wore such funny clothes. Willy had not known what else to say except explain to them that he was an astronaut, and that he needed to keep his suit on. "Because Mommy says so."

One day, Willy looked up at the afternoon sky and gazed at the black silhouettes of birds flying overhead. They could fly, too. 

"Mommy," Willy asked, "Why do birds fly?"

"Because they have wings, hon."

"Asternots don't have wings."

"Those people go somewhere special called outer space. It's where the air lets them float!"

"Spacesuit makes them fly?"

"No, sweetheart, the suit protects them."

"Why?"

Willy's mother smiled gently. He didn't see the hesitation as important. 

"Because without the suit, the air will hurt them."

New planets discovered. Vast areas of the universe mapped--

At the age of six, Willy and his parents moved away from home into a different state. He had rather liked his old home. When he had asked why they couldn't just stay, his parents had said that it would be fun to see new places. The new house was rather small for his liking, though.

Just as before, the students of his new school asked him why he wore his odd suit. Some were mean about it, some teased. Whatever they asked, however, Willy simply said that he would die if he took it off. The air would kill an astronaut, after all. Yet he wondered more and more as he grew, why nobody else needed to wear one. 

Several weeks passed during school with the same questions every now and then. Willy never stopped wondering why he was the only one wearing a spacesuit. In the middle of class, when all were quietly working on their lessons, Willy decided to slip off the bubble helmet for just a moment.