The stars felt roughened and sharp beneath my palms, creasing my skin with dents as they engraved their patterns into my body. I reach for the next one, toes teetering at the edge of the two stars where I currently stand. The blackened sky and the chilled air greeted me with each step I took, and every bit of progress that I made. My vision faded at the edges like memories fading from the brain, darkening with minuscule black specks that fluttered at the edges of my eyes.
The moon still seemed as far away as ever. Her pale, cratered face stared me down knowingly as if daring me to continue on the invisible steps that were dusty and untouched with inactivity.
Gritting my teeth, I continue to climb. Cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck, wetting my thin shirt as labored breaths burst from my lips in short pants. The lights of the city shimmered below me in mesmerizing waves of life, filling me with a comfort I could not quite put into words. Peals of laughter echoed from the streets, mixing with the bells surrounding the town square in celebration of Christmas Eve. The scent of happiness and warmth filled the air, tasting of freshly baked cookie dough and soft, sugar-filled marshmallows. It was strange to be watching rather than amongst them, and I found myself stunned like never before at the pure beauty of humanity, and the blissful oblivion of us all. Of how wide the world was, far greater than our minds could ever hope to comprehend.
Life was being created and stolen away in white, sterile walls on a hospital bed. Somewhere, a church pastor has just joined two people together infinitely while two others split apart. A young boy is walking up to his first day of preschool while a senior throws his graduation cap in the air.
We are composed entities of elation and misery, life and death. Some want nothing more than to grow up, only to find themselves holding onto the broken threads of their childhood in their old age as precious memories slip away from their tired brains.
We spend our most valuable currency chasing another, more superficial version. Always chasing green paper bills that can never buy us another moment, a final goodbye. Our eyes are forever blinded by the flash of golden coins and the weight of silver quarters while the heads of our parents lighten with age, their movements slower as their muscles prepare to take their final rest. By the time we are wise enough to appreciate them, most of those memories are so scattered that there is no remembrance of what it used to be like. What we are left with is the feeling- the knowledge that at some point, there was love.
Loving fingertips once touched our unburdened souls with nothing but the purest intentions, and it remained far longer than simple memories; it escaped the piteous capabilities of our mortal minds, refusing to fade away. But the simplest of memories seemed to slip from my grasp; now, I feel obligated to start missing the moment before it’s even gone.
I am like a spectator in my own life, gazing through the unseeing eyes of an audience who doesn’t understand in the slightest. I am more capable than anyone else of tearing myself apart and molding it together again in jagged, broken pieces that become more and more warped each time I shatter. The tattered edges of the different versions I have created haunt me throughout my life, sewing themselves together into some monstrous person I no longer recognize. I am being torn apart by guilt each time I make a decision a softer version of myself would never dream of, like I have performed the worst of betrayals. It hurt a little part inside of me that is sometimes forgotten, the little girl that lived still caged inside of straight lips and cold eyes. She is fading away faster than I can chase her.
It used to be somewhat terrifying to me that there was an entire universe outside the baby pink walls of my childhood room where I was expected to one day join. I was reminded of my terror of time each time I was asked what career I wished to occupy, and what kind of family I hoped to create. I had not even thought of the years I had already lost while trying desperately to be someone who would live beyond a mere mortal lifetime.
I lost endless minutes buried in my studies and living up to the expectations that I had carved into myself. Regardless of how hard I worked, my regrets seemed to pile up quickly. The thought of what could have been haunted me constantly, and it petrified me to live in a world where my decisions would all lead to a chain of events I would be forced to navigate when I was still just learning how to walk.
The aches in my palms grew heavier the longer I climbed, but I could see the moon growing, my goal right in front of me if I just dared to keep going a minute longer. The sounds of the town became quieter and quieter as I lost myself to the sky; I knew nothing but the wind whistling in my cold ears and the tremble of my muscles as they struggled with the exertion. There was a strange vacuum I found myself trapped in as the world seemed to go silent, lacking the familiar comfort of human connection and simple sounds of the world I have learned to take for granted; I have never truly realized how eerie it was to be without it all until I was in the depths of space itself. The only thing that stood between me and certain death were the stars I held onto with clammy fingers and my rapidly depleting strength.
Vaguely, I wondered if there was anybody still in the hazy towns of Los Angeles who was searching for me. I accepted that it was likely that nobody had noticed my absence, and probably wouldn’t for at least a couple of days.
The most difficult thing to understand was how insignificant one was in the endless, incomprehensible void that is the universe- to be aware of your insignificance is one of the hardest truths I have ever had to learn.
My chest felt hollow, although I wasn’t sure if it was the air quality or frigid temperatures that were causing it. It felt as if my mind was detaching from my body as I went through the motions- one star to the next and the next. The world around me was a cloak of darkness with only the stars I used as stepping stones to ignite it. I was blind- all I could do was reach and step and repeat it over and over again. My eyes tried desperately to adjust to the darkness after a lifetime of fluorescent lighting and overly bright lamps.
Every part of my body ached with fatigue and my limbs were ready to freeze and snap off, but I kept going. It would all be worth it when I reached the moon and left my footprints atop its dusty surface. I sought after the most unheard ambition in human history- to attempt climbing the stars and making it onto the moon with nothing more than my bare hands and feet.
There was a moment of pause as I stared at the moon- it was mere inches away from me now. Even time seemed to freeze, and I felt like I could give up everything to live in this moment. The air stilled, and the pain in my body seemed to fade. My hair, tangled and matted from my journey, falls around my shoulders in soft waves. Even the stars stilled their flashing lights, watching me with curious eyes.
Complete and utter peace was the only way I could think of to describe this moment- a moment where even my mortal code had fallen and surrendered to this impossible, freeing feeling.
I laugh, almost hysterical with it all. My stomach drops and my foot slips, the balance I had before quickly disappears. I fell into the vastness of this universe, tumbling and grasping at nothing but the air around me- and I was nothing more than every human that came before me: life, and death. Pride, and insecurity. The bittersweet puzzle pieces of a mother I could no longer remember the name of and a father I never knew.
I scrambled for her name, running through blurry childhood memories.
I could not remember my mother’s name. And what was all the knowledge and achievement in the world worth without that?
It was as bleak and obsolete as the nothingness I now embraced, and the last painful truth I accepted was the fact that my tomb would look no different from one who spent their entire life laughing.