In The Cosmos, Out The Flames

He couldn’t open his eyes. Despite his currently unknown circumstances, he didn’t have it in himself to be brave enough to have a look. He couldn’t think, his head pounding at a level that could only be described as other-worldly. He wondered whether others felt like this, the way he had felt for so many years. Can this even be considered something new? He merely considered it a more profound experience, a more mature extremity of his anguish.

He concluded that no, it was worse, because normally his legs wouldn’t go numb the way they were right now. His arms wouldn’t feel like they were sizzling on a grill, his body in shock from whatever previous events occurred to get him to this point. Only a specific part of his chest hurt, in reality, however far away that might be now. The possibilities would astound him, when he opened his eyes. But they stayed closed.

Faded past memories tickled his brain, but remained just so. Hidden away like his planet was from him, stored in a dark manner he could never reach out to again. He thought of simple questions and answers, like his name. How old he was, where he lived, what he did for a living.

The people he loved.

At that moment, he had nothing to say to himself. No words of comfort, no name coming to mind. He wondered if it was always like this, when was the last time he had an answer to that? When he couldn’t force a comforting rebut, he gave up. He then thought to himself; at least he had the distraction of physical pain to distract him from all other bombarding notions. And, at last, he opened his eyes.

Trepidation filled his core. He knew this was alarming, of course, but that was an understatement. Perhaps it was the ridiculousness of it all, the fact that he knew the reality of this happening was impossible. He knew he was dreaming, or hallucinating, or he was in a coma. He knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for his situation, because this couldn’t be happening. This isn’t happening, he lied to himself. It was.

His head felt heavy, heavy enough to weigh him down. But he couldn’t digest that concept as he couldn’t feel… anything else. There was no sense in his body of physical balance whatsoever, and it astonished him. He didn’t have time to think about the fact that he was in a suit, or that somehow he was alive. He merely tried to understand the phenomenon he was in, but found it to be a lost cause. 

He panicked, arms flailing and legs thrashing. Despite the roughness of his movements, and the frustrated place which they rooted from, every second of motion he made was effortlessly fluid. He felt as though he was swimming through air, and he didn’t enjoy a second of it. Raw fear overtook him, and chaos ensued. It’s loud in his head, alarms blaring and red everywhere. He couldn’t focus, could barely breathe, and every time he managed to gain a second of temporary serenity, he’d laugh at his pathetic attempt to make sense of this absurd situation.

He yelled at himself in his head, over and over again. He told himself to stop it, to get ahold of himself, to sink his feet into reality and find a solution. But there was no solution, and his awareness of that particular fact is what made him terrified. How could he regain his composure, a position so fragile he couldn’t handle it even when he could touch the ground? In what manner would he be able to do that here, where he simply existed in a plethora of unknowns?

He decided he had to think of life before, and so he did. His hands grazing the tips of green grass, picking petals off a flower. Jumping into a lake, feeling water surround him. Holding his breath mere milliseconds before the limit, then running out for air. The wind on his face, raindrops falling one by one. A kiss on his forehead. Holding someone’s hand. Finally, he had a breakthrough; he created a few minutes of peace and decided to enter that pocket while he had the chance.

He floated, aimlessly, as he thought about how he was free, free from the shackles of gravity. He felt unconfined. Liberated. Though he wanted to wrap his head around it, it was hopeless. He was in complete and utter awe of the complexity of the cosmos, the feeling in his chest pumping ten times harder as he admired it all. He tried to breathe, to regain control of himself. But he couldn’t stop his mind from racing, from trying to count the stars or trying to grasp how it was possible that there were so many.

He wanted to have a moment of calm, but the only way he knew how to do that was with a mental list. In his scenario, however, it was proving to be quite difficult coming up with an order to one. Eventually, he landed on just breaking it down so perhaps he could understand it piece by piece. First, he noted that he didn’t like his lack of orientation. Not having control is something he has never been fond of, and this was the ultimate test, pushing him to the brim of his limits. 

He decided the second worst thing was the silence surrounding him. It was so quiet, eerily so, and tranquil was not exactly how he’d describe it. Engulfed in emptiness, he realized he had never felt so small. Well, of course he did, in other ways. People made him feel so, the world did. In the back of his mind a dangerous idea mentioned that maybe it was better he could feel small in this vast celestial body than by humans on a planet he couldn’t even see anymore. He felt himself spiral deeper into madness, and prayed it would go away. Prayed he could go away.

Isn’t that what he prayed for, for years? To get away? And now, here he was, the most away he could possibly be, and he wanted directly the opposite. Alas, what could he do, so he continued with his list. He hated that he wanted to throw up more than anything else (except, perhaps, to be elsewhere), but he had to force it back down his throat. He hated that he couldn’t go back. He hated that he knew, despite not remembering, that this was most definitely his fault. But the worst of all, without a doubt, was the temperature. 

As he approached the burning heat of a star so massive he recognized its power immediately, he felt an obligation to make something of this. He needed to turn it around, the last few seconds of his miserable existence. Survival was a joke, something he’d laugh at if he physically could. He needed to feel happiness, an element of living he hadn’t had in so long he forgot what it felt like. A familiar voice whispered in his ear to take accountability. To take responsibility, accept his fate, and face the punishment that was death.

He experienced a surge of acceptance, of the fact that maybe he was a failure. Maybe he didn’t get the opportunity to live life - no, he did. He missed it. It was my fault, he thought to himself. It was all my fault. Perhaps it was the sudden realization of guilt, years of lying to himself unveiled at last, but he felt an overwhelming wave of embrace. Welcoming who he was, and all that he stood for. Who he was at home, and who he was here. Who he’s always been.

He didn’t have a chance to take a nice, last breath when the flames swallowed him whole.