Monoceros

As soon as I took in a mouthful, I realized that it was poison. In the same instant, I knew it was also an intense panacea, bearing the wonders that had entranced me and now flowed within me. But it was laced with something I had not sensed, a venom of the sort I had never encountered in all of my star years.

The substance lingered on my tongue, my organ of curiosity. It tasted of sweet joy and bitter sadness, bubbly laughter and despair-tinged tears. As I collapsed to my knees, I wondered with newfound horror about the small blue-and-green planet, so innocent-looking from afar. In what sort of place did this paradox thrive?

I was soon to find out, for even in this state I could feel myself being pulled closer, its atmosphere attracting whatever foreign substance was spreading through my veins. It strangled me with icy fingers while still tingling with a warm, invigorating touch. Soon it became clear that my body was its vessel, but not its target. No, its target was my soul organ. Its target was my horn.

I could not even begin to summon the strength to flee. My legs, all four of my freedom organs, were paralyzed, and my hooves completely numb.

Why, Monoceros? I cursed myself. 

Why had I drunk from this galaxy pool? I could not remember. My mind organ was lost, memory and focus crushed together as if by a black hole. Blindly, desperately, I grasped at the thoughts that flowed past me. Skywaters shimmering with reflections that weren’t my own. Visions of strange, beautiful creatures. These images swirled around me, pain and relief washing over me in wickedly short succession. For the first time ever, I wished passionately to stop being, if it meant this would end. The stars that made up my body felt as though they were being ripped away. I can’t go on like this. I’ll explode. I’m not ready to be a supernova.

My last sight was of the planet as I was sucked into its orbit. My last feeling was of total, shattering, irreversible impact.

And that is when my life split in half forever.

Here is what I was before: A wanderer by nature, I roamed the galaxy, leaving only my shadow behind to hold my place in the night sky, and anchor me to my origin and to my sibling constellations. Orion, Gemini, Canis Major, Hydra--all of them more stable, more grounded than I. I traveled! My hooves galloped through the unknown, my horn dipping into nebulae and stirring up midnight pools. I was Monoceros; I found home in constant movement and stability in change.

And now there is the other me. The ‘after’ me that came into being when my thirst of curiosity finally took me too far. It led me to this place, Gaia, planet of earth and water and what is known as life. Planet of poisoning, healing, paradoxical humanity. After drinking from its atmosphere, my body became one with it, helplessly drawn by its gravitational pull and confined to its reaches.

Now, I look at myself and see two halves. Never a whole. Not anymore. My beautiful horn is a seamless swirl of dark and light, proof that my soul is permanently changed. Some nights I gallop for miles to find my constellation, and sleep as close to home as an echo can, and some nights I flee as far as possible from any such reminder.

Some days I even walk among them. Always unseen by their eyes, I do it to observe. And it is terrible, and beautiful.

They are creatures made of layers, surely. How else could they be so many things? They have hard outer layers that consume, and destroy, and hurt, and hate, valuing nothing but themselves and what they deem theirs. I feel it in myself too, now that I am made of the same materials. But it is nowhere close to the whole being. The human being. On the contrary, it is the very tip of their existence, and yet the most visible, all-consuming trait. It is a suit of armor left over from a time when survival was key, and everyone is born destined to wear it.

Some turned to it as protection when tragedy and abuse bruised them to the bone, oblivious to the fact they are only continuing the cycle. Some tried it on because it was easy, then left it on until repetition drew grooves in their habits too deep to climb out of. Some want it so they don’t stand out; in their eyes, different equals vulnerable. 

But many stand against the crowd. He taught himself how to disassemble the disguise, she urges others to do the same. He was raised with it forced upon him, but now fights the brave fight for his true layers to be seen. And she, she is one of the miraculous few who simply shed it one day, lightened and enlightened, never to be worn again. Just when I am disgusted by these creatures, they amaze me.

Look, for instance, at the heart, a constant beat against the ticking-clock mind. It is the center of the human, visible in only those whose outside is transparent, so very few keep it in sight. It’s almost as if they don’t know they’ll be happier.

But their heart is not confined to their blood-pumping cardiac muscle, just as my soul is never confined to my horn. Instead it can be seen where the hand holds another, in the glimmer of a passing smile, in the footsteps making their way home. Outside the body, too--in the sound of that song, woven into those words, preserved in that work of art are pieces of heart left behind. Underneath their false nature and society’s limitations, these beings are made of something special beyond even the stardust in their bones. Emotion, extreme capability to create, and connect, and dream, and die having lived a valuable existence in the intricate universe that is a single one of them. They break and hurt, they grow and heal, they are selfish and shallow and suddenly too complex for words.

Yet here I am, a child of the universe stranded on this alien world. For me to ever return to the galaxy fields where I was born, I know humanity must cease. And I know this will happen eventually. But will they last until the end of the solar system, everything going down with them when they fall? Or will they burn themselves out completely billions of years before the sun ever explodes?

Inexplicably, I find myself willing them to succeed. Although their destruction would mean my freedom, I am already one with them, irreversibly so. I can see their potential, and they need to start using it, for the sake of their whole planet and all that strives for balance. Just as I was made with hooves, so I run; they were made with compassion and intelligence, so they must use it before it is too late.

Who is Monoceros? I will always be born of stars, but am I human now too? Maybe one day I can know my new self, embrace my humanity wholeheartedly. Even if this part of me is mortal, the quest is worth spending a lifetime on. And even as I decide this, a storm in my soul shifts to reveal a clear sky. Far above, I see my old self, nestled among my sibling constellations. 

I am exceptionally bright tonight.