Melting into the mattress, Marco's heart is so full of joy.
As he gushes about asteroids, the one thing I hear above everything else is:
I’m happy.
I’m happy.
I’m happy.
I saw the way he came to life every time he looked through that telescope.
I’m looking at him now the same way we marvelled at the universe.
“Tell me more about those nebulus… nebuli…”
“Nebulae,” Marco whispers.
Nebulae.
The word has never sounded hotter.
This dopamine bubble is the perfect buffer before he knocks on that door in Jundah.
So even though most of what he’s saying goes way over my head, I awkwardly repeat things I’ve read inside the brochure or on the walls of the observatory to keep the euphoria burning bright.
“Can’t believe we saw light that left Andromeda before humans existed. That almost makes us time travellers.”
“Right?” he grins. “That star cluster density drop off was wild. You could see the radial gradient pretty clearly. I didn’t expect that level of structure in the outskirts.”
“Neither,” I smile.
Note to self.
Googleradial gradients.
“That spiral was definitely showing density wave structure. You could see the arm definition even with atmospheric blur. That’s rare for visual resolution at that aperture.”
“Yeah?”
I stroke a slow hand across his back, and through his hair.
Smart boys make my heart beat faster.
And I haven’t seen him smile this much in weeks.
Planting a kiss on his cheek, I rack my brain for something else to say.
“I didn’t know that galaxies are actually billions of suns. Makes me feel kind of small, in a good way.”
“Like fire in slow motion,” he nods. “The cosmos doing calligraphy.”
He’s meeting me half way, phrasing it in Amos language.
Calligraphy. Inky patterns in the nebula.
I never thought of it that way.
“So it’s kind of like… those dust clouds are little star factories. But we're just seeing their ghosts?”
