Clara entered her room and flopped onto the bed, next to her grey tabby, Antoine, who ignored her. She lay there for about 5 minutes before summoning the energy to lift herself off of it and persuade her feet to support her weight again. Silly that long bus-rides take away so much energy, when you do practically nothing at all. Well, nothing physical. Maybe it's all the thinking that tires you out. She yawned, searched through her bag to find her uneaten lunch of an apple and a bag of crackers, also a nearly empty bottle of water. These she put on the table, pointedly pushed the crackers away, lifted the apple to her mouth, put it down again, rummaged in the bag a bit more, pulled out her notebook, and then proceeded down to the kitchen to make herself some hot cocoa. That would cheer her up. Not that she was feeling particularly down or anything, just demotivated. Halfway down the stairs she retraced her steps to her room, picked up the apple and the crackers, then again proceeded to the kitchen. She put the uninteresting crackers away, put the milk on to heat, then sat down to review what she had written down during the ride. Halfway through the first page she realised she was staring at it without reading much at all, so she looked at the wall instead. That was more comforting, because there was this old painting on the wall, of a view of an alien planet. Or something. But the sight was extremely pretty - a plain, stretched out, covered with tallish grass, dotted by a few european-looking trees here and there. And, quite low, (but not too low) over the horizon there were five suns of variating sizes, laid out approximately like this: {pic here}
Clara jumped up when she noticed the milk was boiling over, cursed herself for being so absent, caught herself, shook her head, then cursed the milk instead.
