A Girl Called Galaxy

By Julia Timlin

Danica is dying, whether she wants to or not. The problem is, she is starting to want to. Dani seeks death on the precipice of an observatory and while she hopes to meet its cold embrace, she instead meets Galaxy.   

In an attempt to unravel her life, the dying woman has fallen into the warmest embrace of a friendship she nev

• Language: English
• Publisher: Indy Pub
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869211439

Julia Timlin

Julia is a long time lover of words: written, spoken, or sung. Born and raised in Philadelphia through the chaos of a great, big, messy family, she spent most of her twenties traveling and gaining perspective on things known and unknown. Now settled in Southern California, Julia seeks to bring the worlds she creates in her head to those beyond her small circle.

Book preview

1

The old observatory on West Boulevard had always been Danica’s favorite place in the whole entire world. Nowhere else in her short existence had she ever felt so ethereal, and yet so insurmountably insignificant. Looking up at the great, vast space above her, she felt infinite and irrelevant all at once. She could spend entire lifetimes attempting to count each and every star in the sky and still come to find that she has missed a few million, but if she ever found that she had the time, she would certainly try.

Time never seemed to be on her side, however. Days were too short and nights even shorter, growing more and more so with every one that passed. She no longer enjoyed sunsets like she used to, having once found great beauty in the long, fiery fingers that ripped across the pale blue sky, bleeding out a deep purple and eventually fading to black. The seasons changing never brought excitement like she remembered from her childhood. Everything was brilliant in adolescence: so much bigger than her and indescribably unfamiliar. Her curiosity had been boundless. The thing no one ever told her about curiosity was that if she kept chasing after it, eventually, she would run out of things to be curious about. She knows that curiosity killed the cat, but never could understand why.

Danica thinks that maybe now, after 24 years of living a mundane and hellishly mortal life, she has come to terms with such a phrase. Curiosity killed the cat. Of course, it had! Curiosity is like cancer; too many things cause it and there is no cure. The only difference between curiosity and cancer is that curiosity is fun while it lasts.

The observatory staircase twists around the building’s central pillar, snaking ten stories high. Only those curious (and stupid) enough ever dared climb all the way to the viewing deck because the elevator that is supposed to take people to the top had stopped working months ago and no one had ever bothered to fix it, leaving the citizens of her small town without the boundless view of space. By that factor alone, it was usually empty. Danica takes the steps two at a time, her breath coming in heavy huffs by the third floor.

Maybe I’ll die before I even get to the top, she thinks. Wouldn’t that be a riot? Her head is spinning and pounding simultaneously by floor five and so she decides to take a seat on one of the cement steps. It is cold and makes her tailbone sore, but Danica doesn’t care. Her breathing is coming in sharp inhales and that’s all she can think about. That, and the thought that she may well pass out and tumble down five flights of stairs. It is comical to picture, and so, even as she wheezes entirely breathless, she catches herself smiling.

She considers herself lucky that she is alone in this seemingly infinite stairwell, relieved that no one can see her in such a state of fatigue. It is, of course, her own fault for pushing herself so much, but she will continue to blame the endless number of steps as she rises once more, this time, taking each individual step, one by one. The pap pap of her flat-soled sneakers against the concrete echoes off the stone walls and bounces back, ringing in her ears. She wishes she had worn nicer ones, selfishly and foolishly contemplating what people will think of her when they find her body in the morning. It’s a stupid thought, but it nags at the forefront of her brain until she has to address it.

Maybe the police will think I’m some sort of vagrant, her mind wanders aimlessly through thoughts upon thoughts as she nearly reaches floor eight. I certainly look like an angst-ridden, runaway teenager. She feels like one in a way, but she never fully admits it to herself. To do so would give her an opportunity to contemplate why she is doing this in the first place, and the last thing she needs is a reason to reconsider.

It takes all of her strength to push through the large metal door that opens out to the viewing deck once on floor ten. Her calves burn. Her lungs burn. It is as if flames have engulfed every single muscle in her body. She is sure that her feet would be burning as well, had they not gone numb and blistery just past floor seven. Taking her breaths in shallow, rattling gasps, Danica looks around. There is one employee, and he is standing beside the very expensive telescope in the center of the room. There is no one else on the tenth floor and maybe it’s cardiac failure or maybe its excitement, but either way her heart skips a beat.

The very expensive telescope, though not her reason for coming, is enticing and she finds herself taking short steps over toward it. The boy that is supposed to be keeping an eye on it is, instead, on his phone, scrolling and scrolling through some type of newsfeed she assumes. He isn’t exactly tall. Taller than Danica, sure, but Danica is smaller than she had hoped she would be when she reached her early 20s and practically everyone besides old ladies and children under the age of twelve are taller than she. She clears her throat.

Excuse me. Her voice carries through the empty room and makes her sound like a siren, bellowing nonsense in some deep-sea chasm. She is, however, too exhausted to feel self-conscious about it. The employee looks up, clearly startled by her presence and blinks away his confusion. Or at the very least, he attempts to, because when he opens his mouth, no words can seem to find their way to his tongue. Danica tries not to be impatient, although watching his dumb face grope his brain for a simple how can I help you? makes her want to smack some sense into him. She presses her tongue against the inside of her cheek to minimize her chances of saying something rude to him out of annoyance.

Yeah? The boy manages to spit out. He stuffs his phone into the front pocket of his khaki pants and clears his throat. What’s…uh, what can I…help you?

Jeez, this kid is about as articulate as a grape. Which she assumes aren’t very articulate. Danica raises an eyebrow at him and stuffs her hands into the front pocket of her hoodie.

Can I use the telescope? she asks, throwing a side glance toward the pristine looking piece of metal that stretches up and out through the skylight. It looks like some kind of existentialist piece of art in the way it seems to fill up so much of the open space in the observatory. The boy fiddles with his nametag and shuffles his feet nervously.

Um, well it’s 10 dollars for an hour, but uh, viewing ends at 11:30 so we can clean the lenses and stuff before morning. He digs through his pocket and pulls out his phone. And it’s 11:19 so you would only have like ten minutes… Danica chews her lip and huffs.

So, I can?

It’s 10 dollars for- She holds up her hand to signal for him to stop.

I get it. I’ve got like six bucks in my pocket, and I just want to look for a minute. That’s way more than it’s worth so… she gives him an expectant look, but he just stares at her, still confused. She rummages through the back pocket of her jeans and pulls out six balled up one-dollar bills, extending her hand to the boy. The attendant blinks slowly, silent and unmoving at first, but as if after a sudden change of heart, he reaches out and takes the cash without a word. Danica gives him a forced smile as she shuffles past him and unlatches the chain that is there to supposedly keep people from cutting through and climbing on the telescope. It doesn’t seem like it would do much, but it certainly is better at its job than the boy in the khaki pants.

The grand, silver telescope has a small spout that winds down to shoulder level for viewing. Danica’s previously forced gratitude shifts to genuine happiness, even if only for a brief period of time. She leans into the scope and presses her face against the cold metal. She shivers at its touch and then again at the sight before her. The vast openings of space fill her vision and cloud her brain. Stars upon stars burn, just in her line of sight and she can’t help but be awestruck by the wonders of the universe. She is so entranced by its beauty that for a moment, she forgets why she is here. For a moment, she wants to go home.

But that moment is gone the second she blinks and lifts her head, her eye leaving the nozzle of the telescope and catching nothing but the emptiness of the observatory once again. Her heart sinks. If she could only live every moment with nebulas in her eyes, counting the stars, maybe then she wouldn’t be so sure of her decision.

Danica lets out a low and heavy-hearted sigh, taking slow and agonizing steps away from the telescope, her sneakers scuffing the ground. She makes her way past the chain that separates her between the stars and the earth, past the attendant who she mutters an unconvincing thanks to and finally, toward the viewing deck. She is glad no one else is here. Telescope boy has his vision burned up by the light from his Android. He would be too caught up in closing the observatory to even notice that she would be gone. It’s a twisted relief. She doesn’t want anyone to stop her. Her headache starts to return, pulsing just beneath the surface of her skin right above her eyes, although it is entirely possible that it never went away, and she is just now noticing it again. If she is being honest with herself, Danica always has a headache. An unfortunate and ever-present side effect of brain cancer. She could never pinpoint any one emotion or situation that made it seem to vanish, for they were few and far between and just as swiftly as they would occur, they would slip away.

She finds herself leaning against the railing that is meant to keep onlookers from falling ten stories to their deaths. It is sturdy and it has metal bars that tower about a foot above her head. It must be good at its job because supposedly, there have never been any incidents revolving around observatory death falls. Not yet at least. Danica closes her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath, letting the crisp November air fill up her lungs like birthday balloons. It tugs at her hair, pulling the short, loose strands into knots and brushing them against her cheeks.

Alright, the little voice in her head beats against her temples. I’m ready. She wants to believe it, but to say that she does would be a lie and she doesn’t feel like adding lying to the list of sins she will be committing tonight. She shakes her head as if it will rattle around some vital endorphins to give her enough courage to climb the fence. It doesn’t. It does, however, worsen her headache, which, in and of itself, reminds her why she is here.

I am not cancer’s bitch. She chants those words maybe a hundred times to herself as she stands there, staring off at the city skyline. I am not cancer’s bitch. It helps to give her the push she needs mentally to start throwing her legs onto the fence. She thinks about her mother and stepfather. She thinks about her brother and her stepsister. In her head, none of them are begging her to stop. Instead, they all just look at her with a kind of sadness in their eyes that one would have when telling someone their dog has died. Her leg is almost completely over the ledge, her fingers gripping the metal bars tightly, so not to fall backwards.

Are you going to jump?

If her face could fall any shade paler than it already is, it does at that moment. With one leg over the banister and the other dangling behind her, Danica’s palms let slip the railing and she is plummeting back onto the viewing deck. She lands on her side, one leg sticking up in the air caught on one of the metal bars, and the other crushed beneath the weight of her shaking body.

Jesus! she cries out in astonishment. She checks blasphemy off of her sin list. The wild mess of her hair and hood cover her face enough so that she is unable see the person that belongs to the unfamiliar and unwelcome voice that had snapped her like a bungee cord out of her thoughts and back down to earth. The assailant lets out an airy laugh.

No, not quite. Danica scoffs, attempting to wretch her pant leg free from its constraint to no avail. But I can still give you a hand if you’d like? Aggravation swells up inside of Dani’s head, blood boiling with embarrassment as it shoots through her veins. She huffs, managing to tear her pants in a successful maneuver to unjam herself from the railing. Pushing her hair away from her face, she catches a glimpse of the one who had thwarted her plan.

It is a woman, most likely not much younger than herself and she is sat a few feet away on a short, plastic looking park bench that overlooks the skyline. Danica blinks in disbelief. How had she not seen her there before? She is too dumbfounded to say anything, feeling caught off guard and surprisingly overwhelmed with a wave of humiliation that starts from the soles of her shoes and washes itself over her tangled nest of hair. The first thing Danica notices about the stranger is her eyes. So brown and so very big that she can almost feel them scanning her ghostly pale looking face. The stranger blinks at her and tilts her head, waiting for an answer that Danica doesn’t have. Shaking herself into reality, she rises to her feet once more and brushes the dust from her hoodie. Clearing her throat, she can feel her head continue to shake and pound all at once, like it is some kind of war drum.

What are you doing here? is all she can manage to spit out in her unpreparedness. She hopes that it doesn’t sound as evasive and hostile as it feels in her mouth. Typically sharp tongued and quick witted, Danica is seemingly at a loss for words.

Stargazing. The woman’s answer is simple, and she gives her shoulders a slight shrug to make it seem obvious and as if to say, No duh. I like it up here. And to make matters worse, she adds, "What are you doing here?" Danica feels like she might stutter if she chooses to speak right away. Already embarrassed by her fall, she decides not to suffer any further and takes her time calculating a response.

I too, am stargazing. Simple enough, but not believable from where she is standing with her torn pant leg and frazzled expression. Honestly though, who is she trying to impress? This woman had caught her ready to jump to her death. Danica chews the inside of her cheek, hoping that it will deter her from speaking. Unfortunately, it does not.

I was going to jump off of the banister. Surprisingly, hearing the words come out of her mouth makes it feel so dramatic and she is hit by a rush of emotion that almost feels like an internal eye roll.

You would have died.

Yeah… That’s kind of the point. She doesn’t say that last bit, of course, hoping that she has already made her intentions perfectly evident. The idea of saying it out loud makes her cringe. Suicide.

Why do you want to jump? The wide-eyed, dark skinned stranger pushes for more answers and Dani starts to feel vulnerable, one of the things that she hates to feel most in the world.

That’s none of your fucking business. Her temples pulse violently when she raises her voice.

Oh, the woman looks away, out into the blackness of the evening and shrugs once more. Ok then. She doesn’t sound at all offended by Danica’s acidic words, which comes as a surprise to her. Instead, she remains just as calm and collected as she had from the first moment she spoke. It is, all things considered, situationally unnatural. The woman just continues to gaze up at the night sky and remains silent. Danica considers picking up where she left off on the railing but knowing that there will be someone there watching makes her uncomfortable. What makes her considerably more uncomfortable is the thought that this stranger might not even ponder trying to stop her a second time. She can’t quite tell if that would be noble or sociopathic of the bizarre stargazer, but either way, it doesn’t feel appropriate. Danica shuffles over to the bench.

She isn’t exactly sure what leads her there or why she feels the need to do so, but she sits beside the girl and stares up at the stars with her. A cold wind bathes the two of them in its icy breath and Danica has to pull her arms tighter to her chest in order to keep warm. She never expected going into this evening that she would need to be dressed warmly. She never imagined that she’d be walking home at the end of the night after the temperatures dropped.

What’s your name?

Again, the woman catches Danica off guard and makes her flinch. She sucks in a deep lungful of the brisk air and shakes her head in slight disbelief at her willingness to reply to this stranger.

Danica, she breathes. The two never break eye contact with the stars to turn and look at each other. It is bizarre but, Danica has to admit, she prefers it. Her unexpected companion is silent, as if she has to ruminate on her name before giving a proper response. It kind of annoys her and Danica can feel that eye-rolling sensation once again.

Can I call you Nica?

No. It is harsh, but it doesn’t seem to prevent her from continuing the conversation anyway.

My name is Galaxy. Dani has to physically restrain herself from laughing out loud. Instead, her suppressed laughter comes out as a half-snort, half-scoff that almost sounds as though she has swallowed her own tongue and she is choking on it. For the first time since she has taken a seat on the plastic bench, the dying woman turns her complete attention on the stranger.

That’s terrible, she tries to say without laughing. Your parents must hate you to have given you a name like that. Danica must admit, it’s kind of ironic to have met such a strange human with a name like Galaxy in an observatory.

Oh no, the girl called Galaxy defends herself. My parents love me very much. She is smiling a very soft smile that feels almost as genuine as it looks. Danica can’t bring herself to keep looking over at the other woman. She can feel her huge, brown eyes searing deep into the side of her face, as though she is trying to peel away her flesh and bones and see her brain. Jokes on her, however. Danica’s brain probably looks as ugly as it feels. She fidgets as Galaxy continues. It’s actually a nickname. On a regular day, Danica would roll her eyes and bury her head in her phone, making sure the world knew that her headphones were in and her attention was elsewhere, but considering the fact that she assumed she’d be in pieces on the sidewalk by now, she figures she might as well make the most of her time here.

What’s it a nickname for? she asks, turning away from the heavens and toward this strange Galaxy.

My full name is Galaxia.

Christ, that’s worse! she exclaims, casting her gaze upward once more. Galaxy’s expression doesn’t change as her eyes flit back up to the sky. This makes Danica relax a bit, as though a wall could be built up between the two of them and break their awkward air. Her only fear is that those wrecking-ball eyes will fix their sights on her and bust it down once again. Walls are Danica’s favorite architectural structure. So safe. So solid. So sturdy. In fact, Danica loved walls so much that she surrounded herself with them, the coziness of their existence allowing her to live in her own head. Alone? Sure, she was alone, but she was safe. Like a cat in a box, she was comfortably isolated.

Every wall had its weaknesses, however. This time around, they just happened to be sitting half a foot away. A pair of bright eyes that make her so incredibly uncomfortable, she can’t help but feel like crumbling under their intense gaze. Out of the corners of her own, Danica tries to get a better look at her park bench partner. She doesn’t dare turn her face completely, for fear of having it be misinterpreted as an open invitation to start talking again. Besides, looking at Galaxy was like looking at the sun; As ridiculous as it feels, Danica thinks she might drive herself crazy trying to get a good glimpse at this enigma of a human being.

She is tall. She can tell by the way her knees bend up so much as she sits, while her own shoes can just barely lie flat on the floor. Her hair is the same color as her eyes although it may be a shade or two darker. It springs out around her face and atop her head like loose, wiry coils. She looks like what would happen if you set a midnight sky on fire, or perhaps an autumn forest: her skin, dark like charred tree bark and her hair is the wild and brown layer of leaves that paint the sky with their jagged edges.

And just as though she has been staring into the fiery pits of the sun, Danica can feel her head start to pound and she has to look straight ahead one more. It is most likely from straining her eyes to the side for such a long period of time to catch sneaky glimpses of Galaxy, but the return of her headache signals an alarm in her brain that almost seems to laugh and say, Hey! You’re dying, remember dumbass? And of course, she remembers. It is the whole reason why she is here on the tenth floor of the old observatory on West Boulevard to begin with.

A sudden buzzing in her pants pocket snaps her out of her catatonic state of mind and back to reality. If she is being honest, however, nothing about her night has felt like reality at all; everything appeared to be moving on some parallel plane of existence and she had been floating through time or something. Reaching her hand down into her pocket, her fingers slide the vibrating phone out into her palm. She squeezes it tightly and pulls it in front of her face. Galaxy doesn’t seem to be at all disturbed by the copious amount of noise Danica feels like she is making.

The name that flashes up on the screen reads Mom with a small teacup emoji next to it. Danica frowns and slowly rises from her spot on the bench. She knows all too well that if she answers the call and hears her mother’s voice on the other end, probably dripping with concern for her daughter’s wellbeing, all hope of jumping over the railing and to her death tonight will be stripped away. The phone continues to warble against her palm. She could always throw it off of the viewing deck. The sudden and intrusive thought is finally pushed away, back into the dark depths of her mind as she heaves a sigh and slides the answer tab on her screen. With a heavy heart and a shaking arm, Danica brings the phone to her ear.

Hello? She has a habit of answering the phone with a question every single time, even though caller I.D is always one step ahead of her in answering that question.

Danica?! She inhales, letting her eyes close as she does so. She can almost hear the worry in her mother’s voice in the way that she speaks her name.

Hi Mom.

Oh honey! her mother heaves an overwhelming sigh of relief on the other end of the call. I know you don’t like talking on the phone but it’s well after midnight and I noticed that you had left your wallet on the counter and you weren’t answering any of my texts, so I got worried. It is true, Danica never liked talking on the phone. When she was a child, her grandmother had always used to tell her that the radiation from cellphones would fry her brain but now, she already has brain cancer. What more could a little radiation hurt? I know that you’re an adult and I shouldn’t worry about you so much but-

It’s ok Mom, Dani interrupts, hoping to calm her obviously frantic mother down just a bit. I’m sorry. I went for a walk, and I guess I just lost track of time. That last part isn’t entirely a lie. She had no idea how late it was getting.

Danica notices that Galaxy still hasn’t moved, not even an inch, since she’d gotten up and it makes her a little bit aggravated that she had stopped her suicide attempt for a girl who was so wrapped up in herself that she barely noticed anything else going on around her. How the hell had she noticed Danica and taken the time to reach out to her, if she could be so lost in space all the time?

It’s alright dear, her mother’s voice seems softer now that she has confirmed Danica’s location and is one hundred percent sure that she is alive and well. I understand. Sometimes you just need to get out and have some time to yourself. Danica doesn’t quite know how to reply. She moves toward the railing of the observatory deck and pulls her arms closer to her chest as another bitter breeze sweeps across her skin, sending chills up and down her entire body. I’m just glad that you’re ok.

Danica can’t tell if she’s more bummed or relieved that she is, in fact, ok. It seems morbid to consider that maybe she’d rather have jumped when she had the chance