Mercury smiled. I stepped to the side and gestured to the water. He hopped into the water, bent below the surface, then breached in a grand display. He combed his fingers through his hair and looked up into the sky.
“ You said these were stars?” He asked.
I swam to an empty spot by the other bank.“ Yes.”
Wolfram lay on his back, trying to mirror what I had done earlier. His head just barely poked above the water, his arms flapping to keep him afloat beneath the surface.“ Are they always out like this?”
“ No.” I replied,“ Wait until you see the sun.”
Mercury sat down on a stone submerged in the water, never breaking his gaze. Wolfram, too, kept his eyes set on the skies. I had looked up before, but now my head was clear. When I joined them, I found myself greeted by a tear in the void, milky white light spilling out from an open wound as old as time. Clouds of dust gathered towards the edges of the seam, then scattered away into speckles of twinkling light. Gods, when was the last time
20 TEMPO MAGAZINE— SPRING 2025