The Stargazer's Scrapbook

By Esther Lac

If you could tamper with your memories and rewrite them in your favour, would you? It’s actually a rather easy thing to do.

Memories aren’t made purely from our interactions in the physical world. When we muse with our imaginations, we’re creating memories, too. When reality and fantasy intermixes over time, how can you d

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Feb 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643453613

Book preview

The

Stargazer’s Scrapbook

Esther Lac

THE STARGAZER’S SCRAPBOOK

Copyright © 2019 Esther Lac

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Stratton Press, LLC

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in the work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-64345-360-6

ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-64345-361-3

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

To Heather Coco and

Irene Pankonin

Thank you both for challenging me to write, and in that process, to discover and rediscover how much I love doing it. As educators, you never stop enriching the minds of the young people you teach, and your passion encourages them to take leaps of faith for the sake of learning and growing. Publishing a book had always been an amusing thought to me, but certainly not one that I took seriously. You both took my writing seriously before I ever did. And for that I want to thank you.

-Chapter One-

Everything was black around me. I willed my hands to reach out, but I couldn’t see or feel that they were even there. It was as if I was stuck floating between the state of waking and dreaming. In a sense, nightmare was probably a more appropriate term, but even that didn’t fully capture my experience. In my nightmares I had arms and legs and I could run as fast as I wanted or scream as loud as my voice would let me. Here in this space, I all my senses abandoned me. Then a wild thought emerged in my mind, prodding me to finally open my eyes. I was confused. Hadn’t my eyes been opened all along?

I felt a cold poke on my cheek, its source was from somewhere beyond the darkness that I could see. Then, a voice called my name from that same beyond. I tried to answer to no avail, so I just listened to what the voice had to say next.

Open your eyes, Lisanna.

I saw light.

My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the sun that was peeping through the car window. I rubbed them a few times and then took my mom’s hand as she guided me out of the car.

Don’t fall behind or you’ll get lost. My dad warned. We were nearing a building I’d never seen before, and my dad’s pace was faster than I was used to. I forced a hurried sprint to catch up to him. Just a moment ago my mom was right beside me, holding my hand.

When did she let go?

I followed my parents down narrow white hallways. Our trek through the building was tumultuous and never-ending. Sometimes we turned left, sometimes we turned right. I made it my little game to guess which direction we’d go, but there was no pattern they followed and with their sudden changes of heart each time we neared a door or corridor, I settled on the fact that reality had bested me at my own game. I gave up and decided to scurry behind them, sometimes shifting my focus to the tiles on the ceiling. Everything here looked bleached white. It was so remarkably white that I believed there had to be at least one misfit square that defied the tiling convention of this building. My second game turned fruitless quickly and I lost the will to keep looking.

Now facing forward, I gently massaged my neck the same way I always saw my dad do. Certainly I’ve had longer and much more tiresome journeys before, but not one quite so mysterious. Our final destination was being withheld from me, and despite my curiosity, I could not bring myself to ask why we were here or where we were exactly.

Lisanna, don’t drag your feet when you walk. My dad scolded me during one of his regular glance checks to make sure I was still following. He pointed to the floor behind me. I turned and saw the faint grey scars my boots left, contrasting with the bleached white of the floor. It was as if I was defiling the place we were in. Instantly, I felt a pang of guilt and turned back to rub the scars away with my heel one by one in a futile attempt to restore whatever purity my dirty shoes had tainted.

Forget that, come here. My mom grabbed my right hand and pulled me away before I could scratch off the rest of the markings. I allowed her to lead me without resistance as I watched the dirtied floor blur in the distance, eventually too far for me to see anything but white all around again.

Our sudden stop took me by surprise. The only thing that prevented me from walking straight into