CAPACITY FOR WONDER. | alex albon

v. stars versus life

It depended on what was used to measure the time that dictated whether June and Alex hadn't seen each other in a heartbeat or a lifetime. Days had passed, a couple of weeks even, but if the time they spent separated was measured in Halley's, they were never apart for very long.

Halley's Comet, June had told him, was a comet that only returned to Earth's vicinity about every 75 years where most humans didn't even manage to see it twice in their lifetime -- even though this was possible. The last time Halley visited was in 1986, the year of Chernobyl, and the next expected sighting will happen in 2061, where June theorised humans could have dual-citizenship between Earth and Mars.

She had told him this, and more, on their way to a destination a couple of days after they arrived back in England for the second time in a month. They'd returned to Monaco together, both working for days at a time with no interaction before she told him they were going back -- he supposed this was how the deal worked, and he had no objections. He never did know how she could retain such information about so many galaxies she'd never be able to venture to, about so many stars she'd never be able to touch, about so many planets she'd never get to see.

"It's past midnight, June, I don't think you're gonna find anywhere to park." He told her as both of their eyes now trained on the car park in front of them, empty bar a blue Mini parked closest to the gates.

"Stop being sarcastic and just follow my lead."

The torch from her phone shone to illuminate the path ahead of them, Bayfordbury Observatory standing quiet and still. It was almost like in that moment, they were the only two souls lefts on the planet, where it was as if the Four Horsemen had taken everybody else and aptly forgotten about them. Alex supposed their luck would be like that.

It was also their luck to be whistled over by a security guard, something he hadn't expected but it seemed like June had as she walked her way over to him. She stopped, his reaction time plummeting in the darkness as he walked into her, a laugh now forming between them as she looked up at him and told him to 'wait here.'

He always was compliant, his sisters had told him that a multitude of times for reasons he couldn't even remember anymore, which meant he did exactly as he was told and waited. He'd never been more unsure of what kind of conversation had occurred like he was when June and the guard, who she called Stanley with a smile as she returned to him, reemerged from the hut they had stepped into.

"You're the coolest!" She shouted back to Stanley as she slipped a small jewellery box into her pocket and pressed a kiss into his cheek before her hand fell into his, pulling him gently up the path.

"If I ask you what the hell just happened, are you gonna tell me?" He asked as he didn't bother looking back, reaching the end of the track as she pushed the door open.

"An observatory."

Her lack of answer told him as much as he needed, he hadn't expected an explanation either but he'd forfeit all the knowledge in the world to see her face light up as it did when her eyes cast upon the sky up close over and over again.

"Opened in 1970, Bayfordbury Observatory was founded after a suggestion that the University of Hertfordshire should offer Astrology as a course." She rattled off, and if Alex wasn't there with her, able to see there was no fact sheet on the walls or Wikipedia page on her phone, he might have thought she was reading instead of recalling. "It started with a single housed telescope and has become what it is today through multiple bouts of funding."

"I have so many questions."

"I can only give you so many answers." She said as she lifted her hand up now, her fingers still intertwined with his as she took out the box and slipped a ring onto his finger. "I told Stan I was proposing and that was why I needed to be let in, so just look shocked and in love when we walk out."

If it was to be as simple as Juniper had explained it to be, Alex would've been shocked. He knew later, of course, that this was the partial truth surrounding her conversation with Stan, but then, he was too consumed the stars, and not the ones she wrapped herself so tightly up in.

+

It was more fun than he had expected it to be and as he looked up at the stars like they had done for most of the night, he couldn't help but offer a question to her. She knew all of these facts, the kind of things somebody knows about something they care about -- and whilst he saw their beauty, he did this in most things, and he couldn't figure out why this particular thing mattered so much.

"Tell me why you like the stars so much." He settled with as he leant against the wall behind her, her face still positioned up against the eyepiece as he commanded her more than questioned.

Turning to face him, she shrugged. "They're just special."

"Why?"

"Will you take a vague answer?"

"You know I won't."

And it was true, she knew he wouldn't, just as she knew she would've told him anything if he asked nice enough. That was the beauty of their friendship, she could tell him anything because they weren't personally involved. They didn't know each other's families or have years of friendship at risk, no past to carefully avoid mentions of or arguments to bring back to the surface. Anything she told him was new and to her, this seemed less of a vulnerable share than it would've been if she told Charles or Charlotte, or her younger sisters Kamri and Lilia: all four were relationships with inescapable baggage.

"There's, like, 100 billion stars per galaxy, right?" She stated, and whilst he met her words with a shrug, it wasn't one that said he was uninterested, just that he didn't know. "And there's close to 8 billion people."

"And growing."

"Exactly, and growing," She continued with a nod now. "Stars are just like people, they die and they're born every day, but if every person had ownership of one star in the night sky, there would still be billions of stars to go around."

She tilted her head as she walked towards a chart on the wall, a motion for him to follow as she started speaking again. "In comparison to the stars, I am a fraction of what I am, and in comparison to the planets they share the universe with, I may as well be an ant if they're a skyscraper," Her fingers ran over a specific star now. "Polaris, the North Star is located so close to the celestial North Pole that navigators use it to determine which direction they're sailing in. It was used on the first passage across the Atlantic, and we'd be lost without its presence."

"In the great comparison between the solar system and Earth alone, stars versus life, anything I do, anything we do -- any mistake or loss is nothing." She seemed to struggle to speak now, softly grasping at his wrist again as she pressed his fingertips against the chart before she finally seemed to conjure her thoughts into a sentence. "Against the stars, we, as a race, as a planet, as a society, are borderline insignificant. The stars make me feel like any of those errors or faults that are so often unfairly held against people are acceptable."

A breath was released, by the both of them. She'd never spoken like that before and he'd never heard a passion so easily conveyed through improvised words.

"I'm sure some criminals would love that analogy." He batted out now, the height of emotion in such a small room being a little more than he had expected.

She shook her head slightly before turning her movement into a nod. "As they should." She returned as her eyes dragged off the chart, as if somebody didn't look close enough at them, they'd disappear.

He knew how this felt.

As if he could have the whole world look at him, and he had, but nobody ever truly saw, he could still vanish into wild oblivion too. But as she looked at him now, he knew he'd have to be around as long as she was. She'd never let him vanish.