Dreams

You walk out the front door, into the dark, and look up. You see a million stars in that one look, and suddenly realize everything has gone dark; The city, state, country, maybe even the world, has shut down. Nothing works, and suddenly you can see the sky perfectly for the first time in your short life.

You are terrified, in horror at the understanding, the implications, because it means people are dying by the minute, the second. Electricity, water, light, and warmth without flame are all a thing of the past now-- minutes past. Hospitals and homes are gone, and food will spoil quickly in the coming days, going un-replaced by shipments carried on, by, and in vehicles that will not be coming. That won’t ever come. They don’t work either. Nothing does, and nothing will.

So how then, at the same time, could you possibly know any semblance of peace? It’s unfathomable, and yet it is still a fact.

You’ve never witnessed this kind of otherworldly beauty before. You will never experience this scene, this moment, ever again-- not in such a monumental way. The blanket above makes the crack in your twisted neck nonexistent, inconsequential. It keeps your otherwise fearful heart from stuttering in anything other than pure and utter awe. It is an inky black, blacker than black, and one which before this night you would have never thought comprehensible-- Even now you struggle. In its folds are the hundreds of millions of diamonds. Your eyes struggle to focus on any single one, and it is not possible to love any one more than the next or last before it.

You know, somewhere in your mind, your true instinct, that it is a necessity to start moving now--start working and grabbing everything you can, getting it all ready for something-- for what you don’t even recognize yet. Do you run? Do you stay? hide? Or do you remain but fortify? You don’t know. The answers seem unobtainable, but will most likely come within hours, only just too late and after you’ve already made a decision that must be stood by.

All this you recognize, and to an extent actually understand-- and yet still, you simply remain fixed and stare, looking up at the blanketed expanse of star chartings and map makings the likes of which you could never truly even begin to comprehend. Not in this life at least, or any other single one. It is all so much bigger than you are-- older, and more extensive-- forever growing.

You stand, as you gaze up, and you try to know its beauty, its wonder.

All the while your brain is split down the middle. On one side there is animalistic fear and the understanding of being put in your place-- an ant to a world of boots-- harrows the soul. On the other, your being simply exists, aware of the fact that they know nothing but reverence in this moment of true, timeless grace, eternal allure. It is the side that wonders, perhaps, if you stood here long enough, and someone came along to end you in this time of darkness, would you let them? Just to glimpse the cosmos for those few precious moments more?

If you were not so enamored, you would surely be terrified by such a thought. You are a moth to the flame though, and so only think these things distantly.