...With Long Intervals of Horrible Sanity

A lot can be said about day dreaming. Good and Bad.
What about night dreaming.
Not dreaming while you're sleeping but gazing off at some distant star and imagining something about it. When we look at stars we're looking into the past. The light we see has probably been extinguished for thousands of years, if not more.

Before television. Before radio. Even, Before print, did people spend time staring at the night sky and wondering? Of course, some people did.

Some people always do.

Was it a past-time? Did parents tell their medieval children to quit spending all their time in front of the sky? That they had to go to bed because there was horse shit to shovel in the morning. Did they threaten them that if they spent all their time looking up at the stars, that it would rot their brains?

Did their children beg for just five more minutes?

Most people were afraid of the stars. The absence of the Sun was horrifying. Its light and heat gave their world life. There were things in the dark they didn't know or understand.
But I know there were children who would not listen to their parents warnings. They would sneak a glance out a glass-less window. They would think about how the stars didn't seem so frightening, even if the dark was. They would wonder what the lights were.

Angels or Demons? Angry Gods or Merciful Goddesses?

But it was simply light. Light from the past. Matter that existed as both a particle and a wave.
They were just little time travelers. They weren't afraid of the dark.