Understory 2019

Space Boy

To marvel at the wonders of the universe was something he had always done. To camp on the summits of mountains to see the galaxy unburdened by lights and to feel like he was touching the stars with his hand. “He held the universe in his eyes,” his mother told everyone in the village. She always believed he would someday achieve his dream of being amongst the stars. Listening to the radio for the latest news from the Alliance, watching documentaries on space and the alien races out there, even signing up for a pen-pal program at their school to communicate with someone that lived on a different planet, while the other kids were too afraid. In their little village nestled in the hills of the Euro Empire, the notion of leaving, especially to space, ‘the great unknown’, was blasphemous. They tried to persuade him to stay by arranging a marriage, by guilting him with his mother’s failing health, by telling him about the dangers, but all for naught.

The whole of space with its stars and planets and swirling galaxies was in his heart, and that would not leave him. It bounced in his thoughts throughout the days and nights, and when his mother passed, she begged him to go live his dreams. Pleaded with him to live a life of adventure and to never stop the wanderlust he had developed for the vast beauty that is space. So, he packed his bags and gave their land to their neighbors before leaving. The village thought of him as insane, but he knew his life was in the stars.

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[1] Amara Gitomer is a sophomore in the Mathematics Department. Amara’s inspiration for writing comes from her love of reading sci-fi and fantasy novels.
 

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