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Canvas - A Short Story by @jinnis

Canvas

By jinnis


When I was a child, stellar constellations fascinated me. Perhaps I should add that I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Back then, the night sky wasn't obscured by city lights and smog. Sitting on the veranda after nightfall, I listened in wide-eyed wonder to the stories my granddad told me. Together, we searched the lines that connected the tiny sparks in the sky to the form of Orion, the hunter. I learned early astronomers believed the sky to be a dome with pinpricks that allowed us to see the lights of heaven. Or that god hung the stars into the night sky to guide us through the dark hours.

Unfortunately, my grandpa passed away when I was six, and I lost my irreplaceable source of astronomical information. On the way home after his funeral, I remembered how he told me that the souls of the departed travel to the sky after death to watch over their loved ones. To know he was guiding me from up there helped me bear the loss.

Still, as soon as I could read, I studied the ancient myths. I wanted, no, needed, to know all about the stars and how they got in the sky. To my disappointment, I learned that the colourful stories connecting me to my beloved gramps were just legends.

I was disappointed. It broke my heart to know my grandpa-turned-star wasn't smiling down at me, and it almost destroyed my magical connection with the night sky. But then, my natural curiosity took over. If the stars weren't the souls of our ancestors and not the celestial forms of ancient gods, what exactly were they?

Physics class provided me with answers, but I needed to know more. I dedicated my life to the exploration of the stars, aware they were unreachable for a simple student of astronomy.

Then, in 1990, NASA launched the Discovery with a special freight. The shuttle carried the Hubble telescope to orbit.

Glued to the television, I followed the proceedings and saw my path outlined as clear as a highway. I wanted to operate that space telescope.

It took some time, but I got there.

The day I joined the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Hubble operations team, the stars seemed at my fingertips. I wasn't only amongst the lucky ones to see the incredible pictures the telescope caught first and unadulterated. In my new function, I also had a say in the research projects the team committed to. I had found my personal heaven.

Things got even better when I met Anthony at the party after relaunching Hubble. A crippling glitch obliged us to reboot the software. It was a nerve-wracking time for the team. When the new setup worked and the first pictures rolled in, we were all swept into a spontaneous celebration.

Anthony wasn't a scientist, but one of the IT specialists we called in for support. He had soft brown eyes, the warmest smile, and wonderful humour. A few drinks later, we hit it off pretty straight. Even after a single night, we knew we made for each other. We married a few months later.

Our strength was our diversity. Anthony was a brilliant programmer, but his genuine passion where the fine arts. He loved music, played several instruments, read poetry, and painted. I lived and breathed my science. The differences made our relationship special.

One night, I came home from the institute flustered and excited. We had managed to capture the birth of a star, and I couldn't wait to show the picture to Anthony.

He studied it, a smile spreading over his face. "It is amazing. A painting worthy of a true master."

"It's not a painting. This is unique photographic footage of the birth of a star."

"So you say. I call it a masterpiece of the creator."

Instead of fighting, we agreed to disagree, opened a bottle of wine and spent a cosy evening in front of the fireplace.

The next day, I sifted through the new batch of incoming images. Compiling the breathtaking pictures out of the raw data wasn't easy. Over the years, I had become an expert in manipulating the filters and pulling out the most promising material from the scrap heap. That day, I observed an odd disturbance in an otherwise magnificent series of the Orion Nebula. I fiddled with the filters, adjusted the parameters.

And then I saw it. The outline of the giant hand, holding a paintbrush, adding another supernova to the picture on the eternal canvas of the sky with nimble fingers.

Image credit: NASA/STScI  

Want to know more about the Hubble mission? Check out https://hubblesite.org

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