The borrowed sky

Source: an original fiction extract.

At seven the planetarium ceiling became a summer night. A river of pale stars crossed the dome, and the audience settled into its reclining seats. Arun stood beside the control desk, following the script with one finger. It was his first evening presenting without the senior guide. He had practised the names until they no longer caught in his mouth. When he pointed out the brightest star, a child in the front row whispered its name before he did. Arun smiled into the darkness and moved to the next line.

Halfway through the journey to the northern sky, the stars vanished. The dome turned grey. Arun pressed the same button twice, although he knew that the second press could not improve the first. A fan inside the projector rattled and stopped. The emergency lights remained on, revealing coats, faces and a dropped sweet wrapper. Someone laughed. Arun found the sentence he had been about to read, but it belonged to a sky that was no longer there. The child asked whether space had finished.

The senior guide had once told him about learning the constellations from her father in a car park. He had thought it a poor beginning compared with the careful images in the dome. Now he remembered her saying that they used the gap between two roofs because the rest was hidden by buildings. A sky did not have to be complete. He put down the script and asked the audience to remain seated while he spoke to the duty manager. She checked the projector, shook her head and offered him the choice of ending the session or taking the group onto the viewing terrace.

Outside, the town was brighter than the sky. The audience gathered behind the terrace rail while Arun waited for his eyes to adjust. At first he could find only one star. A man asked whether that was all they had come to see. Arun admitted that the conditions were poor. Then the child pointed above the roof of the library. There were three faint lights, unevenly spaced. Arun recognised the pattern and began explaining where the next star should be. This time he had no pointer bright enough to command everyone's attention. People followed his hand, lost the place and helped one another find it again.

When the session ended, several people stayed by the rail. The sky had not become spectacular. A delivery van passed below, and the library sign still glowed across the road. Arun answered a question he would normally have left until the final slide. Back inside, the blank dome waited above rows of empty seats. He collected the script and added a note on the last page: leave time to look. Then he turned off the desk lamp, allowing the grey ceiling to disappear before he closed the door.

Consider the whole source. Analyse how the writer structures the text to change Arun’s relationship with the audience and the sky he is describing. You could consider changes in setting, the order of events, shifts in focus and the ending. Support your explanation with references to the source.