The White Dwarf

 The White Dwarf

A once-blazing titanic star

Now dead —

Shrunken.

Dimmer.

A shadow of what was once.

Heat waning,

Only time remains — long, but not eternal.

Light will be lost forever.

Hope —

An inner demon that never relents.

Re-ignition is slim, but not impossible —

Yet to what end?

A breath, a flare —

Only to return to death.

Such hope seems pointless,

Yet men will die for it.

A second chance, even if brief.

Are stars conscious?

No one knows.

Perhaps a White Dwarf hopes amidst its woes.

Age is inevitable.

Time — a silent executioner.

Death: the fate of all existence.

Afterword

I was on my phone surfing the internet about stars— I am currently planning a fantasy novel, so I wanted to read about the Sun and stars generally to gain an insight or two — then I came across The White Dwarf. 

My interest was piqued, my curiosity spiked. 

I knew about them — or at least I thought I did. But how were they formed? Why are they different from ordinary stars? Why the name "dwarf"? 

So I Googled: "How are white dwarfs formed?" 

The result— courtesy of Gemini— said:

White dwarfs are formed when stars with relatively low to intermediate mass, like our Sun, reach the end of their lives. After a star exhausts its nuclear fuel, it sheds its outer layers, creating a planetary nebula, and the remaining core becomes a white dwarf. These stellar remnants are incredibly dense, with a teaspoon of their material weighing more than a pickup truck. They are essentially the "ashes" of a star, no longer undergoing fusion, and slowly cooling down over billions of years.

I was taken aback. 

I knew stars die —scientists have long said that our Sun will eventually expand, engulf Mercury and Venus, and Earth; It is how the world ends, they say— but my thoughts couldn't help but surge like a tide crashing back onto the shore. 

Stars die.

Aging is inevitable. 

Time the executioner. 

And from that flood of thought, this piece was born.