Astrophile (noun): a person who loves stars

The stars looked bigger tonight.

Well, they weren’t really stars.

A small projector pointed at the ceiling, the technology broadcasting an expanse of light that resembled the night sky. It wasn’t anything close to the actual, velvet-like darkness that draped over the world when the sun went down each day, but it felt comforting to him.

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He hugged his pillows closer, his face pushing into squishy cotton underneath the soft cloth.

There used to be a time when he enjoyed looking up at a real night. He was familiar with the cool evening winds and friends with the shining fireflies, yet even the thought of being under that colossal open space made him shiver.

The projected stars on the ceiling must’ve been the size of strawberries at most. Maybe he’d knocked the projector during the day and offset the machinery, because he estimated the current ones to be about as big as an apple.

And real stars?

Those were more massive, more mythical, more overwhelming than anything he could imagine.