I never thought counting stars could be interesting. What’s so fun about stretching your eyes out going through one little dot in the dark sky at a time? I had always thought it was some cliche activity novelists threw in their stories to add in some lame romantic element. I was wrong.
We had been talking for about four hours then when the conversation came to a sudden end. It was mostly because both of us became too tired to talk after spending the whole day together. The unexpected silence didn’t trouble any of us, though. We sat there looking at different things, savouring the comfortable moment while taking a break. She was looking at the swimming pool and the small ponds nearby, probably revisiting one of those childhood memories she had told me about earlier. I was admiring the side of her face as she got lost in thought. I had always been fond of looking at people while they were asleep. Everyone looks so pleasant and peaceful in their sleep. Even the occasional twist and turn due to a nightmare can appear adorable. Since I had never had a chance to look at her sleeping, watching her getting lost in that moment was close enough. A strong summer breeze passed by, revealing the pretty shape of her ear that had been hidden by her long, black hair. I recalled the smell of her hair the last time we held each other. The next moment, she closed her eyes as if to enjoy the refreshing wind. She looked like a child then. I wish she had turned so that I could see all of her perfect face. I did not dare to move a muscle lest I disturbed that perfect moment of bliss and peace.
When the breeze had passed, she opened her eyes and looked up at the sky. I continued watching her quietly, my muscles still as the wall.
“How many stars do you think are up there?” She broke the silence with an innocent and random question. I was wondering if she meant to ask how many stars there were in total or how many we could count. She raised her hand and started pointing.
“There’re three over there.” She started without waiting for my reply. I decided to join.
“You missed out the tiny one right next to those three.”
“Oh yeah. It’s so small!!” She laughed at the cute, hardly recognisable dot in the sky. “There are one, two, three…” She started mumbling while counting until she reached the final number. “eight around the moon! Did I miss out any?”
“I don’t think so. I found five more on the right side. No. Six. That made it eighteen.”
“Did you mean these six?” She pointed at the group of stars I just counted.
“Yeah those six,” I replied.
“Oh! There are a few more above the moon. Let me count those!” She sounded excited and started mumbling really fast as if she didn’t want me to count those stars before she could. I laughed at her childlike look at that moment.
“What?” She gave an adorable and befuddled frown at my laughter.
“Nothing,” I smiled back at her endearingly. “Keep counting!”
She threw me a “You’re weird” look then continued with her mumbling.
“I think I just fell a little more in love with you,” I mumbled indistinctly.
“Fourteen!” She exclaimed happily.
“That made it… umm… thirty-two. There are no more on the left and near the moon. Let’s count those on the far right.” I suggested.
We sat there for the next fifteen minutes counting the huge number of stars scattered in the dark summer night. I followed her and helped out when her neck became too tired of looking up. My neck got pretty stiff after staying in the same position for so long but I didn’t want to take a break. Our eyes became tired after trying to spot the smaller stars but none of us wanted to stop. Before we noticed, we had made up our mind to get the total number of stars we could find that night. Somewhere in between she pointed at a group of stars and told me those five made the Lyra constellation.
“See the brightest star there? It’s one of the brightest stars in the whole sky. Its name is Vega. Yeah, like your favourite Vincent Vega.” She smiled at me nodding with my face still up staring at the constellation.
“That Vega and the four that formed a lopsided square there make up Lyra.”
I followed her fingers to distinguish the four other stars among a whole bunch of others.
“It’s supposed to look like a harp, though I never really could see it that way. But I like its shape. I learned about constellation while I was on my exchange program. That night we watched the sky full of stars in Iceland. It was majestic, like nothing we’ve ever seen in our lives. A friend of mine there was an expert in this constellation thing and he taught us all the common ones. Like, you know, that group there is Leo. Then over there you can see Orion.”
She guided me excitedly through the sky full of stars. Her face lit up and her smile was the only thing I wanted to look at at that moment. But I had to follow her fingers to learn the constellations.
“Lyra is still my favourite, though. You know the story behind it?”
I shook my head.
“The word ‘Lyra’ is Latin for a lyre, some sort of a harp. In Greek mythology, Orpheus was this great musician whose music was the most beautiful among all mortal men. It was probably because he was given this special harp by Apollo. His music could soothe anger and bring joy to your pain. It can really touch your heart. Unfortunately, after his wife died for some reason I can’t remember, Orpheus was so upset he started wandering the Earth until one day he was murdered and his lyre was thrown into a river. Zeus was probably upset about his death and sent an eagle to get the lyre and placed it into the night sky. For all the rubbish Zeus was known for, at least he knew how to appreciate a great artist and his work. It’s a beautiful story, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“I really like the story and every time I look at the constellation, I’d think of it in a different way. Sometimes it looks like a charm to me. Sometimes it’s like a bat. Sometimes it’s a funny looking book. Sometimes I feel like I’m only looking at one side of it and there’s this part behind I simply can’t see from here on Earth. I wish one day one of those Rovers in Mars can take a photo of the Lyra from there and maybe I’d get to see it from another angle. Anyway, I really like that shape and one day when I was wandering in this small town in Vietnam during my trip, I found this necklace and immediately bought it. It reminds me of the constellation all the times.”
She pulled out her necklace from inside her shirt and showed me. It was a thin silver string with a lopsided square pendant which looked pretty much like the Lyra. She opened the pendant to show me. It was empty inside.
“It’s actually like a mini photo frame. One with a very odd shape. I’ve had this for five years but never found a photo or picture or anything I’d really want to put inside. I think the day I finally manage to do that is the day I find out what I really want in my life, you know?”
I told her I understood what she meant but my head was already somewhere else. I thought of Ed Sheeran’s Photograph and secretly wished to have our photo inside her necklace one day. I had to shake my head to remove the dreamy idea before I got too deep into it.
That night we spent an hour counting all those stars we could find. By the time we finished both of us were so tired of looking up we reverted back to the silence, we had enjoyed before the exercise. She rested her head on the table while looking at her necklace and the empty pendant. I leant back on the uncomfortable wooden chair, watching her closely. The street had turned quiet with only the occasional sound of the few cars passing by. The only other sound we could hear was the water hitting the swimming pool walls. We embraced our comfortable silence and each other’s presence.
There were fifty-two stars in the sky that night.
t/p
