A visitor your descendants will meet and a eulogy for the man he will kill.
My boyfriend and I spent last spring out west. We had a few items to check off our bucket lists, but the most important for both of us was kissing in the desert on a night lit only by the stars. We picked a date with a new moon and headed off, hanging a right and heading straight towards the Milky Way.
Interstate turned to highway, and highway turned to dirt. The mountains guarding the horizon grew no closer. I stopped on cracked earth and switched off the car. The headlights faded, and the starlight remained. We got out, crisp nighttime air making me shiver. I opened the car's liftgate, and we sat. My boyfriend draped a blanket around our shoulders. I put my head on their shoulder and looked up.
The points of light we'd seen our entire lives in the city had become lamps, and the black space between them became glowing speckles. It was even more breathtaking than I imagined. I closed my eyes for a moment.
When I opened them, I saw shadows cast by a full moon. Confused, I looked around the sky, expecting to see a lunar disc that I knew was on the other side of our planet.
I noticed Canis Major curling its lips and pointing it ears forwards. I followed its line of sight and saw a new point of light outshining even Sirius. It was indeed as bright as a full moon. I glanced at my boyfriend, who was also transfixed on this visitor. I grabbed their hand and squeezed it. They squeezed back.
It's been several months since our trip, and we've been too busy lately to appreciate the stars. I look up at the sky tonight. The stars are rarefied, drowned out by the glow of the city. I try to pick out the constellations through the light pollution. Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka. Orion's belt. I pick out Rigel, Bellatrix, and Saiph, forming the corners of an hourglass around it.
Wait. His shoulder is missing. There's supposed to be a reddish point of light. Where's Betelgeuse?
Then I remembered the spring and the spotlight we'd seen. That point was Betelgeuse's dying breath as it went supernova. The moments before that light appeared were the last time we would ever see Orion. He was a hero to the Greeks, a shepherd to the Babylonians, and a god to the Egyptians. Orion was—despite everything—a constant throughout all of human history.
And now, he was gone. Like the Romans, Babylonians, and Egyptians, he, too, had become a memory.
