Mei sewed in the dark. By day, she mended clothes at a tiny shop between a pharmacy and a bar. By night, she climbed to her rooftop with needle and thread spun from meteor dust and spider silk. There she stitched the sky. It started when a meteor shower tore a small gap in Orion’s belt. Mei felt a tug in her chest, as if a button had popped. She threaded her celestial needle and reached up. The thread caught on starlight. She tied a knot, and the gap closed with a soft shimmer.
Word spread in whispers among stargazers. “Someone is mending the night.” Astronomers noticed slight shifts. Constellations sharpened. Mei received letters tucked under her shop door: “Can you fix the Big Dipper’s wobble?” “Please stitch a new star for my son.” Mei did what she could. She refused requests that felt like vanity. She focused on tears caused by debris, by neglect, by light pollution’s glare.
Stitching was not without cost. Each knot tugged at her fingers, leaving star burns that glowed faintly. Sleep eluded her. She saw the sky’s weave even with eyes closed. Her landlord complained about thread ash on the roof. Mei shrugged and kept sewing. She felt responsible; if she didn’t mend, who would?
One night, she found a rip larger than any before, near the Southern Cross. She climbed higher, balancing on a chimney, and began stitching. The rip resisted, edges frayed by satellite trails. Her thread snapped. She cursed softly, lungs burning. A voice floated up. “Need help?” A man on the adjacent roof held his own needle, darker thread. “I knit gravity waves,” he said. “Name’s Arturo.” Mei laughed. “I sew stars.” They joined threads. The rip closed.
They became nightly partners, sharing flasks of tea, comparing scars. Arturo told her of others: a painter who touched up nebula colors, a sound engineer tuning cosmic background hum. Mei realized she was part of a quiet guild of cosmic maintenance workers. They had no union, no benefits, just duty and a group chat with poor reception.
Light pollution increased. Skyscrapers cut into sightlines. Mei stitched faster, but new rips appeared where city lights stabbed upward. She attended a council meeting, hands glowing, thread in her pocket. She spoke of the night as fabric everyone used, some ripped. The council nodded politely. Nothing changed. Mei grew angry. She considered letting holes grow, teaching people by absence. She couldn’t. She kept sewing.
Arturo proposed a different approach: visible mending. “If people saw the stitches, maybe they’d care.” Mei usually kept her work invisible. This time, she used thicker thread, letting it show. Overnight, a silver seam appeared across a popular constellation. Social media exploded. “Sky vandalism!” some cried. Others saw beauty. Children drew their own stitches. Articles ran: “Who is sewing the sky?” Light protests began. People turned off signs for one hour in solidarity. The sky rested.
Mei smiled, less alone. She held a workshop at her shop, teaching kids to sew fabric patches shaped like stars onto jackets. “Repair is love,” she said. “Even when no one sees.” She still climbed to the roof, thread in hand. Her fingers glowed brighter with each stitch. One evening, she noticed a new tear forming near her favorite star. She reached, thread ready. The fabric pulled back on its own, stitches appearing. Someone else was sewing from another rooftop. Mei laughed into the night, needle poised, part of a constellation of menders keeping the sky from unraveling.