A Life Covered in Stars

I heard a story once. One about a girl, a bull, a rock, and the stars. This girl was born from the leg of a man, and she was loved greatly by her fathers. She was loved so much that the men she lived with refused to give her to the Bone Bull for marriage. But after the bull sent multiple birds as messengers, the men finally allowed the bull to take their daughter.

She lived with the bull for a year’s time before the men sent a mole and a badger to take her away from the bull. Once she was free, they began to flee, for the Bone Bull was cruel and would chase after them to get the girl back. They sought safety, which was afforded by an old cottonwood tree, where they were out of reach of the bull. When the bull found them, the tree promised them that they would be safe and let the bull attack its trunk. The Bone Bull lodged himself in the tree, trying to reach his wife, and the men in the tree were able to kill the bull. And it was after this killing that humans came to rule over the buffalo, who would fear man despite their horns and their strength.

Once the men and their daughter were free from the tree, the magpie, the first messenger of the bull, came with a marriage proposal from a round rock, the Merciless-man. The rock’s wives were all mutilated, missing limbs and bruised all over, so the magpie advised the men not to accept the marriage proposal. The rock sent next a hummingbird, who tells the men to flee and take their daughter with them. When rock learned of this controversy, the hummingbird told the men to give the rock their daughter and, once again, send the mole and the badger to save her before he injures her. And so, the daughter was wed to the rock.

Each morning, the rock left through the top of a tent where he and his wife reside, and returned the same way. So, the mole and the badger dug a hole for him to fall into as he entered the tent in the evening. When he fell into this trap, the mole and the badger covered the hole and trapped him in the earth, allowing the daughter to escape and find her fathers.

The rock chased the girl and her fathers, until on the next morning, the girl told her fathers to stop running, for she was tired. As the rock was coming nearer, the girl held out a ball which she had in her possession. She kicked up the ball after saying “First for my father.” She repeated this for each of the men, and finally for herself. She told them that they had lived through dangers on her account, and so it was her turn to protect them. Before they left, she told the rock that he would not move from the place which he had overtaken them. She told him that he would be found all over the hills, but no longer bother anyone.

The girl and her fathers ascended into the sky, and they live in tents covered with stars.

This is the story on my mind as I peer up into the dark, the tiny lights peering back at me. I wish that I could live in the stars. I wish that I could escape the pain of this world. In just the same way that this family fled something that seemed stoppable, I sometimes feel that we have to flee the entirely preventable pain here.

My gaze falls from the sky and the faintly visible stars, a whole universe fading in the light coming from around me. A whole galaxy of stars that is likely disgusted by what is happening around me.

When I first came here today, I saw a little girl perched on her mother’s shoulders. The girl was holding a sign, written in elementary handwriting, but with a message that strikes fear in the heart of men who are currently hiding behind walls. Walls of white, walls of blue, walls of green.

I have since lost sight of this little girl and her mother. They were swallowed by the crowd and I pray that they left before the stars began to show.

The achingly familiar push and pull of the crowd around my draws my back down to earth. The chants start up again, cries of the angry, the sad, the excited fill the air, crackling almost like static energy.

The sounds of the protest echo in my brain, reverberate in my heart, and I feel my eyes well up with tears. I am surrounded by good people; people who actually care about each other in a way that some cannot fathom. There is so much love here. There is so much positive energy. But where there is positive energy, there is evil. Good must always be fighting evil. The eternal balance.

The world around me is coming to life, propped up by that static energy. In the distance, a building burns, lighting up the sky. A symbol of power, of pain. It means that things are changing.

Then we see them. Silhouetted against the burning world, men who want to stamp it out. Apprehension, anger, fear build in the crowd, but the love never falters. The static builds.

They begin to come closer. And, like the static finally sparking, they rush towards us. Anguished cries rise from the crowd. Gas crawls across the ground, reaching for as many of us as it can. But you can’t blame it, it can only do what it is told to do, it cannot know that it is doing something wrong.

My feet stay rooted in their place. Chaos breaking out around me at the men come closer.

It’s ironic that cries for peace are met with violence. Others are outraged at our outrage. They refuse to see our pain, but they villainize our reaction. If only they could share the love that everyone here has for one another.

Eventually, I am shoved by someone in the crowd, and my feet start moving for me. They try to save me from the violence, but it is unavoidable. My feet pound against the pavement, taking me away from this central street, but they are everywhere.

When they see me, they yell, they yell like I am the one that is evil. I don’t stop running when I hear them. The fear has finally strangled my body; my brain frantically searching for survival. I think of my parents, and I think about how they would feel if I never made it home from this protest. It hurts more than the fear of my death.

When they catch me, I stop. I have learned to never struggle or fight back, because maybe then I might survive. The unfairness of it all burns in my fists. The hold me down, feet and fists everywhere. They never stop yelling, even as I let them do with me what they wish. I am at their mercy, but they are completely void of it.

My head hits the pavement, and through the gaps in their onslaught of abuse, I see the stars. I see the daughter and her fathers, safe from greedy and abusive men. I wish that I could find my own home in the sky and cover it with stars. I wish that could be a beacon of hope for everyone like me.

My eyes start to close and I feel myself being lifted up off the ground. Whoever is lifting me has much gentler hands than the men who were just on top of me. I feel as if a weight is lifted off my chest and I keep traveling upwards. Each inch that we rise, the pain in my body fades more and more, becoming a dull throb, and then just a faint tingling of my skin.

I open my eyes to see a young girl. Her long hair falls around her brown skin. She is holding me gently, somehow carrying my weight even though she can’t be older than fifteen. We keep going upwards. As we travel higher, she starts to fade away into the darkness, but small dots on her skin begin to glow. Though I cannot see her body any longer, I still feel her soft arms pulling me to the sky with her.

Bringing my hand up to my face, I realize that my body is disappearing too. Small, bright dots appearing in each place where I felt pain just minutes ago. I look back up to the girl, to find that I am being cradled by the stars. The girl sets me on my feet, and beckons for me to follow her. She is only visible in the shifting of the stars, but I follow her. She leads me into a modest tent, covered in stars.