Eclipse
by Erin Hamill
My notes were scribbled in shorthand, smeared from my hand
rubbing against each word just after my pen touched the paper.
Black holes are the cold remnants of former stars, the last evolutionary
stage in the lifetimes of enormous stars that had been several times more
massive than our own sun. When giant stars reach the final stages of their
lives, they often detonate in cataclysms known as supernovae. Such an
explosion scatters most of a star into the void of space but leaves behind a
large, cold remnant on which fusion no longer takes place.
I set them aside and continued to rummage through old folders and
notebooks from my college years, hoping to clear out the attic enough
to make room for the dresser and pullout couch from the guest room.
Brooke wanted to make the room hers, a room where she could write
while looking out the back window into the yard. I made a space large
enough to fit both pieces of furniture and headed back down the steps,
grabbing my notes on the way down.
“It’s perfect, thank you,” she said quietly, running her hand along
the new desk I had bought for her last weekend. “I can see everything
outside.” She smiled and sat down, gazing out at the trees lining the edge
of our yard. I bit my tongue, afraid I would say something that would
upset her, and slowly backed out of the room.
As I walked down the hall, I noticed my notes from the attic, dusty
and a bit smeared, but still legible. With every intention to throw them
out, I carried them downstairs and opened the trashcan. One of the
notebooks, a red one with a comet drawn poorly on the front, had a
phone number written in the bottom left hand corner, under “Made
in USA.” I smiled at the handwriting, hurried yet perfect, and set the
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