Ease

Looking up, there was the night sky. Thousands of stars hung from its blackness, flickering mockingly, playfully. They knew he could not reach them. They laughed at him with their white flames and heatless light, as they had done every night for the past fifteen, maybe seventeen years. But he didn’t mind them; he knew that’s just how stars were. Once again, he was ready to try. Confidence had never left, even after all that time, and now it wasn’t the time to let it stir away. He was sure: this was the night.

He took a few more seconds looking at the dark sky, printing the little dots of light into the black canvas of his mind. The wind blew gently around him, carrying some brown, fallen leaves up to the small grassy hill. He took a deep breath, letting the cold, dying autumm air fill his lungs with its reinvigorating energy, that soon was travelling all over his body. And then, he closed his eyes.

The world slowly diluted and dissapeared, as he submerged himself into that peacefull, quiet sensation of nothingness that was now so familiar. Smiling, he let go. His mid floated away, going up, up, up, as his body went down. As he seaparated more and more from it, he began to feel less and less, until not only the touch of the grass on his bare feet but even the pain dissappeared wihout a trace. He didn’t even feel the muffled thump of his head hitting the grass. All he felt was the lightness that overcame him, that strange, quiet sensation of breaking apart of oneself, of becoming almost undone, as he stretched and lifted deep into the night sky.

Then the show started. The stars on his mind shook and became sparkles, brighteninig up, growing, glowing. Their light intensified, and if there had been something left of him it would have been revealed. Incorporeal, he chose a beam and mounted it, speeding up. All the sparkles started to move in an erratic, joyfull dance, as coming out of a hearty bonfire. They spinned and fluctuated at the rhythm of an unknown music he could yet not hear, but still sensed piercing through him.

He traveled around wondrous images of constelations being formed, shifting and shining all over the surrounding space. A rabbit made of fiery freckles jumped in the distance, dissolving into a giant dynnosaur’s jaw. Drops of lighting ink drew an open hand, that greeted him from the distance. One seed made from a single star grew and joined others, becoming a sapling, and then a big tree, that eventually broke and died. An infinity of celestial pictograms were revealed, changing forever the earthen star map, filling him with wonder.

As the stars closed up, they started forming galaxies and later revealed all the brightless objects gathered around them. He saw planets and comets circling spheres of fire, and clouds of dust and shards of rock playing hide and seek. He rode over a forming dark hole and an agonizing white dwarf, witness of the decay of all things. He sailed through a desert of cosmic dust beggining to group near a new-born star, witness of the beggining of all things. The entirety of the cycle was shown to him, and deep awe overcame. If he had eyes still, he would have cried. If he had legs still, he would have kneeled. But there was nothing left, thus he just kept feeling, thanking, marveling.

Into the deepest of the universe the man travelled, letting go, guided by the lights and shadows of the Everything. Then he looked up, and he had arrieved. A body greeted him; his body. Lying in the ground, the stars looked more beautiful than ever. And odd. Startled, he got on his feet, every part of his body chirring and hurting. The air smelled different, the ground was harder, the stars were not the same… he looked around and found himself standing in the most magnificent landscape he had ever seen. A cliff of rock in shades of deep blue opened in front of him, falling hundreds of meters into a lake of brilliant light blue liquid surrounded by a white mud-like substance. A patch of mist floated low over it, its translucid surface broken here and there by some pyramid-shaped stalagmytes of bright cyan and turqueoise. Veins of golden and crimson encased them, entwined, reaching the walls of the cliff and creating fantastic figures all over its height.

Stumbling, the man roamed as fast as he could the edge of the steep, until he found a spot to descend by. Half falling and half sliding he landed at the edge of the lake, and with trembling hands he drank the peculiar liquid. It was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. For all he knew it could have been poisonous, but at that point it didn’t matter anymore. Satiated, he turned around and layed in the cool, silky white mud. He stayed there, watching the stars and the giant, violet moon, until the last one of them left to clear the way for two suns, one big and blue, the other smaller and ruby red. A deep sigh found its way between his smiling theeth and into his shaken body. He couldn’t believe it. He had done it. He had finally made it. Filled by enormous joy, cuddled by the warmth of the sunlight in his naked body, he fell asleep.

In dreams, he wandered the planet. He saw hollow volcanos going down to the planet’s core, where the heat was so intense that everything melted and undulated, mixing together to form bright, liquid sculptures. He watched as an inmense, magestic storm covered half of the planet and bursted with wind and lighting the stone and metal ground into dust and little rocks, then carried away by a deluge of bluish water. Half a planet away, dawn came over a forest of coloured, long stalagmites, gleaming with dripping humidity. A large lake turned and turned as a whirl formed on its bottom, splashing cyan foam all over the high, white mountains that enclosed it. All night he walked among the incredible marvels of a nature never known or seen before, wondering, praying, dreaming fantasies and dreams within dreams. Everything he had ever wished to live and see he saw, and much, much more.

He woke up at sunset. The two colourful suns were dissapearing slow and lazily, paiting the cloudy sky with an entire palette of vivid oranges, greens and purples. A breeze kissed his grizzly, white hair, as tears fund their way through the many grooves of his face. Smiling, crying, he watched as one by one the stars began to appear once again between the darkening clouds. He counted, saluted and talked to them. He invented stories for each one and told them out loud, until late into the night. Then, one moment he stopped. For a long time he layed there very still, in silence, watching the stars dance. Then he closed his eyes, staring into the black canvas of his mind. The strange, marvelous world around him diluted and dissapeared, as he submerged himself into that peacefull, quiet sensation of nothingness that was once so familiar, but had now adquired a whole new meaning, a new happy, thrilling undertone. Smiling, he let go.