Space ships, chocolate chips, champagne cheers.

If I could go to the moon…

The party is too loud for Star, the balloons are too blowed up, food’s too mixed and there’s too much, too much glitter. She always had preferred the real ones in the night sky, her twins. Her friends who never says a word. Only her, blowing wind, dancing grass and muffled music.

  The music grew louder on Star’s ear as the door slides open revealing her favourite person. Here’s the thing about people… they always, always confuse ‘favourite person’ and ‘favourite person, at the moment’  but as much as it bothers Star, she won’t dare to open her mouth on it.

  The stars shine brighter, the moon smile down at her, owls cooed, cricket hops. Star always wonders how magical it would be to live in the night. Without worrying about school tomorrow or unfinished homework, and the need to drink the hot milk her mother delivers every night as well as her repeating goodnight story about a magical fairy and the sun. Star soon grew out of that story and wonders why couldn’t it be the mermaid in the moonlight, she would’ve never grown out of that. But mom’s too bright even for the moonlight. She might be a sun but Star is a burning comet, traveling faster than light.

   “Look at the sky celebrating your birthday.”  He calmly commented. Forgetting the actual celebration inside. The sky is shiny, even the daylight celebrated Star turning 9, it decorated itself with drops of pure water soon transforms into a bridge of colors, that spans wider than she could catch. Colorful bands similar to a new bow she got from mom’s all-time friend, Meredith. Probably the only thing she adores from that night, hugging her hair tight, buried between the gentle grass.

   Star have always loved the dark, because she could shine in it. But, no, not this time, her lights dim consuming the mourn all around her. Isolating herself in the far away Neptune. Only 7 stars appear that night, as Star keeps on counting, holding on to father’s saying, that, at least 10 stars would mourn his death. She refuses to believe that the night has betrayed her father. Only seven stars, only seven stars?  Align perfectly, like the book she’s been reading.

  “You guys lied,” she screamed at the emptiness of the sky above “you lied to him!”  12-year-old Star ran inside and hid from the night sky for the next 7 years. She didn’t want to believe in the night anymore, but still have the curiosity of a cat as if loving it in her own silence, in her own peace of mind.

“If you could go to the moon, who would you bring with you…?”  her mouth moves freely in the daylight. Her friend, Cornelia, would bring her 2-year-old Corgi, sitting at the bottom of the 10-year-old couch.  The only thing came out in Star’s mind is, a Corgi? A damn Corgi to the moon??  She must have priority issues.

  Star always found the fun in asking stupid, delusional questions like that. It helps her understand the type of person she’s dealing with, their mindset, priorities in their life, even sense of humor. The things Star had already mastered earlier than she should. But Cassie didn’t lie, she was beyond honest, even Star could see that. Unlike the night.

   Star could see everything and everyone in the bright daylight. Trees brushing, crowds cheering, flowers flowering. She never liked flowers even at night, Star thinks that it’s too bright it burns her eyes. And never did she understand why everyone is all over the floor over the smell of utter dirt.

  That until, he grabs an arm full of red roses ready to grow out of their door. Suddenly it smells like bright sunny spring morning. Suddenly she loves the bright, she loves the shinny water, she adores the heat. Suddenly Star is Summer, just playing a part (for a moment). She promised herself that it’s just for a moment…but who cares if that moment is forever?

  Seagulls screeching is something Star thinks she would never experience, but somehow his presence made those seagulls sings every Summers favourite songs. The wind blew through her hair, shinny golden blonde locks, has never been lighter mimicking the sun she constantly interacts with. It is in fact been her favourite colour lately, shinny, blinding, bright yellow.

“If you could go to the moon, who would you take with you?”  her mouth in the most familiar way. The silence was loud, backed up by the water fighting the poor shore. The only time she brings up the night was a lonely quite night, father was the topic. As much as she denies to say a word upon it among longing, hatred and regret, she opens her mouth in it. For him.

   “The moon huh?”  that lovely devious chuckle he made intoxicates Summer. “If I could go to the moon, I’ll take you with me.”  Twelve words that struck Summer-Star with a blazing lighting to the heart.

  “If I could go to the moon, I’ll take you with me.” Under the stars above the grass, with owls singing and aunt Meredith’s colorful bow underneath Star’s dak blonde hair…. father.  

 The same thing two of Star’s most important men figure. That loves her.

   She knows exactly what lingers in his mind. It is crystal clear that Summer asked that question out of the ocean blue, he hates burst out questions, like the way he hates the dark and the space, something about it triggers somethings that Star hates. So, what else other than avoidment is a way out, an easy way out.

   Vanessa Claire. Star never thought that she’ll ever be so envious of a name, not once did Nessa ever change or have the desire to switch up, play a role or whatever Star calls it by now. Her smile gazed as a colourful band in the sky, eyes shimmer like the glitters in the night sky (so there’s where the went).

  She got sparks that Star doesn’t have anymore. She looks like an exact duplicate of Star…8 years ago. The joy, the light, the sparks, the shine. Stars describes her exactly like how father used to describe Star, under the night light, as it was. She misses that more than everything. Star could imagine her father repeating her exact words only, to her.

   Men breaks hearts, Star thinks. That’s their purpose in life, life have ups and downs and men are made to balance the equation. And, also, Star sticks with her word that love is a waste of time and energy. The only thing that’s there for her in the disappearing past, picture present and promising future is herself and the space.

  Outer space is her cherry-picked soulmate and if there’s anything Star ambitious enough to chase, is her and the space. “I’ll go to the moon, then maybe I’ll bring you with me.”  She holds on to father’s saying, that if he’d ever go missing, the moon is the only place to search.

   Books after books, school after school, didn’t drain a single energy out of Star. For the first time ever again, Star was fast as time and as bright as her name, again.

  The helmet is too big, swallowing Star’s head whole. So does the suit, it was like wearing a sack of watery lumpy cloud. She connects this new core memory to her mother’s core memory. ‘Happy thoughts.’  that’s what she like to calls nostalgic chats with Star, today’s topic was mother reminiscing the magical wonders of her wedding dress fitting, that Star will soon, not too soon more like in 26 years, experience.

  It was not a vail instead it is a helmet, not a satin dress instead it’s a suit wider than her body, it wasn’t Cinderella’s glass slippers but it is a pair of giant moon boots. Doesn’t cost as much as mother’s, but it cost more than hers. Her suitcase can’t weigh more than a certain weigh and she took the minimum bare of that for father’s first-class seat. Right beside Star’s favourite pile of papers she pours her soul into. Avoiding brother’s behaviour, father told Star that Steven had always pour his soul into a bottle. Took her quite years to cope and understand.

  Well, to Star that little black book is her bottle, she’ll soon throw to the shinny slated waters Of California. The pity she felt knowing for a fact that she won’t be meeting that old friend of hers in a long period of time, yet Star’s eager than ever to meet her soon to be best friend the dark, cold, oxygen-less, and lack of gravity, the empty space above the moon.

   The countdown started and Star is beyond disoriented, lack of oxygen she’s breathing in, hot smoking sweat runs through her well-done lash. Until, the realization hits, Star have nobody, nobody waiting for her back on the dying green planet. Then, her mind commits to the mission…and her mission.

  The air is nowhere to be found. Just the empty cosmics and Star and no one else. She’s baffled by the fact that she once hated this God’s masterpiece no wonder why this is the place where father is rested. Star hold the jar of ashes on her right hand and whispers, “I’m on the moon, and I’m taking you with me.”