• Prologue

    There were nights in Wisconsin when Evelyn would carry me, still a year, out to the wood that lay beside our house. We had a favorite spot there, a patch of starflowers growing in the center of a circular clearing. Some day long ago, a child had planted these flowers, hoping that they would mean something to somebody else, a someone that found these growing out of a dark, barren abyss, and mean just as much as they did to him, our mother always told us. Indeed, it could’ve been true; the rest of the forest grew bare and desperate. The trees grew no leaves, only a few hadn’t been taken by death. It was either the winter the trees couldn’t seem to stand, or the droughts we suffered during the summer. Either way, we had fewer trees every year.


    The trees that survived every year were close to the clearing, and sometimes we’d stare at the trees while lying by the starflowers, looking at the sky all the while. The month of July brought nights that seemed glowing with stars. Evelyn would hold my arm and point it towards the sky. “Star,” she’d say. I would repeat it with a rendition that, oftentimes, sounded like this: “Tah.” Evelyn would smile and squeeze me tight.


    Soon, the stars and the heavens above would swirl, and me and Evelyn would fall asleep among the Starflowers. I knew my mother always came and brought us back to our home every night when we did sneak out, because there wasn't a morning I could remember where I didn't wake up in the warmth of my crib.


    And though my mind was full of simple thoughts back then, one word would always come into my mind before I drifted off to sleep.





    Star.