First of all it faded so much it went from one of the ten brightest stars in the sky to being one outside the top thirty and nearly outshone by Bellatrix and its other less famed constellation-mates.
"Was it going to go Supernova?" wondered more click hungry astronomical sources and even I looked at it with excitement, wondering if at any second it would suddenly flare up and blaze brighter than the full moon and cast us all in starlight the likes of which no pair of eyes on this earth has ever seen.
Of course, it didn't, and I can see with my own eyes that it has started to brighten noticeably again. probably some dust built up in its atmosphere and then was blown away to free the light again. Boo, mundane, boring, dull.
Could it be more exciting? Perhaps it was a giant signal, a giant curtain of star-proof material, held before the star and then let go to signal the start of a giant space race, a race of super powerful spacecraft looking to see who could be the fastest to Rigel and back. Perhaps we will soon see (from 600 years ago obviously) their hge glowing ion trails shining through the spaces in the stars as they rip space time to pieces as they compete for the universe equivalent of the Indy 500?
Maybe a Dyson Sphere was being constructed, and someone fucked it up and broke the whole thing, a sleepy multi tentacled crane operator the size of the moon drunk on the fucking job fucking typical.
Maybe they were just repainting Betelgeuse and ran out of paint.
or perhaps, just perhaps, perchance, perhaps, a massive solar sail was being unfurled on a generational ship designed to sail space to the Earth and render us slaves, or worse still food?
The sail has now stopped blocking the starlight, and the ship to end civilisation is on the way.
Copyright BloodyMulberry 17.03.20
