“There is a universe inside all of us.”

       Suzy Bae rarely believed in these words. Those were the words her father used to tell her when they would sit underneath the stars. She would scan the myriad of stars with her telescope, emulating her father. Then she would trace a finger to follow the fanning tails of shooting stars. The universe fascinated her. It made her wonder how she was so small, trapped in a globe that kept her chained to the ground, while a whole realm of mystery unfolded outside her niche. The universe could not be reached.

“How can there be a universe inside of us?” The thought was ridiculing. She could not imagine something so absurd. Her father was a clever man, however, so she waited for an answer.

      He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “How should I explain this to a five-year-old. Well, if people are like planets and galaxies, then you yourself can be a universe.”

Suzy counted with her fingers. “Then, would that means I am the reason that a sun, moon and earth can exist?”

      He chuckled, a sound so distant, because that was the point when his existence faded into a dream. “If that is what you believe.”

“I believe…”

The year Suzy lost her father, was the same year that her mother took her to the orphanage. At first, she did not understand the loss that seeped inside her. It was as if she was forced to stop a habit. Her father could not stop existing. That was impossible. It was like asking the solar system to stop rotating around the sun. She tried to tell this to her mother, but her mother was not like her father.

    She did indulge in things that were too complicated to understand. She did not spend her nights with a telescope, or her days giving lectures about the universe.

    “Is father ever coming back?”

Suzy recalled her father sleeping inside the coffin. She could have easily tapped his face, and rubbed his hair, like how she would to wake him up at midnight to watch stars falling across the sky. They had lifted the coffin off to the unknown. She wondered why they buried him in the ground. He should be buried in the cosmos.

    Her mother’s lips were taut. Her eyes were red. Her hair was bristly that morning, not like the sleek display of her daily life. “No, my darling. His soul has gone to heaven.”

    “To heaven?” Suzy stared into the sky at the moment. Yes, that was where he belonged. In Heaven. Up there in the midst of stars, planets and suns.

And if he were to become a sun, then he would be the brightest of them all. He would have so many planets and moons gravitating around him.

Because that was what he was equivalent of: a thousand suns.

The orphanage itself was a grand place. Three stories high, it expanded the breadth of the entrance like one long rectangle. There was a magnificent fountain at the front, with a vase-like structure in the middle, where water sprouted in the air, before misting over the fountain. There were two main wings in the orphanage: the left belonged to the school, and the right was where the inhabitants slept. Behind, there was endless greenery, disappearing into a horizon of woods.

A kaleidoscope of flowers bloomed everywhere, for spring had started.

    Suzy saw many boys running around the backyard, just a few metres away from the greenhouse. They were boys of all shapes and sizes. Some were short, while others tall. Some were bronze, while others pale. Some had long hair. Some had short hair. Some had missing teeth. Some had spots on their faces. Some were stinky. Some were rowdy. Some had funny voices that secretly made her giggle.

    However, the fact that they were all different was what made them similar.

        “Do we own this place?” she asked her mother.

“We do, my darling,” she said. “Your grandfather started this home for boys.”

    “Like the lost boys in Peter Pan?” She enjoyed that story with her father. Especially the story about the flying ship. “So is this place Neverland?”

    Her mother did that tightening thing with her lips again. Suzy often mused whether her mother had forgotten how to smile.

    “I suppose that is what it is: Neverland,” said her mother. Her lips curled at the edges. She smiled again, and repeated the word. “Yes, Neverland. These boys have no family.”

    Suzy stared at her with wide eyes. Her father often told her that people with no families were special. The universe was their family.

She took her mother’s hand into hers. Lifting her chin, she said; “Then let us be their family.”

When she strolled inside the orphanage, she resisted the urge to explore all the corridors. It was bright inside, long windows filtering many sunlight. The boys were gone to school. She later learned that the orphanage was also a school for boys, preparing them from a young age, right upto the time where they became young men, ready to explore the universe of the world. Some were adopted. Others never left the premises until they were old enough to find a job.

    Her father’s crest was present on their uniforms. A flaring sun with many planets crossing over it in an arc. It suited her father. When she saw the crest, she was reminded of the man.

Inside the orphanage was her first encounter with the Earth. She walked up a flight of steps to gaze at the corridors, and that was when she saw him.

    He was sitting on a bench, fast asleep. Suzy peered over him. He was about her age, perhaps no older than five. When he opened his eyes, he screamed. He crouched into the corner.

    “Oh my God, it’s a girl. Ew! Get away from me. I don’t want your cooties.”

That was