i can no longer see this story, so here it is again =] My heart is nothing more than an engine forged from the remnants of a dead star
On HR-8543:
There I was, merrily lighting up my little empty corner of the universe. Fine by me; sure I had no solar system to call my own, but one could say I was at peace. Never in a billion years did I think I'd ever feel a tug of attraction to or from anything.
But then, in two billion and a half, you drifted into view. And then closer. We could both feel that pull bringing us nearer, though I knew there were a million different directions you could still go. But for some insane reason you chose me. Closer and closer still we became, and then before we knew it, you became my companion star, and I yours. And togther we were two stars that became a binary, happily circling around each other. And nothing else in that backdrop of the universe ever mattered, for one + one + one + one + one + ... = you or me or you or me or....
And how to put it, we were flawless and perfect, which I never was before by myself. Rather than cultivate a zen-like affectionate indifference, I instead I grew to need you. Too excessively? In our bi-epochal star mass exchanges, was I taking too much from you? Does any of this matter now? Eventually, my orbit started to wobble, and though I was too slow to notice we were drifting apart all this time, I surely knew it by then. Inch by inch, you were sailing off into another part of the universe, leaving me behind.
My internal combution nuclear fusion engine started to splutter, and steam. Tried as I might, I tried to pull you back, but you shook off my gravitational pull and ignored my SOS sunspot signals. Finally, with a slight tilt in your axis as farewell, you were out of range. And there I was, with my heart streaming sparks through the spaces in between my fingers. And as the last tug of attraction you felt for me fell away, with a tremor and a shake, my heart exploded into a million little burning pieces cast all over the universe. And with an enormous crater in the center of my chest, I slowly floated downwards back to earth.
Bitterly, I pulled out the shrapnel of the heavier metals from my supernova, and hammered them into the needed shapes. Thus, I managed to fashion myself a furnace and fitted it where my heart used to be. And ever since, whenever there was a clear night, pressing my face the against sky I'd divide the night between my two eyes and quickly size up the 1, 2, 3, 4 thousand 7 hundred and 42 stars for the most likely possibilities of where to find my old self. Targets in sight, I'd push off the earth and swim through the velveteen darkness of space, headed for the smallest and dimmest of the stars out there. Once arrived, I'd press my ear to the fluorescent surface of the lantern satellites, and see if I could hear the shaky hearbeat pattern of my old heart from the stuttering light within. If it looks like a good match, what else is to be done? - shove it into that hole in my chest and dine on my heart.
Although once during my nightly cosmonauting, as I tried to drag away a star to save for later, I encountered the strong resistance of a much larger star at the center of a solar system trying to keep it put. It was a grandeur like nothing else I'd ever encountered before, but I saw a distinctly shaped sunspot I knew only HR-8543 could have. And as I looked away in embarassment, did I feel the warmth of your 3200 Kelvins touching the side of my face again?
Hmm...? | 
