Billboard Sky

Chapter Two, Island in the Dark

Ed looked up and saw it, in the high left of the horizon.

MICROSOFT.COM

The February weather had been warmer than he'd expected, and not as wet as he'd expected. The small bamboo grass hut he'd built himself in the island's palm tree forest was enough to keep some small piece of civility to his existence, and he wondered why he'd even built it. Having spent many nights sleeping on park benches for the past ten years, he wasn't sure why building the hut had become such an obsession to him once on the island. If he didn't require shelter on the mainland, why did he feel it was so important while alone on the island? Was he really trying to protect himself from inclement weather, or was he trying to build something to give himself a sense of place? He just wasn't sure, and he stared at MICROSOFT.COM for the entire ten minutes it was lit as he thought about 'what next.' When the words faded out, leaving nothing but the stars, he ignored the pang in his head and in his heart and walked towards his hut.