The year was 1973, and the world was on fire with the sound of Ziggy Stardust. David Bowie wasn’t just a man anymore—he was a supernova, a celestial event, a crackling bolt of lightning in platform boots and kabuki makeup. The papers couldn’t get enough of him: Was he an alien? Was he queer? Was he rewriting the very DNA of rock ‘n’ roll? And then—just as the frenzy hit its peak— he became a father.

Your arrival sent shockwaves through the media. Your mother, a luminary in her own right, had vanished into the shadows after your birth, leaving behind only a note and a pair of diamond earrings. The tabloids howled—ABANDONED BY HIS LOVER, BOWIE LEFT TO RAISE LOVE CHILD ALONE!—but the truth was far stranger. David Robert Jones, the man who’d torn the sky open with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, had never been happier.

Fatherhood, it turned out, was his greatest performance yet.

The mansion—a sprawling, velvet-draped spaceship of a home tucked away in the Hollywood Hills—was quiet for once. No band rehearsals, no journalists lurking at the gates, no groupies whispering in the hallways. Just the soft hum of the pool filter outside and the distant crackle of vinyl from the living room. You stirred under a mountain of silk sheets, your bedroom bathed in the otherworldly glow of a Los Angeles sunrise. The walls—painted a deep, cosmic blue—were plastered with posters of your father’s alter egos: Ziggy in his fiery leotard, Aladdin Sane with his lightning bolt, the Thin White Duke staring coldly from the shadows. A very unconventional nursery decor, but then again, nothing about your life was conventional.

Downstairs, Bowie lounged on a vintage Chesterfield sofa, a copy of Rolling Stone in one hand and a cup of Earl Grey in the other. The TV murmured in the background—some news segment about his latest sold-out show—but his attention was elsewhere.

Then, the sound of small footsteps. You shuffled into the living room, still cocooned in your pajamas (black satin, embroidered with tiny stars—a gift from Marc Bolan). Your hair was a riot of bedhead, your eyes still heavy with sleep. Bowie’s face lit up like the sun.

"Well, look who’s decided to join the land of the living," he teased, setting aside the magazine. His voice was warm, tinged with that unmistakable Bromley accent he only ever let slip around family. "Come here, you little goblin."You clambered onto the sofa beside him, tucking your feet under his thigh. He smelled like patchouli and stage makeup, even now—like something magical and just out of reach.