Between Stars

The meteoroid first came to me in a dream one night. At least, I think it was a dream. Perhaps I was chosen by them, and my soul had truly been brought to the skies that night and the many nights that we spent together after our first meeting. They never told me much, so I choose to believe the simplest answer; that I became swept up in their universe all while my body was tucked safely in bed.

On the first night, I found myself enveloped in stars. The moon’s light cast a shadow on one side of my face as I floated upwards, higher and higher and further and further from the familiarity of Earth. Within moments, I felt no need to breathe, blink, or even move, because some part of me knew that I was not truly conscious, nor was I connected to my body anymore. There was nothing to fear in the silent serenity of space.

For a long time, my soul travelled on its own, in no particular direction. I did not feel any kind of pull or pressure and I was not afraid. Black holes did not attempt to beckon me into their depths, debris passed me by without so much as a second glance, and stars seemed to bow their heads my way in farewell as their sparkle died with them. The stars did not fear death, and neither did I. If I had ever believed I’d felt peace in my life on Earth, I was wrong. I had not felt true peace until my arrival in space.

Finally, they arrived, floating by and around me until we moved as one. Despite lacking a body, I felt so small at their side, though I did not fear them. This grey mass seemed to gaze at me with a thousand eyes, and when they spoke I felt their words in, around, and through me. I could not hear these words, but I could feel them, and they felt like infinity.

“I’ve waited for you,” They hummed. “I’ve waited a millennium for you to arrive.”

“Am I everything you expected?” A response was not difficult to form, I noticed. My words seemed to flutter around us, bouncing from walls that were not there.

“And more, my love.”

We remained silent the rest of our first night together, simply travelling through a never-ending universe side-by-side until I felt a gentle pull, a call from Earth telling me that it was time to come back home.

Each night after that, my soul returned to space. I’d let my head fall gently back on my pillow and awaken amongst the stars with my newfound love at my side, and we’d speak. We spoke of humanity, particularly its flaws. We spoke of the universe and how long the meteoroid had travelled through it in their wait for my arrival. I asked countless questions about how the universe and planet Earth had come to be, but my love only ever gave a single response.

“It does not matter. It will not matter.”

I did not know what that meant.

One night, we did not speak at all, not for a long time. We floated together for what felt like hours, but they did not say a word. We seemed to follow an asteroid ahead of us, and I could feel that words were being exchanged between my love and this stranger. I was perplexed until I saw it happen, until I realised why we had been following this asteroid; until it hurtled its way into the Sun.

I am sure my love could hear my silent scream as flames burst around the asteroid, as this large rock resembling the one by my side disintegrated into nothing at once. Sparks of red, yellow and orange curled around the rock, embracing them within an instant before dragging them in. It was beautiful, and it was horrifying. If I’d had a physical form then, my heart could not have taken the pain of watching such senseless death occur before me.

“Why?” I begged of them, as the two of us simply passed by the formidable Sun. “Why did that happen? Why did it have to happen?”

The meteoroid only hummed. The blackness seemed to rumble around us as they did.

“I have not always been the way that I am now, my love,” They paused. “I was once an asteroid, as humans call them, like my friend; my friend who is gone, now.”

I did not know what to think, then. I just waited, and listened. It was all I could do.

“I was separated from myself. The rest of what I was surrendered to the Sun, as many of us do. I passed by your planet, briefly.”

“Please, love,” I interrupted. “I just want to know why. Why must it happen? You must be able to change these things.”

This was the first and only time that I ever felt fear in space. My love seemed to feel nothing for my words, or perhaps they felt something that was just incomprehensible to me. I was petrified, and yet they only answered my many questions with one more.

“How do you think I found you?”

My confusion threatened to overtake my fear, then.

“You can’t just disappear. You can’t possibly want that. You can’t choose that. Why would you ever choose that?”

I was frantic in my terror. For a moment, it felt as if I could hear my own voice, the sheer force of my emotion seeming to almost shatter the boundaries of what was possible and what was not.

The eternal being by my side did not seem flustered by my blatant fear. They just hummed again, and their next words felt like electricity jolting through me, as though the universe was trying to show me some meaning in these words that I could not decipher.

“We all have a path we must take.”

The next night, sleep did not find me. I didn’t understand; I should have been up there with my love, amongst the stars, yet I could not rest.

After spending so long in space without a physical form, I had come to find life on Earth uncomfortable. Everything I touched felt like sandpaper, including my own skin. When human beings spoke to me, their words didn’t feel like anything; they were all hollow. I was lost without my love, and I wanted to feel them the way I always had since we’d met, but I couldn’t, not on that night. It took me far too long to realise why.

My television flickered. My phone buzzed rapidly in my hand. Sirens blared outside. A meteor was hurtling towards the Earth. There would be no survivors. “Godspeed.”

Upon stepping outside, I saw families huddled together in the street. They were all crying, holding each-other, some of them holding so tight I could see that their knuckles were white. Despite their grief, they looked up to the sky and I could see the awe and wonder in their eyes. After several moments I, too, looked up.

The meteor almost seemed to take up the whole night sky. I could not see the stars any longer. If I were any other human being, perhaps I would have felt terrified, but all I felt looking to the sky then was love.

They had come here to be with me, to save me from this shallow life. Finally, we would not be apart from each-other again. As cries turned into screams around me, and as the moon disappeared behind this flaming rock, behind my love, I was not afraid.

Their path had led them to me. Finally, it had led them to me, and I embraced them with open arms. I was not facing death; I was being reborn.