The Universe

It was so dark outside. Harsh and unforgiving. The stars had been scrapped off and in their wake black voids and soulless eyes. 

She sat on the roof and looked up into the mass of charcoal rubbings. How she wished she could take the sky-the universe- in her hands and throw it into the dryer with some fabric softener so that it would come out forthcoming and innocent, like a child's blanket. 

Oh but the sky was a child's blanket once. It comforted her at night when the stars and the moon came out to sparkle and perform. But all that was gone, as if all the stuffing had fallen out of the very old, and very dark sky. 

It used to be brighter, too. So full of life and character. Like a blanket that was dragged around from place to place; like a tourist taking pictures, gravitating towards essences of prominence and emulating that of a strange and wistful reassurance. 

But now it was a rag; harsh and falling about. Years of work and fate and destiny all turned to rubbish and are being picked apart by the wind. 

It was hard; knowing that something once so wonderful was now haggard and faux. 

It was hard for knowing that her childhood was no more. 

It was, in equal parts, the universe. Once so charitable and kind, the next, ravaged and gone until she to could feel anything but cold and devoid. Her childhood, once a baby blanket now a scrap she used to scrub her body until it burned and she could no longer feel the water. 

How she wished she could just strip apart the universe and patch it into something anew. A soft cozy quilt maybe, of ever prospecting encouragement. 

"Yes," she thought, "How fine it would be to have a quilt and start anew."

And as her eyes began to droop and the pills began to roll, she dreamed heartily of a kinder universe, and a soft quilt to break her fall.