Every month or so, a new one would show up in the lingerie department, having flown in by accident through the huge sliding glass doors in Housewares. Celine liked to keep an eye on them, willing them toward the exits…
Many of my stories begin with an image that keeps reappearing in my mind. The seed of this story was the image of a bird caught in the rafters of a big box store. I’ve always been bothered by the plight of these birds, caught in cavernous indoor spaces like department stores and airport lounges, and so I started the story with the perspective of someone who worked in one of those spaces. These birds, stuck in a place where they do not belong without a clear way out, exemplify powerlessness. I wanted the main character to palpably identify with that feeling.
Like the robin, Celine is stuck. Her work in the lingerie department reflects one of the things she feels she’s best at: making her body beautiful for the pleasure of men. I try to make it clear early in the story, though, that Celine’s beauty and physical allure is more something that has been thrust upon her, rather than something she has intentionally cultivated. Celine identifies with the trapped bird’s confinement—it’s not in a cage, but it also isn’t where it’s supposed to be, not living the life it was meant to live. The story’s title, “Celestial Bodies,” refers to Celine’s physical body and the bodies she’s meant to dress in the lingerie department, but also to the presence of something bigger that Celine is trying to tap into. The solar eclipse and the big sky the bird longs to return to are both suggestions of that higher energy Celine is seeking: her own sense of power and purpose.
I once had a writing professor tell me to avoid ending a story with a character’s profound realization or epiphany (in fact, he wrote an essay on this very topic). For the sake of this story (and others I’ve written and read), I respectfully disagree. Personal epiphanies like the one Celine experiences in this story may be rare in real life, but this is why we make art! To capture the ephemeral, the elusive, the parts of life that make us say oh! with a sharp intake of breath. The parts of life that change us. I love this story because I am so damn proud of Celine at the end of it. She embodies so many women, like myself, who have let other people decide their future. In “Celestial Bodies,” Celine takes a big, scary step forward, into the unknown and toward her own power. At the end of the story, Celine doesn’t know exactly what’s next, but I think she knows—and I hope the reader does, too—that it’s going to be better than what came before.
KATHERINE VAN DIS is a fiction writer and yoga teacher living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her work has previously appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Carolina Quarterly, and Juxtaprose. She is currently at work on a novel. Katherine lives on a woodsy little acre with her husband, two sons, their little dog Joni, and about a hundred houseplants. Find her on Instagram @katevandis and on Substack @midlifesentences.
