First FMF of the new school year! I’m pretty beat so this will probably be very short/not good. But a year approaches! Title from the man who puts the give in title giver, Tigs.
Teach the Stars
We open late at night following a dark path up a hill. No one is around and we arrive at a giant telescope housed in an old observatory whose grounds are a bit disheveled. We fly into the rough and find a 60-something man named Martin. He sits looking through the telescope, the only one in the facility. He rubs his eyes a bit tired.
We cut to the next morning and a woman a bit younger than Martin, named Hannah, parks her car in front of an equally disheveled home. She picks up a few newspapers that are still laying in the yard. She digs a key deep from in her bag and unlocks the door pushing past a small stack of mail on the other side. We can see big red stamps on them tipping them off to be late unpaid bills. She wakes up Martin and tells him that he can’t keep sleeping away the day and staying in his observatory all night. His inheritance is running out and the bank will take his house and observatory. He says it isn’t his inheritance and she tells him not to change the subject. She tells him she has an idea and hands him a paper. He glances at it and says hell no, he won’t do it.
We cut to him in parking his crappy car in a middle school parking lot. He walks in and past a flyer hanging up in the hallway advertising an astronomy club. He meets with the principal who tells him he was so excited when Hannah proposed the club. Martin grumbles a bit until the principal hands him the check for the first few classes. Martin glances at it and is a great deal more interested in the prospects.
He meets with the group of students, around 10. They are nerdy, weird, and quiet. He talks to them, roughly introducing himself, and they seem apprehensive of him. They meet that weekend at the observatory and they are more interested as they actually learn some stuff. He gets a bit more excited about it until one of the parents comes and is upset about how filthy the place is. One mother, Carol, defends him a bit before they all leave. Carol thanks Martin as her son has been so excited about all of this.
He wakes the next morning to find that the angry parent complained to the school. They threaten to cancel the program. Martin starts to get worried finally as he really thought he would be able to keep it. He heads to the observatory to clean up and finds Carol, her son, and some of his friends cleaning already. He thanks them and invites Carol and her son to dinner. He explains to her that the observatory belonged to his wife’s family. They were rich and she had loved it. It was left to her along with a large inheritance. She died though and it all went to him. He’s spent his time researching and using it all the time. He doesn’t want to lose it because it would be like really losing her.
The school restarts the program but it is too late and the bank says they will be taking it from him. He tries to get them to stop since he can make his payments but they say he would have to pay it all in full. If he wants to keep it they’ll need the mortgage and taxes paid in full. Carol’s son get’s more of his friends together and with the help of the town and some neighboring schools they raise money starting astronomy clubs and classes in the school districts. They help Martin pay off the mortgage and open the observatory to the public.
They have a huge unveiling one night and a ton of people come. They present Martin with a plague to commemorate his wife and officially name the observatory after her. Hannah is there and happy for Martin and tells him that his wife would be so excited not for the night but for Martin finally moving forward and opening his life to others again.