The Stars Still Shine Beyond Layers of Storm Clouds – Alex Rost

September 18, 2024

You had a thing for the Perseids meteor shower, so we packed a bag and headed to a rented cabin just outside a dark skies park.
        The cabin had a bear theme.
        Bear statues, bear knickknacks, bear paintings on the walls, a bear toothbrush holder, bear rugs, bear mugs/plates/bowls, bear embroidery on the blankets, bear windchimes, a huge wooden ‘Bear Crossing’ sign above the doorway where no bear would cross, a smaller ‘Bear Crossing’ sign near the tree line where bears might actually cross, and all sorts of framed photographs of bears crossing the smaller ‘Bear Crossing’ sign near the tree line proving that yes, bears do cross there.
        The cabin was named Bear Lodge.
        There was a laminated printout on the kitchen table that warned us to keep the garbage cans lidded.
        ‘If bears come, they won’t leave,’ the note said.
        But we weren’t worried about the bears, not yet.
        The day turned into night, and the sky lit up with stars. We laid out blankets on the lawn and cuddled up.
        “There’s one,” we’d say, pointing at a shooting star.
        “There’s another.”
        And another.
        And another.
        We watched the stars above us, our bodies all melted together, and I thought about the years it took for their light to reach us, the centuries between the stars and our eyes. We were staring into the past, and each star took a different amount of lightyears, so we were seeing countless pasts, thousands, millions of years, all in one moment.
        And the stars, they shine through time, with nothing to hide.
        You startled, shot up and looked into the woods behind us. I’m half deaf, at least. Clinically. I trusted your ears and reacted to your reaction.
        Our flashlights danced into the darkness.
        “Do you hear–”
        “Shhh.”
        We were standing now, ears perked.
        And then I heard it, too.
        A branch snapped.
        Another.
        The bear came charging, full sprint. Brown and enormous and beautiful. I took off toward the house, one step faster than you. That one step is all it took. I heard your scream, the bear’s teeth rip through your skin. You screamed with a terror few know, from a brutal, untapped core beyond lungs and throat and mouth and muscle. I heard the crack of bones and then the loudest sound of all – silence. I made it inside the cabin and shined my flashlight through the window at the bear. It looked at me, its paws on top of your body, your blood dripping between its teeth.
        And then it spoke.
        It said, “Hey man, how ya doin? Don’t mind me, I’m just having a late dinner.”
        When I didn’t respond, he stopped chewing, looked down at your body, stepped off and tilted his head to look at the sky.
        “Check out those stars,” said the bear, side eyeing me. “It’s really something isn’t it.”
        I let my attention drift up. Meteors careened through Earth’s atmosphere, slicing through the night sky. One after another, I made a wish on each one.
        After awhile the bear said, “Hey, you don’t have to watch from in there. Come on out and sit with me.”
        “I don’t think so.”
        The bear looked down at your body. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry, man. Really, I am. It’s my nature, you know? But I’m done.” He backed up, holding his paws in the air, gesturing submission. “All done. Promise.”
        “I don’t know, you just mauled my girlfriend.”
        “Listen, I mean, I said I was sorry. Do you know what sorry means? It means not doing the same thing again. My dad taught me that. Besides, if I really wanted to eat you, do you think that door would stop me?”
        I knocked on the door, ran my palm along its surface. He was right.
        “Okay,” I said. “I’m coming out. But no killing me, okay?”
        “Cross my heart,” said the bear.
        He crossed his heart with the tip of his foreclaw.
        I opened the door, inched down the porch steps.
        “Thaaaaats it,” said the bear. He plopped onto his back and patted the bloody grass beside him. “Lay here with me, bro.”
        I did.
        And for a long time, we watched stars shoot across the sky in silence. I began to relax.
        “You know, my old man used to tell me stories about the stars,” said the bear.
        “What kind of stories?”
        “Old stories, ancient. He said that when a bear dies, its soul floats into the sky and becomes a star. So each one of those lights up there are one of my ancestors.” He snorted, then sighed. “I used to think it was just nonsense, but lately it’s like I can kind of feel him up there.”
        “Like in Lion King?”
        “Lion? No man, I’m a fuckin’ bear.”
        “I know, it’s a movie.”
        “Man,” he said and scoffed. “Are you even listening? I just told you some personal ass shit. I don’t, like, talk about my feelings much. Fuck.”
        He crossed his arms and we lay for a moment in the thick tension.
        “I gotta go,” he said. He climbed to his feet but just stood there looking at me. “You mind?” He nodded at your tattered body.
        “You mean do I mind if you take her?”
        “Yeah. She’s dead already.”
        “Kind of, yeah. I’d rather you not.”
        He wrinkled his nose in disgust.
        “I’ve got kids, man. Hungry kids.”
        “I loved her.”
        “Loved. Past tense, bro. You know what? I thought you were cool, but you’re just a dumb fuck.” He showed me his teeth. Bloody foam bubbled at the corners of his lips.
        “But you said–”
        “Only a dumb fuck would come sit next to a man-eating bear.”
        “You crossed your heart!”
        The bear lunged at me and sunk his teeth into the soft tissue between my shoulder and my neck. I screamed until blood filled my throat and then I screamed no more.
        And you know what? That bear was kind of right.
        My soul left my body and floated into the air, over the trees, above the clouds, and into your waiting arms.
        We soared though the night sky, danced among the shooting stars at the edge of Earth’s atmosphere.
        “This is pretty awesome,” I said.
        “I know, right?”
        “Fuck that bear though.”
        You shrugged. “He was just being a bear.”
        “I guess.”
        “C’mon,” you said with that sly smile, that one where you bite your bottom lip a little. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
        I nodded, ready to rock. “Hell yeah. Lemme make a stop on the other side of Jupiter first.”
        We slowed at Saturn then zipped past Neptune and Pluto and out of the sun’s gravitational pull. We soared and soared, finally stopping to gaze back upon the Milky Way.
        “I love it here,” you said.
        “Me too.”
        I was nervous but not afraid when I dropped to one knee at your feet. My hands shook as I offered you the most beautiful of Saturn’s rings.
        “Oh my god, really?” you said. “Oh my god.”
        “Will you…” I said.
        Your tears, made of solar flared joy, pulsed around us.
        “Yes,” you said. “Yes, yes.”
        And back on Earth, when the sun goes down and people raise their chins to gaze in awe at the endless centuries of light above, they’ll point at us and say-
        “Those stars. Those ones burn the brightest.”