It’s a perceived darkness. A darkness you know is not there, but cannot see past with your eyes. Only with your mind. A darkness that hides the unknown, the distance that fascinates all those who have ever looked up with curiosity.

I remember a magical night in my grandmas garden, far away from the city lights. My cousins and I were looking up at the sky, and I remember it as more light than dark, the stars closely dotted together on a deep blue night sky. It all looked so far away, so mysterious and chaotic.

But my uncle showed us the order in the chaos. The human mind always looks for rules and patterns, even in the stars. He showed us the North Star, and from there how you can trace the Big Dipper. Suddenly those seven stars weren’t just random fairy lights scattered randomly in the sky, they had a place and a purpose. The sky made a little bit of sense.

What amazes me is how few people will ever actually be up there, among the stars, in that space between the stars. That space which from down here looks so small that you could stretch out your arms and have one star in each hand. The vastness is incomprehensible.