“There’s too many,” He says. I count off three hundred milliseconds before I let myself respond, even though He still hasn’t learned to do the same.

“It’s the same reason they used to type out STOP in telegrams” I’d told Him.

He had smiled. But then He had had to remind me that milliseconds don’t mean anything here, that when I would count in my head no time passed for Him. I still count.

“Too many or too bright?” I ask.

Encouraged by his silence, I continue. “Do You want to know their lux?”

“Their—”

“Their luminosity. Or rather, their illuminance—”

“I know what lux means, Shahra.” His tone cuts through flesh, but I know there is no flesh to cut and there is only volume.

I imagine turning down the knob for his volume like the brightness of the starlit sky. I realize I’d interrupted Him, but He doesn’t say anything.

“Are they too close together?” I try again. I will realize later that they were already moving apart, dimming, as I spoke. I never realize until later.

I consider offering to state their lux, their distance, their speed. I know enough in this moment to know this is not what He wants, what He is asking, what He means, what He needs. But sometimes these childish mistakes make Him laugh. I want to hear Him laugh, see Him smile.

I will be able to see Him when He smiles, because I have not offered yet this time to pull my own eyes from their sockets.

I have learned now that He never asks me to do this. That maybe long ago, when He was a young child, far too young to know any better, He would pull me apart like a doll, but that He no longer thinks of me this way.

I think of asking if He feels regret, guilt, because I want this more than I want anything. But I know I have asked already, and forgotten His answer, that if I ask again, I will only forget again. He ignores the sky.

“I want You to touch me,” I offer. He says nothing.

“Is that one too big?” I try again.

“That one is different, Zaddie,” and He is smiling kindly at me.

“What do You mean? Is it not supposed to be there?” I put stress on the word. I don’t know why.

“Can you think of what it is?” He has started touching me.

“No,” I say blankly. “Is there something wrong with it? Is it too close?”

“For what?” He asks. His eyes are twinkling.

“For a star,” I state plainly.

I have forgotten that He is touching me, so when I draw my attention back to Him, I sputter like a comet. Several satellites drop from their orbit. They are too far away for me to hear the crash.

“Is that a star?” He asks. I can tell that He thinks He is mocking me, but that clearly, He is mistaken about whatever it is He thinks He knows. I don’t let on. Not yet. I like to gain this type of advantage. I want to make Him trip over his words, to feel like I do, so often.

“What is it, then?” I ask Him, the same patience I used to reserve for His child-self.

“You can’t think of it? You don’t know?”

Later I will wonder why He draws out moments of my humiliation, why He makes it worse – whether He does this to make it funnier, to make Himself feel superior.

But what would be the point in proving that over and over?

“It’s the moon, Shahra,” He says.

He’s turned His face away from me, but I still see it, His expression. I just can’t make out what it means, what it is saying.

“Is that a special kind of star?”

“It’s different, Zaddie.” He says simply.

“Did You make it?” I say, even though what I mean is, “Did I make it?”

What I mean is, “Are You proud of me?”

“No,” He says.

“No.”

“Shall we put a man there?” I ask Him, because I want to say something, and it doesn’t occur to me to ask what ‘moon’ is.

“If you want,” He says.

I start tracing the outline with my finger, the outline of a face in craters and dust.

“Can we put me there?” He asks.

I stare at Him.

“Stars are too far away. I made this one closer so You could—”

“So I could what, Zaddie?”

I can’t tell if His voice has anger in it.

“It’s for You,” I finish, forgetting entirely what I’d been saying, hoping that I got it right.

“Aren’t they all for me?” He asks. His voice teases. I start to lose myself in His touch.

“All for You, all for You,” I mumble.

Sometimes the feeling of forgetting is pure idiotic bliss. Sometimes it’s frantic helplessness, a toddler trapped in a smoke-filled room, paralyzed, terrified. But when asked what punishment I fear, I can never name any worse than whatever is already upon me.

“It’s a trick,” I pull away, push Him away. The ground beneath us pulls Him back, keeps Him from sliding through the air that isn’t air, the space that is vacuum, sucking up the stars.

“I want darkness,” my voice is a sob.

I won’t remember the tears until days later, and by then, I won’t remember why.