A Pause in the Dark

In my next book, My Brother’s Keeper, My central character, Will Diaz laments that he’s lost his love for the stars.

He knows the reason perfectly. The morning of the day he killed one of his best friends, Max, he’d enjoyed a moment tracing the stars of Orion and admiring the Seven Sisters.

Now, every time he looks at the heavens, he feels that regret and pain.

So, he stopped looking. A comet could have blazed overhead.

He wouldn’t look.

A supernova would blaze out as bright as the moon.

His comment might be, “Gee, that’s nice.”

Every time he looks, he remembers killing his friend.

I can relate having one of my favorite pastimes taken away.

We don’t have the best skies for stargazing her in Greeley. There are way too many lights and with trees everywhere.

That doesn’t stop me from going out and looking. Currently, I’ve a grand view of Boötes, Lyra, and Aquila. I can look almost straight up at Cygnus the Swan.

On a good night, I can see a ghostly streak of jumbled white with darkness, our galaxy the Milky Way. if I follow it down towards Scorpio and a little further south into Sagittarius, I’m looking in the general direction of the center of our Galaxy.

Sometimes the planets invade the sky and shine for weeks, month, but sometimes, for only days.

It’s not like I’m doing any research. Men and women have stood for ages at the entrance to a tent or a home and lost themselves in the grandeur God created.

For me, it’s a simple take a moment and relax and be part of something grand and epic.

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