In the Crevices of Starlight and the Fractures of the Earth

 

In the Crevices of Starlight and the Fractures of the Earth

By : The zero stone

"The rich black ink A used to 

carefully record his aspirations was, 

in cruel reality, the exact same brand 

Bee’s father used to blot out A's entire future."

The aroma of fresh butter and warm pastries wafting from Bee’s luxury backpack always arrived before he did. It was the scent of another world—a world clean, unblemished by soot, and entirely unacquainted with the word 'struggle'—it stood in stark, brutal contrast to the stench of sun-baked garbage and humid decay that clung permanently to the fabric of A’s uniform, a boy granted the lavish privilege of attending a prestigious Christian academy through a scholarship funded by Bee’s own family foundation.

On the marble bench beneath the sprawling shade of a flame tree, the two sat side by side, a picturesque tableau of a friendship transcending social divides. Bee offered fine leather-bound notebooks and expensive pens to A, like a seagull bearing twigs to help a sparrow build its nest. A accepted them with eyes burning with hope—not with the submissive gratitude of a passive victim, but with the fierce determination of a fighter who saw these objects as tools to forge his own destiny. For A, the notebooks were weapons to carve a path out of the slums for his family. To him, Bee was not just a benefactor, but a witness to his relentless striving.

Yet, beneath Bee’s gentle smile and benevolent gaze lay a whirlpool of silent agony. Every time A spoke of his practical plans—of using the prize money from his upcoming essay contest to repair the corrugated iron roof of his mother’s shack before the monsoon arrived—Bee’s eyes would flicker and dim, like a lamp running out of oil. Bee knew. He knew better than anyone in that grand mansion of his. The muffled voices from his father’s study on quiet nights still echoed in his ears. The vast blueprints spread across the mahogany desk, the stamp of the mega-conglomerate ready to buy up and bulldoze the wasteland surrounding the dumpsite for a new commercial empire.

A’s home was destined to be crushed under the weight of excavators in a matter of months. And the man holding the pen that signed the eviction order was none other than Bee’s own father—the revered patron and most prominent benefactor of this very school.

The warmth Bee extended to A each day was therefore not just a fragment of pure camaraderie, but a ‘token of absolution’—an indulgence Bee desperately paid out to soothe the agonizing guilt gnawing at his soul. Every new notebook, every costly pastry, was a silent tear wept by a wealthy boy who realized he was part of the very machinery poised to strip everything away from his best friend. The rich black ink A used to carefully record his aspirations was, in cruel reality, the exact same brand Bee’s father used to blot out A's entire future.

The mechanism of this world is both ruthless and exquisite in its irony. The upper class thrives upon the displacement of the lower, only to extend a veneer of mercy through charity. And yet, the resilient A continues to press that notebook tightly against his chest... entirely unaware that the "hand of the god" he worships, masked behind the image of holy philanthropy, is the very same hand that will demolish his entire world tomorrow.

i start from zero

👉 Read this story in Thai version : ในซอกหลืบของแสงดาวและรอยร้าวบนแผ่นดิน