Stars

STARS          

         I sit here on the hillside letting the breeze lift my long, oily fringe and placing the dark strands with the rest. The sun is setting, casting out its last rays upon the lush ground around me and soon the stars will be out. Greeting me with their brilliance they will twinkle and sometimes run across the sky in beautiful white streaks. The long grass dances around me, creating its own music. I listen to its soothing song and notice other melodies seeking to join, the crickets, the rustle of trees and the sigh of the winds. Even my heart has a rhythm that adds its own beat to the symphony of sound. I smile and just for a second close my eyes letting that music fill me.
         I feel calm.
         I rock softly with my skinny, disease weakened arms wrapped around my equally skinny legs and watch as the sky turned from vivid blue to burnished gold, from purple to rose petal pink to dusky red before the blanket of night slowly pushed the vibrant colours of dusk into oblivion. The stars began to appear one by one, filling the sky’s dark and endless void like glitter scattered on a black piece of paper. One by one sparkling, glittering, twinkling.
         I sigh contentedly, a dreamy sigh. Watching those stars blink on and off like flickering orbs of light my thoughts wander idly about the origin of those stars. My blue lined lips quiver as I attempt to voice my thoughts, but a lung burning and throat- tearing cough prevents any sound from escaping. I concede to my body’s desire for vocal silence and only think about my thoughts. Maybe the stars are angels or spirits of the dead, not quite like angels with wings and such, but little balls of energy that is the spirit of some being. Or perhaps they are merely balls of gas encircled by planets like the scientists say. I lick my dry lips and shake my head. Scientists are merely those who cannot believe that the stars are more than balls of gas. They are alive, burning with the desire to shine, to shed light in the darkness of the universe. They burn to nurture life. To watch it grow. To watch it die and live again and again until they burn out.
         When I die, I would love to become a star, just floating around in endless space, possibly venturing to other places or other universes, even other dimensions. I do not believe that the stars, despite their consistency remain in the one spot for the duration of their bright and beautiful existence. No, I assure myself, they move. They wander. They roam the great vastness that was created just so they could. Humans are just an oddity to amuse them, a child to care for. The stars harbour no real interest in us feeble beings, only in the souls, the essences of light we carry within us.
Death holds my hand, leading me towards the stars, my soul yearning to rejoin those shining sparkles in the night sky. I can feel her tugging gently, pulling at my soul. She tries to tempt me with songs to follow, but my stubborn, frail body fights and resists her seductive urgings.
         But the stars are patient. They will wait until my body is ready to let go. They are in no hurry for me          to be with them, among them, sharing their utter brilliance and letting it surround me, welcoming me to wander the sky with them. They are patient. They know I will be with them soon and they will wait. My spirit, my soul will become a star or a part of one. Being transformed into a star to shine upon the earth. Maybe I’ll even shine above the very place where I now sit, a skeleton surrounded by tight pale skin, fighting the raging disease that threatens my life, taking my strength, draining my energy, emptying my body until it is empty. A wasted vessel suitable only for burying in the earth to rot, to decay. I do not care what happens to my body, only for my soul, my being. I am not worried that my body will soon be the fetid home and a feast for maggots and decay, or that it will become a fleshless skeleton, lying motionless in a rotting coffin. Or perhaps they will be kind and burn the horror that my body has become.
         It does not really matter.
         Only the ever brilliant and glorious stars matter and that I will join them and leave the pain behind, join them and be content.
         A spasm of pain racks my body, leaving me breathless until it subsides. I breathe deeply, wishing I were already amongst the stars. Tears roll down my fevered, hollow cheeks, adding to their burning heat.
         It will be soon. Death will have her prize and the stars their child.
         I’ll leave behind the pain, the helplessness and the constant torture that my mind endures. My mind is sad but whole, alert and fully aware that the body it is housed in cannot provide the stimulation of pleasure or activity that it has sought and yearned for to grow.
         I cough again and wince as my body shudders with the exertion needed to clear my lungs and ease the itch in my throat. The cough is new, but inevitable. My immune system no longer exists and the chill of the night has crept in and if I do not die of my current disease, the cold I am likely to get will. I smile gently, tenuously knowing that no one will mourn my passing, no one will care.
             I have been alone since birth. No parents or family, no friends or pets. Only doctors, needles, tests and sterile empty rooms. No one will miss me because I’m not there, because I am gone. Maybe the doctors will feel relief. Maybe they’ll be glad that I am no longer suffering, but they will not miss me. They have other patients, other cares and responsibilities. I remember the needles they would stab into me, the stinging pain and their faces filled with false concern. There, there now that didn’t hurt did it sweetie. I hated their false smiles when they looked at me and smoothed my dark hair in an attempt to be paternal and caring.
         I spent many nights curled up in my sterile white bed, hating my pain, hating them for lying that I will be better soon. I would stare at my hands and wish that I had maybe learned the piano. They are skinny enough and long enough to dance delicately on the black and white keys. Black and white like the stars in the night. They said no to everything. No fun for me. I’m too fragile, too sick and too unimportant to be allowed a life. I was a guinea pig they experimented on.
               The blue pyjamas they so generously clothed my hideous body in are soiled with sweat and hang ridiculously loose. The flimsy fabric is hardly thick enough to keep the cool breeze from causing the sweat on my back to chill and goose bumps rise up on my arms making my skin look as if I had strangely shaped scales. 
         My eyes become blurred and begin to throb to the beat of my heart. My chest suddenly feels tight and my breath comes out in ragged gasps. My hands start trembling uncontrollably and I feel weak. No doctor was able to help me. No last minute miracle will happen to cure me and no prayer I mutter, shout, or sob to a god I doubt the existence of can save me. 
         I can feel the cool touch of death getting stronger, more insistent, tugging harder at the cords that bind my life. I am tempted to go with her, but I want to watch the stars a little while longer before I join them.
         They know I’m coming and are ready to embrace me and accept me. They sparkle in anticipation just as I tremble in anticipation, waiting to meet them and be a part of them. The memories of my pitiful and brief life will fade away and I’ll begin anew, as a star shinning my brilliance onto the world. Knowing that those I shine upon will admire me and be filled with awe and longing to be like me, to see me up close. No longer will I worry about my future and what it might have held, despite the surety of my early death. The night will call to me, asking me to shine and share my beauty with mankind, letting them hold an image of me in their minds before drifting into sleep to dream of me and the others like me.
         I gasp as more spasms of pain abruptly shatter my train of thought. I shudder violently at each vicious onslaught and it is some time before I realise that I am no longer staring up at the sky. I lay doubled up on the soft grass gasping and sobbing with sweat pouring out of every pore on my body and my heart’s weakening beat pounding oddly loud in my ears. The soothing music of the night is muffled and I try to calm my frantic body. I whimper. I am afraid of my death, but not what comes after it. I am afraid to stop breathing, to stop feeling, to stop being me. Despite the years of pain and suffering I am afraid to follow death into relief.
         I cough violently and a strange warmth trickles down my jaw. I raise a hand to my face and explore the odd warmth with my fingers. The warmth transfers onto them and I pull them away. In the dark I can see little, but my skin has taken on a glow and I can see a dark stain on the tips and the strange warmth has faded and as it fades I know that my time has come.
         Death pulls harder at the binds on my life, sensing them give and I do not resist. I roll onto my back and manage to see the stars before a curtain of darkness clouds my sight and I follow death with vigour, my fears suddenly gone, knowing that soon I’ll be a star in the night sky.