Day 10 response to Bradley Ramsay’s Flash Fiction February writing prompt.
The telescope arrived on a Tuesday, which felt like the wrong day to notice the universe failing.
Monday felt more like a universe-failing kind of day, or a particularly slow Wednesday afternoon.
I’d bought it second-hand. The listing said “barely used,” which I took to mean “given up on.” The man I collected it from showed me how to extend the tripod legs and warned me not to overtighten the screws. I nodded like this was knowledge I planned to use. The box was lighter than I expected, and when I carried it into the backyard that night, it felt less like an instrument and more like a promise I’d already failed to keep.
I set the tripod up badly. One leg shorter than the others. I told myself I’d fix it later.
The first thing I noticed wasn’t the falling star.
It was the gaps.
I knew the sky well enough to recognise when something was missing. Matariki had always been a careful constellation — not bold like Orion, not something you stumbled across by accident. You had to know where to look. You had to wait for it.
When I lined the telescope up and leaned in, one of the points was just… gone.
In the way a light goes out when someone flicks a switch in another room.
I pulled back and looked with my naked eyes. The sky looked fine. Whole. Generous, even. I leaned in again.
Another gap.
I was still adjusting the focus when the star fell.
Not across the sky.
Not in that long, graceful arc people make wishes on.
This one dropped.
I was still adjusting the focus when the star fell.
It bypassed the wide, theatrical sweep people make wishes on.
This one dropped.
Straight down, as if it had lost interest in staying up.
A brief, hard line of light cut through the dark and disappeared — too clean, too fast — and then a sound I felt more than heard. A dull, percussive thud, close enough that the ground answered it. The tripod shuddered. One of the legs sank a fraction deeper into the soil.
I stayed where I was, eye still pressed to the telescope, waiting for the second half of it — the roar, the heat, the part where it became dramatic enough to make sense.
Nothing followed.
The sky didn’t react. No echo or scatter of light. Just the same generous darkness, minus a few points it should have had.
I straightened slowly.
People talk about instincts like they’re alarms — loud, urgent, impossible to ignore. Mine arrived more quietly than that. It suggested, very politely, that I should not go looking. That whatever had fallen had done so on purpose, and would not appreciate being found.
I took a step anyway.
I didn’t rush.
That felt important. Like the ground might object if I did.
The light hadn’t left much behind. The lawn showed a shallow dent, the grass pressed flat and darkened, as if something heavy had paused there and then changed its mind. I followed it by feel more than sight, counting steps from the tripod, noticing how quickly the night settled back into itself.
Crickets.
A neighbour’s television through an open window.
Laughter, drifting in from somewhere that still made sense.
Whatever had fallen hadn’t announced itself to the rest of the world.
I crouched at the edge of the dent. The soil there felt cool beneath my fingers — settled, finished with whatever heat the day had given it. A few centimetres away, half-hidden by clover, something else caught the light.
The capsule was smaller than I expected. Dull, unmarked, no seams I could see — the kind of object that only looks important after you realise what it carried. It lay on its side, one edge embedded in the soil, still and cooling.
Something moved beside it.
I followed the motion and saw the being where it had come to rest, close enough to the capsule that it might have rolled there on purpose. Curled in on itself, pale in a way moonlight didn’t explain, shaped like something that had been prepared for gravity and found it heavier than expected.
It was smaller than it should have been.
I drew my hands back.
The pause felt dishonest.
I reached instead for the tea towel I’d brought outside earlier, folded over my arm for reasons I hadn’t examined at the time.
It fit easily in my hands.
That was the first problem.
The weight shifted as I lifted it, redistributing itself in a way that suggested intention rather than reflex. I adjusted my grip, instinctively supporting what I thought might be a head, a spine, something that wanted alignment. The tea towel slipped, then settled, folded into the shape it needed to be.
The being felt cooler than the night air. Solid, but thinning. Like holding something that was deciding how much of itself it could afford to keep.
I brought it closer without meaning to. My body made the decision before I did, arms drawing in, elbows tucking as if this were a habit I’d practiced before. The towel warmed slightly where it touched skin. Or surface. Or whatever it was that passed for skin here.
It shifted again.
Smaller this time.
The change was subtle, easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention. Fingers — fewer than before — curled inward. The length of it reduced by fractions, like a photograph being scaled down while you watched. The weight adjusted to match.
I stood there, holding it, while the sky above us continued its quiet subtraction.
It took a moment before it spoke.
Not because it was deciding what to say. Because speaking required a body that was still negotiating its own edges.
“You can put me down,” it said eventually.
The voice was thin. Older than it sounded. It arrived already tired.
“I don’t think you want that,” I said.
A pause. Then, very calmly: “You’re right.”
I adjusted my grip again, more carefully this time. The towel had warmed further, the fabric creasing where it had grown too large for what it held.
“What are you?” I asked.
It considered the question. I could feel that consideration, a faint rebalancing in my hands.
“Earlier,” it said, “I was someone who could finish the work.”
“And now?”
“And now I’m what’s left when a system fails gracefully.”
Another shift. Smaller again. The change travelled through it like a decision being revised.
I swallowed. “The stars,” I said. “They’re going out.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Maintenance ended,” it’s voice softer. “There was a review.”
That landed worse than anything else.
I looked up at the sky. Even without the telescope I could sense the absences now, the way you notice missing teeth with your tongue. “Are they coming back?”
“No,” it said gently. “They’ve been accounted for.”
I tightened the towel without realising I was doing it. “And us?”
A longer pause this time. When it spoke again, the voice had thinned further, words simplified by necessity rather than choice.
“You aren’t scheduled,” it blinked slowly. “This was a courtesy.”
The weight in my arms adjusted. Again. The being had reduced to something almost birdlike now, bones light, breath shallow, the shape of it rounding inward as if conserving heat.
“What happens to you?” I asked.
“I finish arriving,” it said. “Then I finish.”
I stood there, uselessly rocking on my heels, as if movement might bargain with scale. The capsule lay silent beside us, its purpose complete. The night carried on around us, neighbour’s television still murmuring, laughter rising and falling somewhere beyond the fence.
Above us, another point of light quietly resolved itself into absence.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because it was the only thing I had that fit.
The being moved once more, small enough now that the towel folded in on itself, excess fabric where substance had been.
“It’s all right,” it said. “You did what you could.”
I felt the weight leave my hands, the shallow rise and fall against my wrist stopping with it.
Later — much later — I went back to the telescope.
The sky was darker than it had been when I started. Not empty. Just reduced. As if someone had decided how much beauty was sufficient and trimmed the rest away.
I kept looking anyway, long after there was nothing left to find, holding the cold tea towel while the universe finished turning itself off.
My God, so beautiful. I loved the quiet and respectful chat and the soft sorrow, the resignation and understanding.
I just kept reading & saying whoa.....like this whispered prayer as I read. So cool!