A Particular Fear of Stars

She never liked the darkness, the way it played with her mind, her eyes, her hands wiping the sweat from her brow. That’s why she lived in the perpetual, effulgent neon of the city and that’s why she didn’t like the sunset. She didn’t care about the colors cascading from the horizon or the way poetry and watercolor paintings bled from pen and brush in order to capture its beauty. Sunset pulled the curtain of night, of darkness, of fear over her head. But, she couldn’t know (and, perhaps, didn’t want to know) that somewhere far in the desert away from the dome of light shielding her from shadow, in the wide expanses of dust and sage and wild horses and unknown horrors, was the delicate touch of light that came from ten billion stars spilt from the Milky Way. She couldn’t see them past the mask she created with her hands.