JULIAN

I don’t spend a lot of time utilizing all the amenities the building offers, but since the night is relatively warm, dry, and clear, I thought maybe I’d take Arush to the roof. We have a huge, thick blanket and there are heat lamps.

We haul out the cushions for one of the large, round chairs and curl up under the stars. I downloaded an app on my tablet that I can point at the sky and it’ll tell me what constellations I’m seeing and the stars that make it up.

It’ll also identify planets, any space stations that are moving by overhead, and, if I’m not mistaken, we should be able to see Jupiter tonight.

If I had to stretch the progression of our relationship on a line graph from when we met to where we’ll be in the future, I’m not sure where we fall right now. I think we’re still somewhere very near the beginning, where we’re still incredibly unsure about… everything.

There are conversations we should probably have. Maybe I’m afraid of those conversations heading in a direction that would bring this to an end. I’m not ready for that. I might never be ready for that.

Arush wraps his arms around me and somehow, I’m the one being held again.

It feels like I’m in this position more and more.

There’s something surprisingly satisfying about it.

About being the one cuddled and embraced.

Like Arush is a boundary between me and the outside world. I love to get lost in his warmth.

With the app open, I point it at the sky. I’ve made sure we’re primarily west-facing since that’s the direction we should be able to see Jupiter.

Orion is always the easiest for me to spot. There’s just something about Orion’s belt that stands out. Ah. There it is. So to the right…

“There’s Jupiter,” I say and touch the screen.

“But can you find it in the actual sky?” Arush asks.

I lower the tablet, keeping my eyes trained where they’d been, and let them adjust to something incredibly far away instead of the screen up close. Jupiter is supposed to be incredibly bright, but I’ve already lost it by the time my eyes are focused on the stars again.

Arush points. “There’s Orion,” he says, tracing the figure. “Move into Taurus and you can see Jupiter.”

“You know the constellations?” I ask as I try to find Jupiter in relation to Orion. I’m not nearly as adept at recognizing Taurus, though.

“Not all of them, of course. But part of the reason I’d my chosen career path into aerospace engineering is because I love space.

I’m fascinated by the stars and planets.

I feel like so many of the world’s problems could be solved if every caste or religion or whatever had their very own planet.

Then everyone can live however the crap they want and leave everyone else alone. ”

“Huh. That would be cool.”

“Think about it. No more border wars. No more trade wars. No more religious bigotry. Everyone can live in peace.”

“They’re always going to find a reason to go to war with someone,” I say. “For instance, who keeps Earth?”

“Quite frankly, they can have Earth. People are destroying it anyway. Enjoy your life sentence.”

I laugh. “Wow. You’re a little bitter.”

Arush’s lips touch my ear. “I’m not. Not really.

But think about the expansion of these religions that move around the world.

Convert by force or die horrible deaths.

I’m sorry, but that’s not exactly, one, preaching what they’re claiming is true in their holy texts, and two, not how they gain legitimate new believers in their faith.

But you’re right. Give them one world and they’re still going to believe that everyone else needs to live and breathe and think like they do, so they’ll try to take all the worlds. ”

He isn’t speaking particularly vehemently, but I can tell this is something that he’s definitely thought about on more than one occasion.

“So you want to colonize new worlds and give every religion their own? Every country?”

“I think it would be more difficult to make every country have their own and be happy. Look at the state of the world now. You simply can’t please an entire country.

But you can also see that there’s usually a pretty broad, but distinct difference between them, right?

You can call them blues and reds or rights and lefts, liberals, conservatives, radicals… So break it up how you will.”

“The worlds wouldn’t trade with each other?” I ask.

“I mean, maybe? But if you think about the world we live in now, we exploit different resources from all around the world and nothing off-world. In theory, you wouldn’t need to trade with other worlds. Everything you need would be right there.”

“But are you stuck on the planet you’re born into?”

“I feel like some regimes might try to enforce that, yeah. I don’t know. I haven’t worked out all the kinks in this idea.”

I grin. I’m looking through the tablet as we talk, watching the different constellations come into view as I move it around. I find Jupiter again and it takes me a few times to see it with my own eyes in the sky, but it’s super cool.

Arush’s hands cover mine and he brings the tablet further overhead in the sky. The Gemini twins are now overhead but then the distinct red dot further up is Mars. I grin.

“Two planets visible in the sky,” I say and try to find it without the tablet.

“The coolest thing about the sky is that ancient civilizations that the modern world views as less advanced have actually named so many important celestial bodies in the night sky. We rely on modern tools to navigate the world and all they had to do was look up, identify which constellations were in sight, and they’d know exactly where they are in relation to where they want to go. ”

“It’s definitely impressive,” I agree.

“It really is. I love watching explorer shows where we follow someone trying to learn about ancient lost cultures and the thing that kills me is how they’ve literally told you something in their pictures and language or however they record their histories, and modern society will just laugh and say, oh they’re imagining spacecraft or wormholes.

When civilizations thousands of miles apart all report the same thing and have no means of communication or interaction?

They’re all making up the same illusion?

Because people today can’t fathom something they can’t see with their own eyes. ”

“Wormholes?” I ask.

“Portals.” Arush shrugs. “I’m not saying they’re real, but the fact that people today basically say that our ancient ancestors lied in their histories always irritates me.

Like someone got together in 1000 BCE and said, ‘ Hey, you know how to confuse the people who will live 3000 years from now? Let’s pretend that we see this giant winged dragon-like creature.

You need to vary yours slightly, but here’s the blueprint to go off of.

Make sure you paint it on your walls .’”

I laugh. “Wow.”

“Then there’s the fact that people think that ‘ there’s just no way they had the technology to build this .’”

I’m still laughing at the way he’s mocking whoever ‘ the people ’ is in his altered voice.

“Like, dude. It’s literally right in front of your eyes. Clearly, they had the means to build it. And would you look at that? Thousands of years later, it’s still standing!”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought, huh?”

Arush sighs. “No, not as much as you might think. My friends and I used to watch archeology and explorer shows a lot while we were in school. Admittedly, I haven’t watched any in a very long time. I’m not sure why talking about the stars made me think about it.”

“Does it tie into why you decided on aerospace engineering?” I guess.

He hums. “Maybe? I’m not sure if they connect.

I do wonder if we found a planet we could survive on, were there other species and civilizations that came before me?

Then again, that brings me to another thing I like to mock.

The fact our scientists know without a doubt that you need three things to create life—water, air, and sunlight.

No, bitch. That’s what you need to create life on Earth for the kinds of life that Earth can sustain.

That isn’t necessarily the rule of life elsewhere for alien species. ”

“Do you think there are alien species?”

“Definitely. I think it’s rather arrogant of the human race to think we’re the only ones out there. We’re not that superior when we can’t even figure out how to stop killing our own planet—the one place we know for certain can sustain our species.”

“I love how passionately you talk about this,” I say, setting my tablet on my lap and resting my head back on his shoulder.

“I feel like it’s less passion and more annoyance at the arrogance our species harbors.

Like the spreading of European people into the Americas.

Yes, they did so by force and firearms, but I think if so many of the people already here weren’t devastated by the diseases the white men brought with them, history might look a little differently now. ”

“There are a lot of moments in history that had something shifted just a little bit, the world we live in would look much different now,” I say.

“Imagine if people had just minded their own business and carried on with their lives instead of trying to conquer the world,” Arush muses.

I laugh under my breath as I stare at Jupiter in the sky. “So what do you hope to accomplish in your career? What’s your driving force for aerospace engineering?”