A week they had sat up here on the moon, trying to catch shooting stars. Constant had caught three so far but had let every one go.

‘Why?’ Jerico asked him. ‘Why do you let them all go?’

Constant shook his head regrettably, importantly.

‘Not bright enough,’ he said, ‘I want mine to shine.’

‘They do shine,’ said Jethrow, ‘they’re shooting stars!’

‘There’ll be more.’ replied Constant, slightly bored.

Jerico spat off the edge of the moon. ‘Well if you don’t want ‘em, give ‘em to me, dammit!’

Constant snorted. ‘You nuts? They’re mine.’

‘But that’s why we come all the way to the moon,’ said Jerico, his voice an octave higher than normal, ‘to catch shooting stars! And you’re letting ‘em all get away!’

‘Easy for you to say,’ said Constant, brushing stardust off his hands. ‘Catch some first and see if they fit to your liking, then give me an earful. And a shooting star ought be caught, not got.’

Just then another star shot by. Jerico grabbed at it but missed. Jethrow lunged and nearly fell off the edge. Constant snatched, a master painter capturing that moment just so.

Jerico: ‘You better keep that one!’But sure ‘nuff Constant turned it over in his hands, then released it. It shot off into the Galaxy to make some romantic sap on some earth gasp in wonder and make a silly wish.

Jethrow thundered. ‘What the hell was wrong wit that one?’

Constant shrugged. ‘Needed some colour. – Wanted some colour.’

‘I would have kept it!’ Jerico nearly screamed.

Jethrow said quietly: ‘Its light was so bright… it didn’t need more colour, Constant.’

They sat in silence swinging their legs over the edge, waiting on more stars and enjoying the lilting song of the space faeries. When they got too close Constant tried swatting them away.

‘Stupid faeries.’

The faeries got annoyed and ganged up on him. Bunching up behind Constant, they started pushing him in the back. Constant twisted and fussed, trying to swat them away. They managed to push him off the edge and he hung there, fingers scrabbling.

‘Here comes a star,’ said Jethrow and jumped up to wait, face that of a childs outside a treat shop window.

Jerico hopped up behind him. ‘You can do it, bro, this is your star!’

Jethrow leapt up, high and sure. He caught the star clean and true. ‘I did it!’ he cried. ‘I did it. I caught a shooting star!’

Jerico patted him on the back, both of ‘em grinning like idiots. ‘Nice catch, bro! You did do it!’

Constant sniggered below from his precarious hold on the edge of the moon. ‘Bit small innit?’

‘Oh shut it, Constant,’ said Jerico, ‘He caught a bloody star. You on the other hand, pardon the pun, are hanging off the edge of the moon. And that ain’t no good place to be.’

‘Help me up!’ cried Constant, the space faeries kicking him in the eyes.

‘I’ll help him up,’ said Jethrow. ‘I see another star shooting this way and I’m betting its got your destiny entwined within its own, Jerico.’ He put the pulsing star in his pocket and gently pushed the irritated faeries away. Jerico got ready to catch.

Jethrow heaved. ‘There you go, Constant,’ He said, pulling him onto the surface, ‘you dumb-ass.’

A star catcher leapt. A star catcher caught. A star catcher made out with destiny.

‘I got it!’ Yelled an over-the-moon Jerico. ‘I bleeding got it!’

‘Sweetness!’ cried the star catchers, ‘sweetness in a jar.’

‘Oh whoop-dee-doo,’ muttered Constant, dusting off his trousers. ‘Wait till you see the one I get.’ The other two looked around the Big Wide Galaxy, shivered a little.

Jethrow said: ‘It’s gotten awfully late, I wanna go home.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Jerico, ‘I’m hungry. I wanna go home too.’

‘Ye pair ‘o bloody pansies,’ spat Constant. ‘I ‘haint got one yet. I ain’t going home wit’out one.’ They stared at him.

‘You had four,’ growled Jethrow, ‘Ye flabbergasting swine!’

Jerico prodded said swine in the chest. ‘And let them all get away!’

Constant flung up a finger. ‘There!’ he said. ‘That’s the one I wanted! Lookit, it’s beautiful.’

Jerico shook his head. ‘Uh-oh, Constant, that’s not a star.’

Jethrow started getting ready to duck. ‘It’s a bleeding comet!’

Multi-coloured and sparkling fierce, the comet came charging towards the moon. Jerico and Jethrow threw themselves down. The space faeries scattered. Constant leapt at the tiger of the universe, exulting in his good fortune. With a whoosh and a flash, the comet burned past the cheek of the moon in the blink of a fairy eye. The two star catchers, dazed, looked around for their friend. But he was gone.

‘Come on, bro,’ said Jethrow quitely. ‘its time to go home.’

Jerico shook his head. ‘Poor Constant.’

Far, far away, in a lonely place where only comets pass through briefly, a voice intoned at his spirit-shoulder: ‘Tsk tsk tsk.’

Constant turned to face Father Death. ‘You see a comet pass by here, Father Death? It’s mine.’

Father Death did not answer and Constant followed his darkest eyes down to an ocean below them. He could see the bottom of that ocean and it looked quite shallow and bare. ‘What’s that there, Father Death?’

Father Death chuckled reproachfully. ‘Why Constant,’ he said, ‘Don’t you recognize your own soul?’

One Response to “A Star Catchers Tale”