Wednesday June 29th, 2016

The exercise:

Write about: the observatory.

Busy busy morning at the bakery. I do believe the tourists have arrived.

Sounds like there will be two of us out front right from opening tomorrow, which should make a huge difference. I'll probably still need a coffee in me before we unlock the door though.

Mine:

As the blinding light of dawn drew steadily nearer, the man in the faded blue jeans and threadbare sweater wrote hastily in his notebook. With one eye seemingly glued to his telescope the words were messy and (he would later discover) illegible in places but he could not tear himself away from the view.

In the distance the phone in his office began to ring. Again. The man paid it no heed. Again.

His discovery had been made hours before, an object orbiting a distant sun in an expanse of space he had studied hundreds of times. Somehow, though, he had never seen this planet before. This Earth-sized, Earth-shaped, Earth... like object.

Was there life there? Life like ours? Was there someone there, right then, staring back at him and pondering the same questions about Earth?

Impossible to know. But so very tempting to imagine.

At last the man's writing hand began to cramp so badly that he had to put his pen down. But he continued to stare at this mysterious, intriguing object until the sun chased the night away, obliterating his view. A sudden sadness overcame him then, more powerful than the one that typically accompanied the ending of the night.

Would he be able to find it again? Or was it lost forever? What if it was only visible once every twenty years? Would he live long enough to make that discovery?

His phone rang again. The man turned his head and contemplated answering it. Then, slowly, stiffly, he lay down in the makeshift bed on the floor, and tried to get some sleep before the dark joys of nighttime returned.