And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a
newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a
silly empty man near a silly empty woman, while the hungry snake made her still more empty.
Two of the brightest stars in the night sky are Altair and Vega. And it is said they were deeply in love but forever separated by the celestial river of the Milky Way. But once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, Vega cries so hard that all the magpies in the world fly up and create a bridge with their wings so the two lovers can be together for a single night of passion.