Twinkle, my little soul

The trees leaned towards each other to the point of weaving together into one black canvas. Moonlight could only pierce through the leaves here and there. That wasn’t enough to see a path underfoot—if there was one at all. His feet drowned in crunchy piles of what had already fallen. This year, as it seemed, the trees turned yellow earlier than usual – autumn wind did not chill his skin yet. In fact, it felt like the air itself froze into an unmoving veil.

Kelsie strained his ears for an umpteenth time, hoping to hear at least a cricket somewhere in the grass. His eyes had long since become accustomed to the darkness, but this vacuum-like silence was still ironically deafening. At some point he started to kick random pebbles, sending them into vegetation for a short rustle.

Once, when he was a kid, his father said that silence in a forest meant definite trouble. Creatures living there could sense the cold of death coming from the predators’ claws and did everything not to give themselves away. “As long as your feet are on the forest ground, by its rules, you are no better than any common squirrel.”

Kelsie used to believe that, to some point. He would stare into the darkness, dreading the glint of eyes watching him. But time, like an invisible companion, seemed to walk with him hand in hand. It felt like hours passed by without anything happening.

His legs were slightly sore from the long walk. It seemed he hadn’t taken any breaks yet...

The grass beneath the tree - of an indistinguishable type - turned out to be quite soft and a bit damp. He leaned back against the bark and pulled his legs up into his favorite lotus position. With nothing but his thoughts entertaining him, Kelsie simply stared at the spot where the sky should have been.

He was fortunate with a resting place - almost directly above, the leaves formed a barely noticeable gap. Beyond it, several tiny white spots and an edge of a moon disk were seen. For some reason, it reminded him of a shattered plate. His mom may have had a set in the same color... She would have definitely scolded him for breaking it, but not for long. Mom could never stay mad for long.

He wanted to continue looking at the stars until dawn came. Kelsie liked the one in the middle the most. It shone brighter than others, with an almost orange tint to it. It blinked playfully, as if sending a coded message to someone. May it be him?

Kelsie, without thinking, raised his hand and waved at it. It was unlikely that there would be a living soul nearby, so nobody to call him crazy. The star flashed once more, making him smile. Even if only for a second, even in a place like this, he found a friend.

“It's kind of gloomy here. Could use a little more light, you know," Kelsie scolded mockingly.

Maybe it was just his imagination, but the star flashed brighter than it had before.

***

Kelsie answered the ever-thickening darkness with a whistled melody. It sucked the unfortunate soul deeper and deeper, while he talked to the echo with false notes. Echo, however, did not care about his musical abilities – it sang along, sometimes louder, sometimes as quietly as it could.

"And do you like it?" He raised his head to look at the sky.

He knew that on the other side, his companion was listening too. Noticed a glare around a dozen steps back, that then hid behind tree crowns.

“That’s strange, actually. My head is a complete mess, but I remember these songs. Probably nothing more useful to be stored-"

A cold gust of wind hit his face.

He stumbled not because of the sudden change in temperature, but from the feeling forgotten of something other than clothes against the skin. The hood slapped on his back, and the hem of the jacket flew apart. Surrounding shadows started to shake in some kind of wild dance, humming and hissing all around. Branches whistled past the very top of the head, miraculously not touching it.

On top of everything else, a heavy drop landed on his face. And then another and another. The leaves could not hold this flow for long, so soon they joined this clattering cacophony. Fabric, pulled down to the eye level, did not help at all. It stuck to the hair immediately, like an ice-cold floor rag. For a split second, the world became blinding white, and thunder struck somewhere very close. What he had of visibility dropped to a minimum – his outstretched hand disappeared into the fog.

In mere seconds, the helpless creature was caught in the clutches of elements. Kelsie felt abnormally fast thudding of his own heart in his temples and chest because he could only crouch down, pull his head into the shoulders and curl up into a tight ball. Creaking of the wood made him hold his breath - a blow was about to strike any moment.

This melody would have been easily lost in the surrounding chaos if it hadn’t started playing directly in Kelsie's head. So quiet, like a passing thought somewhere on the edge of the consciousness. Familiar falseness but sung by a voice unknown. It felt like his very soul was getting a warm hug from a loved one.

“Come…on…”

Lifting his head a little bit, he couldn’t see anything because of all the water running down his face. Squinting, he looked around. There was no one around, he was still as alone as a boat in the stormy waves. Then suddenly…

The boy took leaped from his spot – a faint glow was breaking through the dense cloud of fog, as if someone was trying to catch his attention with a lantern. The wind got so strong that every step had to be taken with a titanic effort. Drops lashed painfully against Kelsie’s cheeks and flowed into his mouth and cheeks. Mud made moving legs normally almost impossible.

But this voice called out to him, interrupted by distortions.

“A little…”

“Too…oon”

“Co..e on”

He had to pull himself further, by holding onto the tree trunks. It was as if this night, nature and, damn it, the whole universe were all against him reaching the luring light. There were only maybe a few meters left, for which he no longer had any strength left. A blast of wind hit his legs, making Kelsie fly face down into the mud. By some miracle he managed to put his hands forward and, after a moment of rest, get up on all fours. His limbs hardly moved, muscles burning. As the last shot, Kelsie could only throw his whole body forward, like a beaching fish.

And suddenly it became warm. Warm, like reaching the fireplace after being in the center of a blizzard. It seeped inside, way deeper than bones, down to the bottom of the heart. It was like someone sheltered him in their arms, like a small child. Kelsie tucked his legs to his chest – even though there was enough space inside of a split trunk of some ancient tree – and fell into the haze of sleep, listening to the voice singing a lullaby in his head. An orange ray of light reflected in a puddle right outside and fell on his shoulder.

***

In this never-ending night, a light accompanied him. Always looming out of reach, but never out of sight. The star became a listener and an interlocutor. It listened to a fairytale made on a spot and to him screaming to his heart’s content when it started to get unbearable. They sang together – it set the melody, Kelsie picked out the words and shared them with the echo. Sometimes they dozed off together under a tree, but that was on a rare occasion. Waking up afterwards was way too hard.

It was not as calm as it had been before, but they were threatened by nothing more than a short drizzle. Warm wind brought the smells of blooming herbs and lilacs, and then playfully climbed up his sleeves.

When there was silence in his head, Kelsie went over the chronology of his memories. The links of this chain were broken and any attempt to reconstruct them resulted in a wild headache. Holidays, dinner with his parents, the last day before the trip back... But his parents live in a big city, right? No. He was the one renting the apartment? This buzzing-growling sound keeps resurfacing. Grey high-rises looming over him. Smells disgusting – like damp mold mixed with ash. It's like a forgotten word. Right on the tip of his tongue, just a little bit more, just catch at least the first letter...

He cried the first time it happened. Screamed the second. After the tenth - just came to terms with it and stopped giving himself terrible migraines. There’s a forest. In this forest there’s Kelsie. And Kelsie has a Star, that won’t let him trip over the nasty roots and will once again dry the wet cheeks. It’s all basic knowledge, like elementary school math. Maybe he was here all along, and all these pictures in his head are nothing more than dreams, conjured up by other stars. They, for sure, see everything from such height – both people and their houses, they listen to the sounds of the earth life. So somewhere far away, it’s not him sitting in the kitchen of a woman with a familiar face, but some other guy. And the loud outraged voices are not theirs, but simply accidentally got mixed into

His Star started to glow brighter at those moments, growing larger and blinking like a candlelight caught in a draft. Sometimes it sent rays on random spots on his clothes and Kelsie tried to catch them with his palms. This meaningless game did a pretty good job of keeping the gloom at bay. Kelsie would start spinning around, which resulted in him falling into bushes a few times. Then they would laugh at each other and continue on the way.

The forest wasn’t ending – just something was changing in it. At first, it couldn’t be seen in the same landscapes. The sixth sense, as they called it, was ringing all the bells. The changes were happening inside. Where exactly this inside was and what it looked like, he could not say. It was similar to the time or matter – you know that it is there, you just can’t imagine or touch it.

The physical world changed more slowly, in some fine details. Kelsie happily munched on a wild apple, however sour it was. He wasn’t hungry per se, but a few hours ago, there wasn’t even a single mushroom around to eat. Small victories are worth celebrating too. Together they crossed the first stream on the way. Water in it was ice-cold, so Kelsie had to jump on the stones washed by the current. Without help, in the darkness, he would have definitely broken something.

“I know we have to say goodbye soon.” He said when they stopped to listen to the first notes of crickets singing. It was getting louder with each passing second, as if the insects were gathering from all around. Muffled hooting of an owl, brought by the wind earlier, did not scare them away.

Far away, the sky started to crack along the horizon. The darkness was reluctantly giving way to the fire of dawn, and it reflected in the windows of a slanted hunting lodge. It looked so old, like it was standing here when these ancient oaks were merely thin shoots.

“I don’t know where a star might be going, but we’ll see each other again sometime.”

It started to pulse very quickly.

“Fi…n…ly”

The static in his head was getting louder. An invisible timer began a countdown. The Star, sensing it, flared up more with every “click” of imaginary clock hands. Kelsie had to close his eyes for a second, to not get blinded.

Opening them, he almost fell to his back. His heart was emitting light. Or, rather, it was a bundle of rays that hovered in the air by his chest. It was radiating the soft warmth of a living being. Kelsie carefully put his palms under it and the bundle settled in them. It felt like weightless dandelion fluff, warmed up by the spring sun. So that’s what stars feel like…

“Thank you…” Kelsie lifted the bundle to level his face. Instead of hugging it, he simply bowed his head to touch at least the outlines with his forehead.

He stood like that until the last glimmer of light faded from his fingers to the chorus of waking birds.

Kelsie turned around and stepped over the threshold of the hunter’s lodge.

***

“N...rm”

“Clin…al…eth”

“Wak…up”

He hears crickets again. Lots of them. Their squeaks drown out already barely audible voices.

He floats in the black weightlessness, separately from the lead-filled limbs. Not his own, it’s just that they happened to uselessly dangle in the same space. Wait, isn’t he supposed to have eyes? Were they open already? His brain could not process what was meant by that.

Oh, he has fingers. That’s funny. Kelsie slightly moves his pinky finger and for some reason, it fills him with immense joy.

The squeaks are getting louder, but that doesn’t stop him from enjoying finding his own body parts. Left toe, right palm…

He falls into the void at breakneck speed and somehow it doesn’t faze him at all. The voices are getting closer. The void has no bottom. Instead, all sensations come pouring into his body at once. It can only be compared to hitting the concrete floor.

“Ca…you…h..ear…?”

Well, now Kelsie wished he had no eyes. Struggling to open them, he was punished with an unbearable burning sensation. Nothing to see anyway. Everything is so white...

“Ke…l..sie!”

This high voice knows his name. And he knows this high voice.

One more try. Tolerable, but he would prefer to fall into the saving darkness again. There’s nobody there to ask him to move a finger or tell them his name. It pricks, squeezes and pulls everywhere… Someone was looming overhead, blocking his view of the white tiles of the ceiling. And he just got to five in his counting, what a bummer.

Kelsie tilts his head to the side so he can’t see the lips moving in another question. There’s a thin green line bouncing on the screen. So not crickets...Too bad.

They poke him, touch his limbs, shine a flashlight in his eyes, and after a couple of unanswered questions, leave him alone. The high voice comes back again after a while and Kelsey squeezes out a quiet ‘Mo...m?’. She's too afraid to hug him, so she just kisses his forehead, below the bandages. Her hands are shaking. That’s not good. That’s not how it is supposed to be. She sits with him for quite a long time then says something about visiting hours, kisses him again and leaves the room. Kelsie can only weakly reach after her.

Not even a few minutes pass when the door opens again, and a tall figure comes inside. They are not in the doctor’s coat but in the orangish scrubs. They, unlike others, don’t say a word to him, just check something on the IV stand and walk over to the cabinet in one of the room corners. A young man – a nurse, maybe a student - spends a long time sorting through something and putting it back in its place. Kelsie almost falls asleep, but something wakes him up instantly.

The melody.

That same melody.

He hears it here, in reality.

The man continues to do his job, humming it to himself. He turns around, hearing a change in the sound of the heart-rate machine.

“Everything okay?”

A voice from his head. No distortion, just the way it should be. It seems to be woven from the threads taken from the word "care", although it is saturated with fatigue. Kelsie notices the bags under his eyes and for some reason really wants to apologize for them. But a hand with a birthmark on its back, vividly reminiscent of a star, gently falls on his knee and all he can croak out is:

“Have we... met before?”