The stars were shining, snug in their black
sheets,
when the clattering started. It was a quiet
clattering at first, and far away, but it got steadily
closer and closer until, after a while, it sounded
right on top of them, just over the covers, going
like a freight train, or what they imagined a freight
train to sound like, having seen them snaking their
lonely ways across the surface of the earth, far below.
Or that’s what the stars thought would happen, if
the clattering would ever actually get any closer.
It was going very slowly about moving, and they couldn’t
be sure it was actually getting any closer, after all,
or if it was a sort of trick of the ear, like
the Shepherd Tone, which they’d read an article about
one night, while trying to get to sleep. Little did
they know the clattering was the inevitable sun
come to snuff them all out. That it had happened before
and would happen again for a very long time indeed.
when the clattering started. It was a quiet
clattering at first, and far away, but it got steadily
closer and closer until, after a while, it sounded
right on top of them, just over the covers, going
like a freight train, or what they imagined a freight
train to sound like, having seen them snaking their
lonely ways across the surface of the earth, far below.
Or that’s what the stars thought would happen, if
the clattering would ever actually get any closer.
It was going very slowly about moving, and they couldn’t
be sure it was actually getting any closer, after all,
or if it was a sort of trick of the ear, like
the Shepherd Tone, which they’d read an article about
one night, while trying to get to sleep. Little did
they know the clattering was the inevitable sun
come to snuff them all out. That it had happened before
and would happen again for a very long time indeed.