It was a night. You could say, like any other. Or you could disagree. No one would care. The rain had just fallen. Splattered from the sky, painting with black velvet. That smell, the smell of a fresh and clean beginning hung in the air, its intoxicating scent one that could neither be properly described nor trapped in a jar. A black cat sat on the roof of a slanted building. You could say it’s funny how all these stories have black cats. You could laugh and say it was usual. But nothing was usual here.
For some odd reason, night is when all interesting things happen. As the moon disappeared behind a cloud, casting a whole different light on our world of shadows, something happened. See, one thinks of darkness as silence. But interestingly enough, darkness is quite loud if you pause to listen.
So, something happened. It was a man. Although he was neither normal nor abnormal, he was rather large. A giant you could say. Big as a building, really. And even though lately, giants aren’t considered people, he was a person. There was no dramatic music, just the loud cursing of someone forever left unknown on the street and the yowl of a cat. Some stranger’s car backfired. A father snored loudly in his bed. You can’t blame them for missing this, how could they know?
Regardless, light on his feet, he crept. But I’ll let you in on a secret, he was searching for something. On his back was a burlap sack that hung large enough to hold the entire building that our black cat was sitting on. His movements slow and steady, like the tortoises at the zoo (for he had nowhere to be late too) he stretched his hand out and grabbed a star. A star? You ask. And I shush you for you really must be patient. With a scowl, a tinkle, and plink, he dropped the star as one drops something terribly lovely, into his sack. The vacant spot in the sky was clearly noticeable, or at least to me it was. The cat agrees.
So he walked, his movements deliberate and lazy as he continued to grab at the stars in the sky until the moon yawned and walked down the stairs into its bed and the sun, after having carefully tucked it away in a rather fluffy fleece blanket, marched out into the sky to pour itself some coffee. He picked and picked, like you and I pick blueberries, greedily shoving a few in our mouths, because really, why wait to put them in the basket? He picked until even the cat stopped being still.
Just as the sun began to brush its golden hair, the Giant (we can call him) snuck away from the cars and towards the mountains and forests away from the city’s noise. He liked the forest, the trees knew him and he felt accepted in their green lights. Dropping his sack to the ground, Giant, held the tips of the burlap bag until all the stars had been spilled over the grass, wet with dew. They were all different. Some large, some small. Some were brighter than others. But most were simply very tired. And they were all covered in soot.
He reached his gnarled arms into the bag once more. Never leave a bag half empty, his mother used to say. Slowly, lethargically, he took out a toothbrush. The stars sighed with relief as he began to brush their chaffing scales with strawberry scented soap.
“How are you today?” he said quietly to them.
And the stars simply blinked. He knew they could speak and chose not to.
“My night has been rather uneventful,” he smiled a quiet smile. “The cat has changed his watching spot. Did you notice?”
No answers. He kept scrubbing.
You must be wondering why the stars were so dirty. A long time ago, the stars had shone like bright revels. There had been no electricity, and so the night was the time when the Moon ruled as Queen and they her Lords and Ladies. They watched over the world as it slept and the world studied them and their mysterious ways. But they were young, young and ignorant. Without the electricity, the stars simply imagined the people’s world below to be a great swelling sea of kindness. But soon enough, the people began to invent candles and then oil lamps and soon the stars could watch the people. With horror they realized that people were unpredictable creatures, overrun with many things that were certainly not kindness. And as their importance faded, but they continued to watch, the stars began to choke on the wickedness and hostility. Sparkle by sparkle they were stripped of understanding and caring. When the Giant came to be, their lights had almost gone out.
And so, he scrubbed. Gentle, but firm.
“There, that’s better, isn’t it?” he said, gently laying a star onto its back.
The star twinkled bitterly and didn’t even look his way.
And as his conversation limped on, immensely, uncomfortably, one sided, the Giant began to feel very sad and lonely. Sometimes one of the stars would take a breath as if it was about say something but then it would squint lightly and realize that the Giant was a Giant and not a star.
After a while, this made the Giant tired, as if someone was tugging his smile into a dark frown. Then the poor peaceful Giant got angry. In his anger, he remembered how terribly off the stars had been before he came along. In his anger, he stopped caring. With an exhale of disgust, the Giant dropped the star he had been cleaning to the ground and stood up.
“I have helped you all every night,” he addressed the stars, his voice so rough and commanding that even the trees turned silent to listen. “Every night, I have come. No thanks, no reward,” he paused, hoping someone would stop him. “But now I’m done. And I shall remain done,” he looked around. “For a very very long time.” And he marched off. And he left them all lying there, instead of returning them like he had done for ages.

That night, the stars lay on the forest floor and not in the sky. The night was dark and rainy, the clouds curtaining their empty spots. Once more the cat sat on the slanted house, for it had gotten quite used to such an activity and cats, just like humans, seldom break old habits. It waited as the clock struck 12. But the rain continued to fall and no Giant was in sight. It waited as the clock struck 2. Dum… doll… dum… doll… it sang. The cat sat all night. And the Giant never came. And the stars were never seen. And never missed.
That morning, the stars were in a jumble. The forest floor flickered with their lights.
“We must call back the Giant,” one of them, a large and prickly one who only shone on some nights, said.
“No. We can not and we shall not,” said a giant red star named Aldebaran who was part of Taurus the Bull and loved to be stubborn.
But none of the stars really had an opinion, and nobody really liked the Giant so nobody said anything.

The next night, the cat came out onto the slanted roof again. It sat and watched. At the same time, in a dark planetarium, an old whitened astronomer peered through his telescope, its lens trained on the sky. He squinted at the darkness and scratched his head. Something was wrong. Then he stepped back and shook his head. “Stay awake now Filius. No use getting all strange now,” he whispered to himself and looked again, his eyes straining to see what wasn't there. With a harumph, he walked to a sink and drank a glass of water. Then took a deep breath. “Where have they gone?” But nobody knew. And nobody but the cat and the astronomer noticed. Because nobody cared about the stars anymore.

The forest was astir with chaos. The trees, slow moving and thinking, had finally begun to understand something was wrong. Where was the Giant? Together, they called upon the wind to fly around the world searching for him, and so the wind rode off on the grey stallion called Storm. The stars watched in wonder, silent for once, if never again.
“What are we going to do?”
“The people must be missing us terribly!” They cried.
“Someone will come.”
“We cannot wait for a savior. We must act.”
“Act how?”
“Call the Giant.”
“But he’s a Giant.”

It had been days since the Wind had send word from one of the far corners of the earth. And without the Giant their lovely scales were cracked and withered. And without the Giant their lights got dimmer and dimmer because that’s what happens when you stop being important to anyone but yourself.
It was around this time that the Wind returned, dejected, his stallion spattered with mud and wheezing. And the stars begged, beseeched, insisted, that he return them to the sky. But the Wind laughed, a cruel and derisive laugh, because he who blew warmth spread cold also, and rode off.
Then the star Gemma of the Corona Borealis called a conference. And this was clear to be her last conference for her light was very dim. And all the stars began to cry. So even though some stars were large, some were small, and they were all different shapes and colors, their tears were the same. They raised their voices to a dark and sonorous voice and called to the Giant. Their plea, so full of the thanks that had never spoken, was loud and pitiful, reaching the farthest corners of the earth. Though it was just a whisper in the Giant’s ears, it reached him just the same.
The Giant took mercy on the stars and returned. But everything had changed. In his wanders, the Giant realized that he’d been used and he knew he wouldn’t stand for it any longer. So without a word, he returned the stars to sky and left to live in the forest. And he stopped cleaning the stars and instead decided to settle down and write a book. Maybe something about mushroom varieties.
All of a sudden, the stars realized that they’d been ignored by the humans and they stopped shining in the cities. Now they only shine in the forests, where they know, somewhere, the Giant lives.
And the cat is still sitting on the roof. And I’m not really sure why.