The stars were so bright. They glinted through the crack between Lisa’s curtains. Some nights it bothered her; she would roll over to her other side an stare at her wall, examining the small imperfections in her fathers paint job. Other nights they were comforting though. Especially nights after she had reread an email from her brother. The stars always reminded her of him.

When she had been younger he had told her about the stars and pointed out star constellations: Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Perseus. hese were his favorites. He loved the story about Perseus’ adventure. He always liked the constellations about Greek Myths. At night he and Lisa would sit outside on the back porch, just looking up at those stars. He would point to one and say “You see that? That is part of the Argo Navis. That’s the ship that Jason and the Argonauts sailed in. You can’t recognize it right now. The sky here isn’t ‘clean’ anymore…light pollution…”

In his room he had had a telescope. It was long, sleek, and elegant, his pride possession. Lisa still remembered the Christmas he had gotten it. The look in his eye was pure joy. And he was protective of it. Lisa would sneak around it, standing at his door, willing herself to open it and just to take one tiny peek through.

“Please Felix, just one look, come on.” She’d plead with him, but as hard as she tried he stayed firm.

One night however, he came to her door. “Don’t you want to look at Orion today?”

The whole night they looked through his telescope while Felix talked. “I haven’t told Mom or Dad yet, but I’ve been drafted.” He was silent for a long time staring at his feet and then the stars. “I want you to watch my telescope for me, don’t give it away, don’t let it be hurt, okay?” He shut up again. Lisa looked at him, her eyes tearing up.

The next morning he had told their parents. Their mother weeped while their father silently cursed this “totally pointless” war that was going to “take his only son.”

At first he had written almost every day. Lisa usually found an email every time she logged into gmail. After a few months however, the emails came less and less. Now they only came every week, then two weeks, then month. They became darker, too.

Every night she would check her email, then she would get out his telescope. At the bottom of his emails he always sent her a list of stars or constellations that she should look for. She always picked a few and searched for them, especially when she did not receive a new email.

Then one day a letter arrived in the mail. ‘Dear Cliff Family, sorry to inform you, your only son died in a war that no one agrees with.’ Lisa’s mother locked herself into her room and cried for three days strait. Lisa’s father went for long hikes only returning in the latest hours of the night, smelling of cigarettes and smoke. Lisa was in shock. She deleted the emails and put the telescope in his closet. (A few days later she went through her trash and got every single one of his emails out again.)

It had been two years now. Every now and then she reread his emails, afterwards looking at those stars that Felix had showed her so many times. However that beautiful black telescope never came out of the closet.