Last night I dreamt I was alive again, I felt I was tasting life for the first time; the feel of rain on the tip of my tongue was so real, so delicate, so tragic. I walked in and around my dream wondering where my imagination ended and reality began, but I could never really tell.
That’s when I saw the shadow of a kindred soul lying on its back, right on the same mound of sand where I buried my star. My eyes saw red; I felt it was sacrilege for this trespasser to desecrate the grave of my dear friend. I quietly approached the resting soul and said: “why do you lie here when the sand is so vast and you can have your pick anywhere else but here?” I waited long for a response since it pretended not to hear me, but finally, when it realized I would hold my ground until it let out an explanation, it said in a slow indifferent drawl: “And why not? This mound provides a good pillow for my head, and besides, from this view I can see all the rest of the skies”
“What a proud creature you are, do you not know that this is the grave of my star and you have shown no amount of concern nor respect for it!” I uttered in indignation.
“A star you say?” it said with mild interest “those tiny drops of light belong to the skies not here on this barren sand, why did you choose to bury it here?”
“Because I don’t know how to take it back where it came from,” I said in frustration “I don’t have tools to build me anything that wil l carry me to that place”
“Come here, sit beside me,” the kindred soul invited “You don’t need to build a great ship nor climb a tall ladder in order to reach the heavens, that is foolishness, nor should you lie here waiting for the heavens to come down to you, that is madness. There is only one way”
“And what is that?”
“To die.”
“Are you implying that I should go now and take my life in order to reach heaven? That is the most absurd thing I ever heard.”
“Who said anything about taking your own life? That is the farthest path to heaven. All you have to do is go about doing your own business and wait. Wait for that ultimate moment when Death finally decides to take you”
“I cannot wait that long, I need to leave this place now. I need to be in a place with no darkness nor sadness nor bitter choices, a place where I no longer have to wait for things that will never come”
“Ah, but that is your biggest fault, heaven is not a place. It is a decision. It is a commitment, and until you have not made one, you will never get there” For a moment, I wanted to believe that the kindred soul had gone mad, but something inside me churned so I stayed silent.
I closed my eyes in confusion. I envy my star whose time has come, and who is probably happy now beside its family of bright twinkling envoys of light. Why has death not chosen to take me with it too? Why do I have to go on with this madness?
These are the voices that visit me every night.