The Stars

By the time we reached the stars it wasn’t that exciting. When I say that it sounds subversive, confronting, on some levels even not human. But what happens when you look up and dream for so long and so hard that the pressure of the longings, the projection of hopes and fears begin to exhaust the very object of the wishes and desires so they end up depleted, even unworthy in your eyes?

I know when I say this how wrong it must sound but it took a while to notice that one by one and then faster and faster stars were going black. Millions of them fading away and then winking out. Science could not explain it. Eventually we decided that they were dying because of us. The rationale was that we were overwhelming them with our expectations and dooming them just like overwatering a houseplant. We were killing them right at the same moment that we had the means to go to them within our reach.

I guess I could use the almost but not quite infinite number of stars as an excuse to try to explain away why we were so slow to pick up on this accelerating extinction. But there were other reasons. We were busy preparing for our move, the exodus and the flight to the objects of our desire.

None of this means we stopped looking at the stars, it is in our nature to do so and even if by doing so we were causing their demise there was nothing else to do.  But there was a practical side to consider as well. We could no longer stay where we were. We needed to leave home.

Anything that is alive and sentient needs to leave its beginnings and grow or it becomes stunted and the environment devoid of nourishment. That leaving can happen through procreation or propulsion or a combination of both and as we are creatures of the stars nothing could stop us.  In fact as creatures of the stars it was the stars that we used to fulfil our destiny. They showed the way.

But our very progress further hastened the demise of the stars. The night sky was growing darker. In some sections of the sky whole areas were now black, in others there was a lone blinking light surrounded by blackness.  The Milky Way became duller. All of this kept happening while we travelled through space and time always accelerating, forever looking out into the growing darkness, hoping that there would be stars left for us, that the whole journey would be worthwhile.

And then, like all journeys no matter how long, a time came when we arrived at our original destination, the first star. It was still there, that is there was mass and gravity but its pull was weak and we could somehow feel it but not see it and we hurried past and for the first time there was doubt, regret and self-recrimination in us.

The next star was lifeless too and then there was another long journey before we approached a star that was still alive but fading.  During that time many of us grew even more filled with desire, a strange and selfish love that seemed half hate. Those who didn’t go that way became apathetic, even questioning on how they came to be on the journey in the first place. Soon there was confrontation and we lost many journeyers before the star lust abated.

And still the journey continued and more stars went to black and with them more journeyers passed too. First the ones filled with desire flamed out like stars used to do; filling with longing until they became unstable and very bright, before disappearing in front of us all.

Slower were the others, the resigned who just went quiet before they grew still and became almost invisible except for a certain mass and gravity in the conscious.

We have finished the journey and now we are here at the next star and it still shines and nearby there is another. The only other, for the rest of sky is now black. During our own extinction the stars continued to grow dark as well and now there are only these two stars left.

That means there is one star for me, and one star for you.

But I really don’t care for stars anymore.

I want to set me free from the stars and the stars free from me.

What about you?