Did you know that the stars always die?

More than one each year, more than one each day, more than one each minute. Thousands and thousands disappear within a single second, buried in a multitude of celestial yet decrepit tombs at the edge of the cosmos.

The sky, which towers above the eyes of mortals like an endless ocean of stars, is just the magnificent funeral of those immense yet disheartening creatures. They lie encircled all around the world like a crystalline frame.

How, specifically, does a star perish? How does the entirety of its light dissipate, how does its enormous power, until then able to reign over the order of the void, fade away? 

There are two different ways. The first and the most common, is that time erodes its might, eating away at its power. The star suffers and waits an eternity, like a candle that slowly sees the wax beneath it dissipate.

The second happens way less. The star just explodes. With all the light and energy left, it devotes its life to one last majestic show, cheating youth for a split second. For a second, that star becomes the center of the entire galaxy.

It sacrifices itself for that moment. Nothing else awaits her afterwards. There is no afterwards.

I always thought, from the poverty of that barn I lived in, that if I ever became someone really important then I would go out with a bang. In fact, I'd have gone out with a bang no matter what! I was never one to die slowly.

As it turns out, though, my end will not be exactly as I had wanted it to be. But so much has changed these days and I am no longer that little girl I used to be.