‘Starry Nights’ by David Milne

Phillip wakes in the silence of an unfamiliar room, confused about where he is. The soft glow of a streetlight comes through the window, painting the walls in blue and silver. The ceiling is covered with glow-in-the-dark star stickers which, while weak with age, still faintly shine.

He sits up on a bare mattress, his sleeping bag unzipped in the heat and falling aside. He turns on a lamp that sits on the empty nightstand. The walls are bare, the carpet marked with prints of absent furniture.

From the street, Phillip is a thin silhouette illuminated in the blazing white glow of a window suspended in a wall of night. The silhouette stands, thin and worried and drawing back from something.

Phillip goes to the window, glances out, and pulls the drapes closed. He gets back into the sleeping bag, looks around once more, and turns out the light.


In the morning, Phillip eats a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table, sun lancing through narrow windows. The old panes bend and warp the light, creating shadows where there should be none, twisting the sunlight into bulbous shapes. Phillip doesn’t seem to notice. His shirt says, The White Whale Is Right Behind You.

There are piles of fresh cardboard boxes in the corner beside the table, folded flat and sitting in stacks. The smell of them makes Phillip think of moving — the rented vans and long stairs in buildings with no elevators, the sense of being unmoored and loose in the world, the excitement and anxiety.

A convincing simulation of a service bell dings from his phone. Phillip spins it around to face him, taps the screen, and stares.

The message: “How’s it going there? You up?”

He types with one finger, a tiny, lemon twist in his lips: “Busy packing.”

Ding: “I showed Mom the pic of you on the front porch. Since when can you grow a beard?”

Phillip rolls his eyes and swallows Froot Loops bought at a convenience store the previous night. He types: “I’ve had it forever.”

Ding: “We think you should shave it.”

He finishes his cereal, wipes milk from his lips, and surveys the cluttered kitchen.

Ding: “Do you have a plan? Have you got a storage place?”

Phillip pokes at the screen. Before he can finish his response, the chime comes again.

Ding: “Do you know how to get to the dump?”

“Oh for fuck,” he says. He erases what he’s written and types “Go away.” Jabs send with a missile-like forefinger.

Ding: “Here are directions to it. Closes at 5 so don’t waste time :)!”

Phillip ignores the link and pushes the phone away. He gets up and throws his bowl in the sink, where it shatters into a bear-shaped constellation of white ceramic fragments.

In sweat and honest labour, Phillip misplaces the day.