By Elisa Tau
I was angry, the star hums, I was angry all the time.
It’s a strange noise, reverberates through suit and skin and bone. Within the hollow
spaces—the chamber of your helmet, the gaps within your heart—the hum remains to
echo. It travels up your spine, and the taste upon your tongue turns iron.
“Why were you angry?”
You float, weightlessly, within its orbit, and squint your eyes against its light. It’s mostly
steady; but each flicker appears fainter, weakened, almost-dark, like the last flutters of a
barely beating heart.
I always burned too bright, the answer resonates.
“Did the anger fuel fire?”
A flare erupts; a paltry thing. Yes.
How strange, you think. None of the others ever spoke of anger. Most prefer to go in
silence, though you stay with them all the same, up until their light has dimmed. Some
sometimes speak of long-lived lives, of meteors and moons and of their planets.
They watch how each evolve, how some end up as embers, how some end up as ice. Few
have ever sprouted life.
You turn this way, then that, for your helmet obscures most of it. Six planets spin around
the star, both near and far. The closest is a tiny thing, all marred and charred. The second
planet almost seems to swallow it, though its surface is all cracked, and scarred by angry,
lava-red. The next in line appear as floating rocks and wafting vapours; though they
remained unscathed by anger, they could not nurture life. The last move far too deep in
darkness, where light could never reach, and where any living creature would be sure to
freeze.
“Look,” you say, and point towards the planetary rocks and vapours, “these have
survived.”
But I could not change their nature.
The understanding’s said with pain. The hum that reaches you turns into a ringing tune
that makes the inside of your ear vibrate and almost tear. Your vision swims; where there
was a single star there now are two. Silence passes unperturbed as you gather up your
bearings and put commands into your suit; to amplify the sound suppressor, for its anger
also reaches you.
“You could not make them change?”
I could not.
“It is not in your nature to.”
Another flare erupts, this time stronger. No. Yet the effort was in vain.
“But you tried.”
What good did it do?
Something is not right; suddenly, the bones of your left arm feel tight, as though they wish
to break and splinter, for already you’ve lost feeling in your finger. The air inside your
chamber has been sucked out by its anger.
I tried, and burned too bright. I ended life before it had a chance to thrive. I ruined and was
ruined—my effort was my own undoing. I was not satisfied, so I tried, and tried, and tried,
to reach the outer edge, but that I did for far too long, for now my fire is all gone.
You run your tongue across your upper lip, and taste blood and iron on its tip. The strange
sensation has travelled from your temple towards the socket of your eye, where it makes
your vision stretch and throb, for still its fire burns too hot.
“You cannot change it now,” you tell it under strain, for half of what you see is flecked in
black, “there is no use for this anger, and there never was. The fire that was yours was
good enough; so was the one you conjured up, but some things simply cannot be, for there
only exists so much energy.”
This time the hum’s a feeble one. I know.
“Why the anger, then?”
I could not change my nature.
The vastness now feels louder than the star, and the darkness all around you begins to
feel like tar; as though it sticks to the fabric of your suit, and slows your every move.
Perhaps this also is its fault. Where anger fuelled pain, sadness now takes reign, and
closes in on both of you.
“Maybe you should mourn instead,” you offer. Your breath now fogs the glass through
which you view the star, and as you speak, your teeth begin to clatter; but the throbbing in
your eye has ceased, and you feel like you can breathe.
Its light has dulled, and the flickers turned erratic. Not in the way you’ve witnessed with
the others, where their cores have eventually turned static. It seems almost as if it tries to
hide away.
“Mourn what you wish you had achieved,” you speak into the quiet, “but do not forget that
despite this, what you have done has far sufficed, has shown both your valour and your
might, and has exceeded what was needed. Do not go in anger; go in peace.”
Time passes, and although the light does not return, the flickers seem to steady. The
darkness, too, retreats, and stops the clattering of your teeth. When it speaks next, your
bones still feel at rest.
There is no anger left.
“I’m glad.”
Stars do not grieve.
“So be the first. We humans do.”
The noise still penetrates, though it does no longer hurt. Its tone has lightened, and the
tingling in your body is now nothing more than the remnants of its anger, trickling out.
Learn from me as I will learn from you. Your life is but a fraction of the one that I called
mine; don’t let it be consumed.
Your promise it, and silence follows. The last embers now burn out.
You stay, to watch how the floating rocks and wafting vapours start to cool; how, without
the embers, their surface turns to ice, and the gases cease to move.
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