"The stars look very different today."

They stood together on the balcony, looking out across the Goblin Kingdom. The sky was lit with a thousand pinpoints of light as far as they could see, filling in the darkness with a brighter glow than either had ever witnessed before. But for as bright as the light above was, it was matched all the more by the light below; the light of candles left in each of the thousands of windows that decorated the Goblin City. If they squinted their eyes, they could even see the faint glow from the two cities closest to the Labyrinth; a glow that they felt certain they would see in every city in every kingdom in the Underground.

The darkness had been made as day; a final tribute to a departed King.

Sarah stood on the balcony, looking at the truth of Hoggle's words. They did look different. From this point on, they always would.

Hoggle looked up at her, a question in his eyes. "Was it you that did this, Sarah?"

The Goblin Queen closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of a night air thick with jasmine and dreams.

"I did." She said at last, her head tipped back toward the heavens.

"Why?" Hoggle asked her, gentle curiosity in his gravelly voice.

"Because, Hoggle," Sarah said, finally looking down at her friend.

Her lips were curled in a small, melancholy smile. As he looked at her, Hoggle could see an entire world in the glint of her eyes – centuries of love, eons of contentment, ages of joy – all entwined in the life shared between the woman and her King. Hoggle saw it all, and it was then that he started to understand. He nodded, placing a hand upon her own, and the two looked back out at the world stretched ahead of them.

Once again, Sarah's eyes travelled toward the heavens.

"Because he moved the stars for no one," she whispered. "So we moved the stars for him."

The King is Dead.

Long Live the King.


The first line of this text comes from "Space Oddity," one of David Bowie's best-known compositions.

It's been years - four, if you're counting - since I've posted anything to this website. I haven't stopped writing, nor have I given up on the story I started. But sometimes, life gets in the way.

Other times, it ends.

As a young scholar of popular music, David Bowie had a profound impact on the way I view music - it was through him that I first felt challenged to question what I believed to the boundaries between good and bad, music and noise, essentialness and frivolity. As a young girl named Sarah, the Goblin King's voice helped me grow into the person I am today - one who embraces the otherworldly magic and beauty that comes from unfiltered belief in what lies beyond, and Under, and Above.

I am so grateful and thankful to have shared time on this earth with a man who so profoundly changed the course of human culture, a man who caused us to reflect so deeply on the limits of what was right. What was needed. What was possible.

He was humanity's greatest work of art. And for that alone, he will be missed.