I wonder if there's a problem. When I look on my Hand-Speller, the thing malfunctions. I can't turn it on again. My star must be hurting. The wiring must be all off, the touch screen has gone berserk, and I need to go to the shop to fix it. This is our newest methods of communication, razor-fast, more than what any old phone can handle.

There is a queue for the repair shop on the busy-packed street, and the people brush past me fast, their coats and their dogs do. Everyone packed in the honeyed lanterns like praying mantes, you don't notice a single individual face. That way, the line of people shortens rapidly.

The guy about my age behind the counter has a touch of midnight under his eyes, and I'm not surprised given the line outside. He takes my Hand-Speller, tries to activate it, shakes it, presses for ten seconds, listens for five, and heaves a small sigh.

"You should've taken it to maintenance more often. Usually it never completely dies down without a single signal left."

"What do you mean? Lots of people go without maintenance for years."

"They're lying. They're always replacing them but not telling anyone, to pretend they have this really special connection to their star."

I eye him incredulously.

"I mean it, I know what I'm talking about."

A Hand-Speller is a device with a thin, glass screen in the middle and has four metal extensions, one on each side, rounded at the top. You use it to keep track of your star. I'm not sure I need to tell you where stars are. All the way over there, alone when your eye can't watch them over. I get a headache. Not just for my star, but also by thinking about how much it'll cost to replace this. Hand-Spellers aren't a luxury, they're a necessity. Sure, phones still work, but these things are divinely fast and give you solutions for your most specific questions with 99 percent accuracy.

"All right." The price list above the register is mocking me in five digits. "But are you sure there is nothing I can do about it?"

The guy spins the machinery around in his palm before he answers.

"What year was this made?"

He must be having a laugh with me. It's obvious that this thing isn't exactly up-to-date.

"Around, well– I don't know. My sister gave it to me."

"That's what the initials are for?" he asks. Another thing about this guy, he has a voice like fresh snow falling. His words dissolve into a space beyond his sentences, even with the tinny music blaring. "R.I," he mouths.

"Not exactly." I change my mind. If I add a bunch of sentimental value to my device, maybe he'll do his utmost best to have a look at it again. "I mean, yes. But she changed names. She got married. She gifted it to me when she moved out, in fact. Very far away. It was almost like she wanted to give me her star, you know. But you can't. So this is the closest thing I have to my sister now."

He nods, and starts inspecting the extensions more closely. They have gold-coated ends, with a special metal underneath for your star to pick up on.

"The Stops seem to be intact. I don't know, I could..."

"That's good news, isn't it? Could it still be repaired?"

He peers over my head to the dwindling queue behind me. I had walked in near closing time.

"We're closing in about twenty minutes. If you don't mind waiting, I'll pop it in the machine after the last customer. Can't do it immediately, though, I'd have to power up that thing and keep everyone waiting."

                               *****

I take a seat in the waiting room, the light of the chandelier sprawled over the shop's interior, and I worry about my star, what the dark of space could do to it in the meantime.

The guy lets the blinds down and dims the lights, save a couple of neon display lights. He gestures for the door behind the counter.

"I'm all done here. Let's go have a look at it."

He opens the door up into a workplace room. I have never seen one of the Hand-Speller repairing machines in real life.

"Really, thank you for making some time."

"That's okay. My coworker is out sick, so I'm not keeping anyone late. Jacques, that's the owner, wants us to leave together to make sure that no one steals equipment, I suppose. We've had some cases of that in the past."

I hand the guy my Hand-Speller. He takes it with a smile. And a yawn not short after.

"So today's an exception?" I say.

"That's right. An exception."

He places the device into the drawer and boots on the system.

"Takes just a sec," he says while leaning with his elbow on the machine and facing me.

"So your sister's initials are on there, huh? What do they stand for?"

I feel a pang of embarrassment. Now I'd not just have to fabricate a life, but a whole name for my sister too.

"Renata. That's the R. And the I of course, well– it doesn't matter."

"Right, I don't even know your first name," he says.

"Oh. I'm Maud."

"I'm Rayyan. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

The machine gives a beep.

"It's all ready, I'll just take a 3D scan now, so we can see if there's anything wrong with the internal structure."

I look on the screen, I don't see any alarming ruptures or anything, but the middle of the device isn't lighting up like you would expect it would. The centre is powered by a gem. He gets a close-up of the core and hums.

"There it is, I suspected that. With the newer models, you never get complete energy depletion. We'll need to change the gem."

"How much will that be?" I ask.

"Well," and now he turns from the screen to me again. "This is an R.I."

"R.I. are the initials, yes," I hesitate.

"No," he laughs. "That's the name of the model. R.I. It's a series."

"But I never see anyone's Hand-Spellers having initials on them, except mine," I protest.

"I know what I'm talking about. You have a model that's practically ancient. Come on, you already knew that those weren't initials, didn't you? 'The I doesn't matter'."

I briefly close my eyes. No use pretending and dragging myself further down in my own made-up argument.

"No, but it was a fun story, wasn't it?"

Rayyan chuckles and gets back to the screen, zooming in even further.

"I'll have to hunt down a gem that can fit this, but I can make it work. If you bring it along in a couple of days, I'll fix it right up."

"That'd be amazing. If it's not too much of an issue."

He takes out my Hand-Speller and scrutinises the R.I. inscription for a second.

"Don't worry. Getting to work on old tech like this? I'd let the world stop moving for that."

                                *****

Rayyan keeps his promise. Days on days I have to miss my star, despair, despair, until I get the fated text. I had to free my old phone from the dust, and once again I realise how much better Hand-Spellers are. I feel like a character in a twenty-first century novel, checking my phone every few seconds to see if I receive a notification. Normally, you would use your Hand-Speller for texts of course. Everyone is connected through the network of stars, so now no one can reach me, except those who haven't thrown away their old phones yet. What a nuisance.

It's near closing hours yet again. No other customers are here this time. Christmas Eve, family time.

Rayyan's eye bag shading has gotten darker. I see he's the only worker again.

The gem is ready on the table. Fluorite, the brightest, bluest crystal-blue. It hurts my eyes just looking at it. He takes out a screwdriver out of his chest pocket, and inserts the gem into my device.

AND THEN:

there's, what I hear is:

I hear a crash now,

I hear a crash in the shop;

there's a very definite crash and,

my star has fallen down.

Dust, scraps and wood piled down on the floor. Rayyan coughs up a storm as he moves through the debris. I know it's my star that has plummeted down, because it hurts.

"What the hell just happened?" he exclaims.

I approach the epicentre of the accident. At first, I don't understand why we're not blinded by a monster of light, but my star is tiny. It's laying there listlessly, in a feeble glow.

"Too long without my Hand-Speller, that's what happened," I say.

He shakes his head.

"That's insane, that can't be the reason. Or we'd have cases like that all the time, I know what I'm talking about."

No, I don't know of any news story of someone meeting their star, and especially not through burglary and demolition. People would soon come hogging the windows alarmed by the noise, the police would show up, maybe even an ambulance, but what would they do with a star in a hospital bed? They would do tests on it, they would take it away forever.

So I run out of the door to warn the people that nothing has happened, that it's a mere particularly heavy rainfall that has wormed through the roof.

The cold whacks my skin. Although, there's something different about it. If you've ever known immobility, say, a puddle of rain on the road after the water has ceased falling; if you've ever seen a cluster of movement laying quietly down on the ground, then you can imagine this too. Nothing moving. All people half-mouthed, their legs in angles not unlike the second-hands of a stopped clock, the stoplights across suspended in orange, and most unusual of all: the snow

                        *   *                  ***         *  **               *

      ***        *   * **           *         * *        *      *

                     * *        **           *           * **          **

frozen in the air. Little white crystals having staring contests with each another. And I can only move closer to a person and make absolutely sure that they aren't all just playing a gigantic trick with me. But not a muscle moves, people's breath lives in front of their mouths without dispersing or disappearing.

I seek out a snowflake, the neon lights from our shop illuminate them in an unnatural blue, and bring out my hand. It should melt.

"Maud!"

The doors bursting open breaks me out of my trance. I can't fathom that a door or a voice should ever be so noisy. All around us is absolute quiet.

Rayyan's footsteps crackle on the light layer of snow as he gingerly approaches.

"Maud," he almost whispers, "you're seeing this too, right?"

"Yeah, I am. Nothing is moving."

The snowflake I've brought my finger towards doesn't even melt. It remains a little speck of coldness.

"Is this a dream? Have we inhaled too much of that fluorite?" he says. "Oh god."

Every snowflake I touch is absolutely stuck, completely steady. I put more weight on my finger, my whole wrist, my entire arm. I try to put my boot on a low-hanging one.

"How peculiar," I mumble.

"This is a nightmare, we should wake up. Normally you can if you stay still really hard, I know what I'm talking about."

Rayyan then stays still really hard, his eyes closed tight.

"It doesn't work!" he despairs.

"Try a snowflake."

"What?"

"Come on." I put my boot fully on the snowflake, and hold onto one above me with my hands. I climb a little higher, everything feels secure. However tiny they are, they feel as if I'm climbing the ledges of a rock. "We can climb them."

Rayyan stares at me.

"That's insane. We'll fall."

"No, we won't. Not if we're going with a purpose."

My tech worker friend approaches one of the miniature snowballs to have a try at them too.

"What do you want to do up so high?"

"Put my star back. The poor little thing is dead weight down here."

"We have no idea if that would actually work," he disputes.

If the snowflakes trust the air enough that they stay in its embrace, then the firmament up above should have no issue with it either.

"But look at this, Rayyan. If we stay, nothing will happen. It's scary out here, see that man's wave? He's waving at someone who can't wave back. And we'll have to keep looking at that the whole time. What's the use of that?"

My friend shakes his head. Then ensures that the snowflakes are really staying in place too.

"All right. All right, this is giving me the creeps. I'll get your star, it's only right to return it. Just a second."

"And the Hand-Speller too!" I yell after him. "We need the coordinates."

             *****

It's impossible to time our ascend, the only thing I'm aware of is the street and the city, then the country and the world getting smaller underneath us as we mount up. We're breathing crisp, precisely formed air. Rayyan has my star in his pocket, while I take out my device every so often to check if we're still going the right way.

"Maybe we'll even come across your star," I say.

Rayyan collects his breath before he can answer.

"Let's just focus on this task first. It's a miracle we haven't bumped up to the clouds yet."

"And we can almost see space."

We're moving up into the inside of a lampshade, it seems like. It something that only looks real if you make an effort to draw your eyes inside of it. My friend starts laughing.

"Space. Actual space. This is... I should have just told you that R.I.'s are deadbeat and can't be saved."

"Maybe. But I kind of like how we're so far away from everything."

A small shriek. Rayyan almost misplacing his grip.

"Damn, if I'd known I had to climb the skies tonight, I wouldn't have lost sleep to stand in for my coworker again."

"You do that often, don't you?"

"Yeah, I have to, with us being one of the only shops around. There are always last-minute emergencies, all the time. And I need all the extra money I can get."

I nod.

"Even in the few days that I didn't have mine, my star was all I could think about. I don't think I could live without it."

"And none of us fully could, I know what I'm talking about. I live off people living off their Hand-Spellers."

With every inch of space that we leave between us and the world, we keep climbing closer to the greater space.

                          *****

The snow has stopped, and we're standing on top of the clouds now. Our heads half in the stomach of the cosmos.

"How do we..." I look on my device. The coordinates are still showing, and the path we need to take is fully mapped out. But the thought of moving through space makes we a little wobbly on my legs.

Rayyan sticks my star out in the dark above us. Out here, the light sparks into a much brighter glow. His features contrast sharply with the wideness around us.

"Do you know what a customer once called their star?"

"No, pray tell."

"A life buoy in space. A life buoy, like in the sea. So what I'm thinking, since there is nothing for us to climb on, we could swim."

"Swim?"

Sadly enough my companion might have lost his wits before we have arrived at our goal.

"Yes, swim. This time, I get to come up with the crazy ideas. Come on."

And he starts making swimming motions with his arms.

"You've lost it."

"Watch me."

Then, Rayyan really does take off into the shadowy ceiling above us. My star crawls along with him, an assuring lifeline to follow. I don't want to get left behind, so my arms start swimming too.

There is so much space.

                         I check the coordinates.

We're a little off so

                     I catch up to Rayyan,

       to lead the way.

There! Is just more space

                           and 

here too, is space

           until we've reached some more and yes

     and finally!

Rayyan bumps into me

standing still,

           now at the place

where my star should go.

I hope this is right. When I take our only source of yellowy un-dark out of Rayyan's hands, and I stick it where the coordinates tell me it belongs, we will lose our guide.

"Rayyan, I feel like I've made an oversight. How do we go back without my star?"

He frowns. His expression doesn't loosen when he looks at the way we've come from, impenetrable and steep.

"Your star is probably the only thing that can get us back."

"Of course it is! We'll get lost. I knew we would get here, because we had my star. But now..."

I think of all the people down on earth, stuck. Still. Puppets, props.

"What if we've made everything stop moving forever?" I say.

My star is rushing my blood together in my hand. I must have made a great, grave mistake.

Rayyan shakes his head.

"That's impossible, I know–" Then he stops. He must be very tired after swimming this long, I am too. "Well. I know what I'm– Actually, I have no idea what I'm talking about."

He starts swimming in a circle around my star's home spot.

"I always find a way to repair a Hand-Speller if it's broken. Maud, you must understand, I've repaired hundreds and thousands of them, I always knew exactly what they are and what to do. Now I've climbed up here with you, to the stars, which Hand-Spellers are for. So how come I actually don't know anything about them?"

"We need them, that's all I know."

"Me too."

"We always follow them, so far below, back at home. We check their status. See if they're still giving us energy, light, power. So we must need them, right?" I ask again.

Rayyan hesitates. Then is silent.

"We do, right?" I repeat.

"It's my whole livelihood," he says then.

"And it's my whole heart. I always feel like it hurts when I'm not looking."

I peer at my star, peer at its glow. It hasn't looked more alive anywhere than here.

Then I think of the gem in my Hand-Speller that Rayyan placed there for me. The very brightest bluest fluorite. It might be the only way. I start opening up the casing of my device, but I need the tool.

Rayyan says nothing, he fishes his screwdriver out of his chest pocket. I think he's understood too.

With the blue gem in our hand, our way down is clear.

My star is back in place now, and my Hand-Speller out of function. This time, somehow, I convince myself it doesn't need to hurt.

Me and Rayyan swim down, holding onto to the earthly light.

word count: 3055