Elia, the village’s aging clockmaker, sat on his balcony with a glass of grappa. At eighty, his eyes were failing, but the sky remained sharp. Up here, the stars weren't mere points of light; they were a silver dust so thick it looked like a second, frozen sea hanging just out of reach.
"It makes you feel small, doesn't it?" a voice drifted from the neighboring balcony. It was Sofia, a young astronomer who had moved from Rome to escape the city's orange glow.
"In the city," Sofia said, looking up through her telescope, "the sky is a ceiling. Here, it’s a door."