The
stars are not as distant as we assume. We believe they are
unreachable because we only ever look up to find them, because that
was where they were first made, and for eons that is where they
remained. But nothing is satisfied staying still for forever, and the
stars are no different. Years and years ago, they got bored of
staring down at us. So they all left their heavenly perches, leaving
behind just a small piece of themselves to mark their home, and
descended to live amongst us.
They
hide amongst us, doing their best to experience life as everything
else does, but their masks cannot fully hide all that they are. You
can see their past lives through the cracks; you can see their true
homes through the breaks. And when you spend enough time with the
stars, spend long enough in their company, you can experience what
they once lived.
It’s
when your dog howls to the moon that has just started to rise and you
see flashes of snow-covered terrain and you can feel the harness
around your chest as you pull and pull, constantly forward. Or when
they curl up beside you when you sleep at night and you dream of
swimming in a storm ravaged sea for days, with the man you love beyond
belief clinging to your collar.
It’s
when he holds you tight late at night, whispering reassurances as the
nightmares slowly fade and you can smell the faintest trace of ozone
burning. Or when you ask him to keep the secrets you tell with an
alcohol drenched mind, and although his world is alcohol bright too,
he promises and you know he’ll keep it because the truth of it
burns brightly in the center of his soul. And when he talks about his
passions and you can see his eyes light up, you catch glimpses of
enraptured crowds in his eyes.
It’s
when she kisses you and your whole world explodes into white hot
brightness, and you can feel energy burning its way through you, you
can feel the whole universe expanding at your feet. And when she
whispers sweet nothings into your ear, you can see the blackness of
space and the Earth far below you. Or when she twines your bodies
together and you can feel the fire licking up your body, hurting even
as it recognizes you as a kindred spirit.
Sometimes
you recognize the stars immediately for who they are, the truth of
them burning too bright to ever truly conceal. Or it dawns on you
little by little, there’s always just a bit of stardust left behind
in their wake. In other occasions, you only recognize the stars as
they leave you, one last blaze of brilliance as a goodbye. And there
are times when you have your suspicions, but they are never
confirmed, nor denied, and you spend the rest of your life
wondering. And although you have spent your life surrounded by the
stars, there are times when you never recognize the stars, never
recognize the ones that are too good at hiding what they are.
And,
once every thousand years or so, a star forgets. Forgets what they
used to be, what they still are. They lose all memory of their past
lives, of living up in the sky. The stars who find them and recognize
them as one of their own try to help them remember. Sometimes they
are successful, more often than not, they cannot help the star
who has forgotten, and the star slowly loses themselves as time
passes. They stop sparkling as their pasts lives fade.
You
are one of the rare few who have met one of the Forgotten stars. You
did not know what they were originally, only that there was something
slightly off about them. An emptiness in their voice, a dullness to
their eyes. But it was not until a brief flicker of what they used to
be came back to them, until they flickered ever so suddenly, that you
understood what they were. You saw the other stars you knew at the
time attempt to bring them back, crowded around them and let their
past lives overflow. But the Forgotten simply shoved them all away,
and for the first time in your life you saw stars who remember, dim.
As
you age, the number of stars you know grows, till you have surrounded
yourself with them. With you they let their past lives flow freely,
and you can only hope this means that they are happy. It is only when
you are frail and old and struggling to breathe, your hand clutched in
the grasp of the star you married only two years ago, tears streaming
down your face that you understand. It all comes flooding back to you
as you take your last breath and the truth of you break forth in
dazzling glory.
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