Adastea - The Goddess of Inevitable Fate

I’m watching over eternity, up at the night sky. It looks like galaxies away before I spot it. I adjust my telescope to get a better look. It’s like a gem in the universe. It’s Jupiter’s moons.

Adastea- The Goddess of inevitable fate. 

In the vastness of the galaxy, my fate stretches past the sky. It’s in the universe. 

Today’s the night of my Year 12 Prom Night. But I won’t be attending. Instead, I’ll be here with my moons and stars. My thoughts are in a daze when I think about it, 

“Stella, what are you looking at today?” My mum calls though the door, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to your formal tonight?”

Ever since the incident, mum has been too anxious about me.

I answer with, “No mum, I won’t have a good time anyway.”

She pauses for a brief second and calls dad over to chat with me.

“Stella,” he says in a fatherly way, “when your brother’s unwell, it doesn’t mean you have to stop your life too.”

I give him my little smile and lift up my face to meet his gaze to show him my eyes. A flicker of a memory glows in my mind, like a distant star coming into focus.

Instead of seeing my father’s face in front of mine, I see my brother’s body on the floor of the bathroom at his flat. It was on the afternoon I’d had spare time to see him after school. His body was convulsing in all positions and the feeling of panic which was stirring in my chest. 

It was the feeling of being trapped in Jupiter’s eternal storm. The box of his medication was at the sink. I had felt the heavy weight of my backpack become more than just books and unfinished lunch. The memory grows distant until I’m staring at my dad’s face again.

“I’m researching about Jupiter’s moons,” I say to him. 

But there’s a small pause before dad says to me, “Stell, you don’t have to pretend everything is okay because it’s not.” He gives a small smirk, while he hugs me tightly, “We’re here for each other, you’re not at it alone.”

The weight of all his comfort, makes me feel safe. I really wish my brother had that feeling while he was convulsing on the floor. Instead, it was me shouting onto the phone and requesting, “Ambulance,” while pushing heavily onto his chest. Hoping his heart was still alive. The distant squeal of sirens seep into my ears as I watch the memory fade away. 

The blackhole where I normally keep these secrets becomes relentless, as if a Grim Reaper had awoken and shared with me its troubles. 

I say to my dad, “The brother that I grew up with is not the same one now.” My voice becomes hardly audible, “It’s as if he’s a million light years behind and we’re moving along the orbit without waiting for him to catch up.”

Dad exhales deeply and gives a small pat on my shoulder, “There’s no way we can stop time, because it always moves forwards. There’s no rewind button.”

I have a ponder over dad’s words, it’s such an obvious sentiment. But isn’t that what he wanted? To have a stop button to time? Who knows what big Bro’s thinking now? 

What dad and I do is look up at the stars and infinity on high. We let the beauty of the night soothe our internal turmoil and think about our smallness in the universe. Big Bro wouldn’t bother to look up at the stars. He would have just been laying in bed with the sheets reaching his head. Staring at the ceiling and thinking about that stop button. He would be saying to attend the Year 12 Prom Night, even though it wasn’t something he would do himself. He always wanted me to embrace my accomplishments.

There was a song that we would listen to together, and we’d just sing every line and lyric until we’d both be laughing with tears, and dancing around the house while doing push-ups.

Drops of Jupiter, starts to play in my head as I watch memories of my brother and I dissolve in front of me. What great days that we had together? Who would have thought that today big Bro would be in a psychiatric unit for a suicide attempt? Who would have thought the circumstances would have changed so greatly? 

Jupiter’s moon, Adastea gazes back at me. I wonder about our fate in the universe. I look up at dad and say, “Hey dad, can we see him tomorrow? I want to dance with him again like old times.”