The boy in the stars

by Orquideas en la alacena

Craig spends his time dreaming of the universe. Tweek lives in space, but every night he sits on the window of a hospital room.

The boy in the stars

"I lived on earth once. It was so many years ago that I don't remember anything. I was a baby." He says. His arm is leaning against the window frame, his shiny blond hair falling to the right side of his face, covering his eyes a little bit and making his nose itch. "I can only remember the moon, and she was so big!"

I move on the pillow because my back has been slipping for a few minutes now, and after several attempts I find a comfortable position to rest just fine. "How was it like?" I ask.

Tweek frowns, "about what?"

"The moon."

"I have already told you! she was big! She was so huge that she was all my eyes could see!" Tweek giggles and holds his stomach with one hand, or at least I think he does because he is still outside my window and I only see the upper half of his body. "And her voice Craig, her voice was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

As if it were something magical, the moon behind him shines brightly, as it doesn't do every night, and I see it so tiny that I can't imagine it as he describes it to me. The image entertains me, seeing the child of the stars playing in my window while behind him, like a mother, the moon observes him. My own mother is sitting by the door on a chair that she says is not uncomfortable, but that I know it is.

"-I heard her sing for what I thought was all my life, and when I woke up I saw her again, so huge, warm and bright, and all around me were the stars."

"And how are they?"

"The stars? Oh, they are all different!" He says excited, then he passes one leg over the window frame, and then the other, to finally sit on it. His skin is as white as the moon, and his hair as bright as its light. "Some of them are bigger than others, and some are quieter. Some can talk for hours and hours, and others are quite angry all the time."

"My first friend lives around a satellite, she's beautiful. She used to tell me stories about the Sputnik 2 and how she played with Laika, the dog. And she always let me sleep over her," he says. The smile on his face is small and pretty, and his hands looks delicate and don't seem to have any type of bruise adorning his skin. I squeeze the sheet between my hands and cover my lap with it. It's a bit cold outside the window, but I don't want Tweek to leave so I don't say anything about it.

"Your name soundslike the song," I say before thinking about it. Tweek turns his head a little, maybe not understanding me. I'm sure I've blushed. "That song that I told you about before, do you remember?" Tweek watches me with a small smile barely visible on his lips and denies with his head. I'm not sure if he's doing it on purpose or not, because I've sung it to him twice before. I lick my lips because I feel them really dry and squeeze the fabric again between my fingers. "Uhm, the one that goes like - like, twinkle twinkle little star."

Tweek laughs and for a moment I think he'll fall out the window, but he doesn't. "That doesn't sound anything like my name."

I frown, "Of course it does."

Tweek laughs again, runs a hand through his hair and rolls his eyes. "Well, are you already sleepy?" He asks. He changes his position again and now he is hanging upside down, his hands flat on the floor and his lower back on the window. His big green eyes turn to see the clock on the wall, "it's already one o'clock in the morning. The earthlings in this part of the world always sleep at this time. Or the majority."

"No." I respond, although I am sure that anyone could notice that I'm lying because the truth is that now I am always sleepy. But I still don't want Tweek to leave. "Keep telling me about the space."

"Uhmm, what do you want me to tell you now? I've already told you everything." Tweek takes strength and with his arms he pushes himself back to a sitting position on the window, now with both legs hanging on this side. He blows the hair out of his eyes and looks at me curiously. I wonder if the reason he comes every night is because he is as curious about me as I am about him. "You even made me ask how many stars are there in the sky, Craig."

"Tweek, have you ever met an astronaut?"

"Astronauts?" He asks thoughtfully, bringing a hand to his face where he pinches his cheeks without even noticing. "No, not that I can remember. But I met a spaceman once."

My heart skips a beat and I'm sure that my eyes have shaken off all traces of sleep and have bathed in new emotions, I know. Tweek swings his feet, but adds nothing. "And?"

"And what?" I'm about to yell at him and throw him my pillow so that he falls out of the window, but my mom shifts in her chair and I'm afraid she could wake up, discover us, and have a nurse take him out of the room. Then I decide not to do it, instead I speak in a low voice trying to control my annoyance. "What happened to the spaceman? Where did he came from, how did he got there? "

"Oh!" He says, barely noticing how interested I am for him to keep talking. He's kind of clueless, maybe it's because he grew up among stars, I suppose. "He came from here, from the earth! I talked to him only once, you know? He was a very busy spaceman. But that day, or night because up there doesn't exist any of that really, he came to talk to me. I think he thought I was an illusion or an ali – ali…"

"Alien."

"Oh, yeah, an alien, yes. You earthlings have such strange ideas about what's up there in the universe. But hey, he said he hadn't come near me before out of fear. I didn't understand how he could be afraid of something up there, but he was. "

"Tweek."

"Oh, yes, sorry! Well, he told me he was from earth, that he had built a spaceship himself and he had launch it from the attic of his house. I also didn't knew what an attic was, so I asked my mom if she could show me. I think that was my first time here on earth. Well, if we are not counting that time when I was born. Anyway, this man was quite interesting, much more than an attic. He told me how his ship went out of orbit and how it ended up crashing into a star. It was a huge conflict, the one of the star and him. Apparently the impact hurt her and his ship was broken. He was stranded for a long time and the star refused to help him, until one day an asteroid took pity on him and took him deeper into the space, to a comet. The comet was the one who took him to the moon, and I was there, Craig, looking for the first time at an Earthman. I was – I was –"

I turn to see him and inside his eyes I can imagine everything that he is telling me as if it was some kind of movie, and I can see him watching the spaceman. I can see myself in there as well, during the first time he visited me.

"Amazed."

Tweek nods, "Yeah."

"He was the one who told me about you and about this planet. I'm not particularly attracted to the planets' gravity, but maybe curiosity is stronger, I think? Anyway, I'm grateful because I've met you and - uhm, Craig? "

I open one eye. Tweek is still sitting in the window, both hands beside his legs, and his bare feet static in the air, without swaying. I growl and with difficulty I manage to move my body against the pillow. I feel heavy eyes and a yawn forming in the back of my throat.

"Craig, do you want to sleep now?"

"No."

Tweek frowns, "I think you should go to sleep, and I should be going."

"No, please don't go. Keep telling me about the universe," I ask still with my sleepy voice. Maybe I look pretty silly with my hair stuck to my face and the mark of the pillow printed in my cheek, but I don't care. Tweek smile and start to swing his feet again.

"Don't worry Craig, I'll come again tomorrow. Is there something important you want me to investigate for you?" He asks.

I could bet that my eyes have lit up, "could you ask what that guy's ship was made of?"

Tweek turns his head to the side, "the spaceman's' ship? Sure. Maybe the star still has it stuck somewhere."

I sit with effort and try to hold back a laugh of joy. I move the pillow so that it isn't leaning against the headboard of the bed anymore, and instead it is over the bed, as it should be. I settle and put my nose under the sheet, being careful to not remove the IV with the movements. "Thanks, Tweek."

Tweek nods and gets up from where he is, then he pass both legs to the other side of the window, where I still don't understand how he can be standing if we are on a third floor. "I'll go now Craig, but I'll tell my mother to bring me back tomorrow night. I'm very happy to have you as my friend. "

"I'm also happy to have met you." I answer.

Tweek licks his lips and nods again, then waves his hand in farewell.

"See you tomorrow night, Craig."

I correspond the gesture and blink, knowing fully well that when I open my eyes again he will no longer be here, but in space.

I'm going to sleep with his smile engraved in my mind, and tonight I dream with stars.

...

"Craig, honey, how do you feel?" My mother asks. Thirty minutes ago they have brought me to my room and only a few seconds have passed since my mother was able to come inside to finally see me again. I see the big dark bags under her eyes, and from the way she squeezes the fabric of her dress I'm sure I know how she feels without even asking. I think about saying "better than you, I suppose." But I shut up before doing it and instead I answer simply with a "tired." And that's the truth.

"The doctor said it would be normal during the first weeks, honey. But look, I brought you this Red Racer comic, your friend Clyde told me it's new and that you don't have it - well, here it is. "

I take the comic that my mother has in her hands and look at it, it is the number 152 and I already have it repeated twice back at home, but I don't mention it and instead I thank her. It's understandable, Clyde is a bit silly, but he grew up in the same neighborhood as me and he really doesn't have much excuse to be like that.

"Are you hungry? The doctor said that you could eat once you felt with appetite, I think they made some soup, and it's the one you really like –"

"Mom, what's the difference between an astronaut and a spaceman?"

My mother frowns, her chapped lips pressing against each other. After a few seconds, her eyes lights up and sweet features dress her face when she finds the answer. "An astronaut is someone who is visiting the space, Craig, as if going on a mission to explore it." She says, "Instead, a spaceman is someone who decided to stay up there, and is happy to discover from first hand what is in the things we all ignore."

"Did you know that a spaceman crashed into a star once?" My mother looks at me with some amusement and curiosity in her eyes.

"No, I hadn't heard about it before, honey, who told you?"

"My friend Tweek, he – No, no, I think it was a star."

"A star, you say?"

"I don't know, mom, I think it was in my dreams." I lie. I realize that again I am fiddling with the fabric of the sheets. I yawn on purpose, but soon I feel like yawning for real. "I would like to keep sleeping."

"If you're tired then do it, love, and when you wake up I'll ask them to get you some of that delicious soup, would you like that?"

I settle with difficulty and then I close my eyes. My mother approaches me and tucks me with the sheet, trying to keep it tight on me to protect me from the cold. I feel his lips on my forehead, but I don't pretend annoyance. Instead, I remain still and silent, as if I was asleep.

I hear the plastic chair complaining when my mother sits on it again, then all I hear is the beep of the machines that keep my heart monitored, and after a while, when I've gotten used to all the other sounds, I hear droplets falling every few seconds into the small plastic tube that sinks into my skin and then runs inside my vein.

When I open my eyes I swear that for a moment my room is dyed blue and not white, and there are bright stars adorning each wall and each surface. I tighten my lips trying to hold back a smile of excitement, because there are still many hours before its night and Tweek is still going to take a long time to return, and until then I cannot share my excited with anyone. I close my eyes and prepare myself to sleep for a few hours. I dream with comets.

Upon awakening there is a nurse changing the bag of saline solution that hangs from a tall, metallic tube. I watch her for a few seconds until she seems to notice me.

"Hi Craig, how are you feeling?"

"Tired."

The woman holds a hand to her hip while she finishes checking the monitor next to me, "I talked to your mom before she had to leave, she told me that you really like noodle soup, do you? It is also my favorite. How about if I bring you a big, hot bowl of soup then?"

There are stars in her uniform, many stars.

She snaps her fingers in front of my face, "Do you feel dizzy, have pain, some nausea?" She asks concerned, I turn to see the monitor and discover that my heart rate is a bit too fast. I try to calm it down. "I don't."

"I'm going to take a blood sample, okay?" I see her take a syringe out of a drawer and what appears to be a small belt, and this time I am very aware that the beep beep has increased. I try to relax. "You'll feel only a pinch, but that will not be a problem for you because you are very brave."

I turn to see the spotlights on the ceiling and try not to think about the blood that is coming out of my arm. It's not something new, they have done it at least a dozen times since I got here, but that doesn't stop making it less frightening. When I focus on the white lights I try to visualize the same stars that I saw a few moments ago, but I can't do more than hurt my eyes by looking so fiercely at the light. When I look away and return to my arm, there is a small button-shaped band aid stuck to my skin. "That's it, Craig, I'll take this to the lab and then I'll come back with that meal I promised you, okay?"

I nod and the nurse gives me one last smile before disappearing behind the door.

When I wake up again, Tweek is at the window.

"Why are you so full of cables?" He asks. I turn to see my arms but I do not find anything new in them, so I wonder if it's the first time that Tweek has notices them. "Are you some kind of machine, like in the movies?"

I frown, "do you mean like a robot?"

"Yeah."

"No. I'm not" I answer a little annoyed, I have got a headache. "And hey, how do you know about movies?"

Tweek blushes and shrugs, maybe a little embarrassed. "I've been visiting these other places while you sleep, you know?" His hands scratch the frame of my window, "Places they call theaters, museums, parks..."

"Are you not afraid that they could discover you're not human?" Tweek frowns.

"I'm human, Craig." He reproaches with accusation.

I growl in a low voice, "I mean that you're not an ah, - Earthman." Tweek seems to understand my point and ends up leaning on in the window frame. The moonlight enters through the window and illuminates everything around me. I then realize that my mother is not in the room.

"The truth is that I don't think anyone besides you can see me." He says. For a moment I remain silent because it is Tweek, and it is impossible for me to imagine that no one can notice him except for me. Wherever he moves, his hair, eyes and skin shine in that nice light, and behind him there is always the moon, as if she was taking care of him. Tweek refers to her as his mother, and I couldn't agree with him more.

"Do you feel alone up there?"

"In the space? Of course not, you already made me tell you how many stars I have per company!" He laughs, "But I'd rather be here, you know? With you. Everything down here is very curious, and you are the only person who can tell me everything about it."

"I would like to go to space someday." I say. Tweek seems surprised. Now his whole body is outside the window, except for his elbows that are placed on the frame, and he rest his head on the palms of his hands. "Did you investigate what I asked you?"

Tweek nods and extends his hands, showing me pieces of something brown and worn out. "Rope?" I ask without understanding.

Tweek nods, "Yeah, rope, I guess." It looks like he's going to come into the room, but at the end he stops and remain outside. Instead, he saves the remains of the rope inside his pocket. "There were other things, but as he passed through the atmosphere they fell apart like the clouds on my skin, boom, like stardust. He also told me that you have to be very brave and have a lot of faith for it to work. And although I couldn't bring the rest, Craig, I'm sure we'll find a way to build your spaceship."

I look at him with credulity, "are you going to help me?"

"Of course, I don't want you to crash into a star, so who better than I to guide you?"

"Thank you, but it may not be necessary to build it," I say, "because when I finish my astronaut career, NASA will ask me to work for them, and they will give me my own suit and helmet, and of course my spaceship. It's going to be great Tweek, I can already imagine it. "

"Will it be blue?"

"Why do you think it's going to be of that color?" I ask.

Tweek blushes and runs a few fingers through the blond strands of hair, and then says "Well, I think that you like that color a lot." He looks at me as if waiting for me to say something, but when I don't, he keeps with his explanation. "The first time I saw you, you were wearing that blue hat, and when I saw you enter through the door of this place, you were also dressed in something blue."

"They were my pajamas." I interrupt. Tweek nods.

"Also the balloons next to your bed are blue, and so are your eyes." Tweek looks around the room, as if looking for more evidence to support his words.

"Using your logic and what you just told me, then your favorite color is green?"

Tweek giggles with one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen and nods. "Of course it is!"

Although my head hurts the more I do it, we both laugh, and at the same time I don't think about it and the pain doesn't hurt me that much. Even so, the pressure behind my eyelids is strong, and I can half hear the sound of my blood running through the arteries in my ears at the same time that the beep beep of the monitor is present. Tweek is again sitting on the window, swinging both legs in front of him.

"So you're going to be an astronaut?"

I feel proud and smile. "That's right, and I'll be the best of all."

"But you are going to visit me, right? I mean, when you grow up and finish your career and have been hired by that NASA thing, right?"

I roll my eyes, "Of course I will, Tweek, if not, who will take care of me so I don't crash into a star?"

I see Tweek smile, and suddenly on his skin begin to appear small stars. Once he realizes that I am looking at something in him, he also turns to see his own arms. When he looks at his stars, Tweek ends up screaming and falls out of the window.

"Tweek!"

As I'm about to try to get out of bed to help him, he reappears, sticking an arm inside the room and pulling himself until he have half his body inside. Tweek watches in horror the dozens bright lights illuminating his skin. "And this?"

Then something catches his attention away from his body and turns to see the walls. When I follow his action I realize that they are all covered in stars, as if we were in my room and these were the plastic stars that I put on the walls two years ago. "Wow"

Tweek nods at the sky that the room has become, "Wow." He turns to me again, "Craig! You never told me you could do that!"

"I'm not doing it."

"Of course you are doing it! I mean, I can't - not that I know." Tweek turns to see his mother as if asking for an explanation, but if she answers something or ignores him, I can't tell. Tweek returns to see me.

"How did they get here?" He asks in amazement. I am amazed too. From my position in the bed I observe with curiosity the little tube that connects the saline solution to my skin, and where dozens of stars are swimming. The figures seem to be made of only light, a lot of light, and they all illuminate the room completely.

"It's like being in space," I say, surprised. Again my eyes return to the window, to the child of the stars, and to the moon behind him.

Tweek laughs, "It's like being at home, yes."

Suddenly, the stars stop being funny because something new is embedded inside my brain, like a meteorite, and the pain and the disaster it causes inside my skull is unbearable. I close my eyes and put my hands to my head to cover my eyelids with force. I hear the blood pulsing inside me, and over it I also can listen to the noise caused by the machines and it is increasing and accelerating, following the beating of my heart. And no matter how much I tighten my eyelids or cover my eyes, my vision is full of lights.

"Craig?" I hear Tweek's fearful voice.

"Craig!" I hear the scared of someone else.

I wake up again.

No matter how many days have passed, I still cannot get used to the bright light and the white walls. I don't know where I am, maybe it's because I'm still disoriented by just waking up or maybe because I haven't been here before. Little by little my eyes stop hurting so much and I can observe my surroundings with greater clarity. I'm in another bed, in another room, and the first thing I discovered after that is that there are no windows to the outside here.

There is a person dressed in white talking outside with my mom. I frown. My mother is dressed in a blue coat and disposable shoes, with a mask and an ugly hat that completely covers her blond hair. She is crying. The person right next to her is dressed in a similar way but with much more white, and seems to be explaining something to my mother because she is drawing in some documents in her hands. If I wanted, I could get out of bed and go ask them what's going on, but I'm really tired. Now there are two bottles hanging from the same metal tube, although they drip at different rate. In one of them I can read that it is an Infusion, but that, like the rest of the things that happens around me, is meaningless.

My mother enters the room a few minutes later and she is no longer crying, but she may as well start again at any time if she wanted. This time there is no plastic chair next to me and she have to settle for standing next to the bed. "Hi sweetie, how do you feel?"

My mind thinks of answering with "tired", but nothing slips from my mouth and I just end up shaking my head. She nods and puts an arm around her ribs. I see her squeeze the fabric tightly between her fingers. "It's okay, baby, the doctor says you should rest and soon you'll be fine, okay? And we will be able to go home. In fact, we'll throw a welcome party for you and we'll invite all your friends, would you like that? "

Token and Clyde arrive to my mind, and yeah, I would very much like to see them. The days at the hospital are boring and I really do not have much company besides Tweek's and hers. I nod with difficulty.

My mother smiles at me and covers her mouth with her hand, as she does when she is about to cry; but she doesn't. I would like to tell her to do it because she always says that one should never hold back tears. "Then it's a deal, you recover soon and I organize the best party of all, with pizza and video games, darling."

I bet that if it were not for that mask blocking her lips, she would have kissed my forehead a thousand times by this time.

When I see Tweek again, it's until two nights later.

"What is wrong with you?" He asks.

"Many things," I answer heavily. The machine next to me sounds calm, and I would like to ask myself how true my words are.

"What things?" He insists. I turn my face to the left, to where he is sitting on the window. Tweek looks as bright as every night I have recorded him in my memory.

"I - I do not know," I tell him, and it's true. Maybe if my mother had the guts or if the doctor understood that it is necessary to tell me what is wrong with me, they would have done it. But it's not like that, they all walk around me and talk about how brave and strong I am, but nobody tells me what I'm fighting against. "I do not know, but yesterday I heard them talking and - and I think there might be something in my blood? In my brain? "

I hope Tweek can tell me if he, with his powers of someone who doesn't live on this planet, knows something. But Tweek only makes a thin line of his lips and is playing with his hands at his lap. His green shirt moves with an invisible wind, and his hair flutters between themselves. "Something bad?"

And since I'm anxious to talk about this with someone, I do it with Tweek. I nod quickly and listen to my monitor speed up, as it does my own breathing. I feel something ugly and cold clenching at my chest, and I think that maybe it's that bad thing they've been talking about. "They said something about an infection in my body, something bad that is traveling in my blood and could reach my heart or my brain, and I think that -" I say as I shake my head trying to point to the second bag in the iron tube, "- that is something to prevent it from reaching those places."

Tweek nods while looking at his hands, as if he understands what I'm saying. I wish I could believe he does. "Do you think that the reason why the stars came the other night was because of those bad things?" He asks.

I look at him in confusion, "Why do you think that?"

Tweek swallows and puts his green eyes on mine, "Because when I've felt bad or something bad has happened to me, the stars have always approached me to comfort me. Then I feel better."

"As if they were trying to help you?"

"Helping me, yes."

"I haven't thought about it before." With my eyes I scan the entire room, trying to find a lost and left behind star or one who has decided to stay with me, but I don't see any; Instead, I can only see Tweek sitting in my window, shining as he always does with the reflection of the moonlight behind him.

"Tweek, have you ever felt scared?" I ask. He puts a hand to his face and rubs his cheek, thinking.

"I don't think so, or not that I can remember," he says. I turn again to see the white ceiling above us and I rest my two hands over my stomach. A different sensation from that one of a few minutes ago nests in my chest, and I gulp with difficulty. I don't have the need to cover my mouth with my hands, and maybe that's a small difference between my mother and I. Then, Tweek speaks again.

"Although maybe - maybe when I lived on earth." I look at him and wait for him to keep talking, and once he understands he does. "The thing is that space is a very quiet place, Craig. There are not many bad things by which one would feel bad up there. There is no fear, nor is there pain as you feel it here. But here on earth all of you earthlings are always running away from something, with a lot of burdens or worrying about things that make you so curious to my eyes; but in the end I do not understand you. And bad things happen up there, of course, but we never think about them too much, much less wait for them to happen. They just exist, just like us. Like that spaceman's ship, remember?" he says excited to have found a metaphor that both of us can understand, "like, his ship crashed into that star and it hurt her and diverted her a bit, but at the end the crash didn't destroy her or caused more than a small crater. And anyway, if that had broken her, the star would have turned to dust and even then she would still be there, Craig, being beautiful. And that's enough. "

I swallow hard at the same time that a small drop falls from the saline solution bag, and another one goes under my skin and enters my veins.

"Tweek, I think – I think I will not be able to study to be an astronaut and be hired by NASA."

"What? why not?! I'm pretty sure you would be the best astronaut anyone has ever seen. They have to hire you, Craig!"

I wait for Tweek to finish talking in that exasperated way of his, so I can do it myself. It causes me a bit of laughter that he is so easily upset. "Tweek, Tweek, you have to listen to me."

"I think I can't be an astronaut, but I would still like to be able to go to space to check that you are not exaggerating and that everything you are saying is real."

"Of course it's real!" He says with annoyance. Then, his expression becomes doubtful. "But, Craig, if you're not going to be an astronaut, then what will you be?"

"A spaceman," I answer with confidence in my voice and my chest full of pride. "And I'm going to need you to help me build my ship." I add with a half-smile. Tweek's face becomes even brighter, if that's possible.

"We're going to have to get a lot of courage, Craig!" He shouts excitedly, and for a second I'm afraid that someone will hear him and discover us. "And I will have to ask with what other materials we can replace those that were lost when I was trying to bring them here! Oh, Craig, I'm so happy! I promise that once we are up there I will introduce you to my first friend, to comet number six and seven, and to the stars of that beautiful constellation that you have shown me!" Tweek makes small hops still sitting on the window, and I would like to ask him again why he can't come inside the room. "I'm so excited, I'll even tell my mother to sing that song for you once we're there!"

Tweek laughs and his laugh is so happy and so full of light that I can't do anything but laugh with him. Now he is hanging upside down in the window, and from my position I see his belly having spasms because of the laughter. His hair and skin shine brightly, and I'm sure my smile does too.

"Mom." I call her once I see her wake up. There are big dark circles under her pretty eyes and her lips are chapped, but even so she looks pretty when smiles and see me.

"Good morning my love, how are you?"

"Tired, but not so much," I tell her truthfully. She gets up from her chair and walks up to me, and I can see that the smile in her mouth reaches even to her eyes, which shine brightly, as if they were stars too. "Mom, do you think space is nice?"

"Outer space?"

I nod. My mother seems confused with the question, but gives in under my curious gaze. "I'm sure It's very beautiful, Craig," She says at last. Then she bends down and begins to fill my forehead and cheeks with kisses, and I cannot do much more than laugh because it makes me tickle. "But you are way more beautiful."

She pulls the chair right next to my bed, facing the window "Why are you asking?"

I take a deep breath and hold the fabric between my fingers, "Just curiosity." I answer. My mother doesn't seem very satisfied, but she doesn't insist on the subject. Instead, her face lights up when she seems to remember something, then she sinks her hand between the things in her purse and pulls out something wrapped in a plastic bag. I recognize it immediately.

"The doctor has given me permission to bring it to you, Craig." She says as she removes it from the wrapper. It takes only a few seconds for her to put it on my head and another two seconds to accommodate the pom poms of yarn that hang at the sides. "There you are. Now you look even more beautiful, sweetie."

I twist in between her arms when she gives me another kiss. "So, can I keep it?" I asked with fear because it was one of the first things that they forbidden me to have when I was first admitted at the hospital.

"Yes." she replies happily. Then she seems to think better about it and quickly adds "Or at least until the doctor changes her mind. You know how weird they are here. But for now you will have that stubborn head of yours sheltered from the cold. "

"Thanks Mom."

"Don't thank me, love."

"Mom, do you think that one day I will be able to go to the stars?" My mother returns to observe me with some kind of feeling that I wouldn't want to understand, but that I do at last. I also feel sad that we live on earth and that I make her feel that way with my questions.

She swallows and then nods.

"Of course I do, Craig," she says as she takes my hands in between hers. "I'm sure about it."

I watched a TV program that was about space once. In it they talked about something called the Big Bang and how it had been the event that started it all. They said that at that time there was nothing or no one, and that there was a big explosion that cause all of this, all of us. They said how the planets, the asteroids, the nebulas, the stars, and also the big satellites, like the sun and like the moon, started to form from the materials that existed in that early space. A big explosion that could have been the end but that really was the start of something much bigger.

And then I had many questions beyond what I normally had in terms of space, and one of them was how they were so sure that this big explosion had happened if no one was there. The other question, a little less exact or perhaps too complex to fully understand, was how I, being a small child, have the same origin as a star. The last question was if we would have then the same destiny in the universe.

I didn't understand then and maybe I will never fully do, but that night when Tweek came through my window for the first time, I knew it was not necessary to do so. I also understood that, perhaps, my life had been a universe of its own.

The space is a very big place and is so full of things. Maybe you could think it's empty and very cold, but it's nothing like that. The space is full of comets, planets, of spaceships that crashes and of gases that resemble the clouds of the earth, of bright lights that form constellations that at the same time form figures, according to the earthlings. Of suns and moons, and also stars.

Especially stars.

Tweek takes my hand in his and asks, "Craig, are you afraid?"

I swallow and look at everything I have in front of me. All of that. Then I take his hand in mine too and squeeze hard, unable to look away from the moon, which is so bright and huge. I turn a little towards him and say, "A little bit, but it's understandable."

"And it's because I lived on earth once."