Don't touch the stars

Yeshua sat alone in the dessert with nothing but a blanket that he got from his mother. The cold wind hit against his hair and he looked above, waiting, even though he wasn't he really sure what he waited for.

He tried to look for the star constellations that he learned in school, back in Egypt. There was the Myriad, the Bird and he could even recognize Sah.

Crazy, he thought. That was a completely different life.

The numb sand underneath his hands hurt him but he just couldn't put them somewhere else. His attention was upon Anu, the Jaw and The giant.

He remembered a conversation with his mother. It was after they left Egypt to return "home", even if it wasn't his home.

"Ama", he asked with the voice of every six year old who has to move away. "why do we have to go home? I don't want to."

His mother just sighted. "We have to."

"But why? Nobody is forcing us to leave."

Again.

She kneeled before him. Her amber eyes looked at him with love.

"It is the land of your ancestors. It is where I was born and lived and it is the place where you're father is from."

His blue-green eyes widened their pupils. "My father?"

Yeshua always knew that his aba wasn't his father. Those are two different people. And while his aba lived with him, worked and cuddled him, Yeshua never saw his father.

"Yes, you're father. He is there somewhere."

"But where?"

His mother thought about it for a moment. She didn't knew.

"He is there somewhere between our ancestors and the stars", she said what would be considered the truth in several other pantheons. But once again, she didn't knew.

Yeshua looked upon Nut (or at least at the constellation that was named after her) and wondered where his father was in all of this. He already knew that his mother wasn't literal when she said that he is there somewhere but still, it was the place where he felt like he was present, watching over him.

Maybe he looks upon me this exact same moment, he asked himself. Maybe he looks down at this little dessert in the middle of nowhere and finds me, his son.

Yeshua looked behind him. Loud music came from there, he heard laughter. His ama and aba were at a wedding with a bride and a groom he didn't knew. They probably danced or drank wine, they sure had their fun, he decided, that's the reason he left them there in the first place.

Surely no one noticed his dissappearance.

The stars caught his attention again. They shined so bright, so far, so old, it was hard to grasp. He stretched his arm and he was sure if he stretched it a bit further he could reach them, reach the bright, far, old stars.

But he wasn't sure if he wanted to. They were so beautiful because they were unknown, mystical. If he could reach them, if he would hold a star in his hand, would it still be the same?

He thought about a story his friend Athena told him about. How the moon goddes Artemis sometimes turned lovers or warriors into star constellations, how sometimes it happend to bad people as well as good ones.

"Why would you gift bad people with something like that?", he asked her one night. Her cattle brown eyes looked at him with surprise.

"What do you mean with 'gift'?"

His cheeks turned really hot really quickly. "What else is it? You are up there and you can look above ANTHING, the whole creation, your ancestors, they're all down there. What greater gift would there be then watching all of this? The whole world beneath you to watch."

"Sounds like torture for me", she said thinking. "You see everything but you can't DO anything!"

He just shrugged. "What else is it?"

She looked above. Her wavey black hair fell down her back like a waterfall, her eyes reflected the stars.

He thought about what she said. Being unable to act. But why wouldn't you act? Would being up there transform you into a Greek god, apathic to anything that happens on earth? Or would the stars and meteros around let you forget that you were human once?

The thought let him shiver. Forgetting your humanity, forgetting humanity as a whole. What a dreading thought and for whatever reason, he feared it as if deep down he already knew that he has to.

"I think it is like carving you name into a tree", Athena said after a while. "The constellation isn't you, it is just a part of what people think of you."

"Why do people carve their names into trees?"

It was a foreign thought for Yeshua. Trees are already beautiful and whole, why should people destroy them, he asked himself.

She laughed. "To be remembered, of course. That's what everyone wants. When you rodden in Hades like everyone else, you at least have you're name still remembered."

They stopped talking even though Yeshua thought the whole time: I don't want my name to be remembered. Names are just remembered when you suffered enough, when you died a horrundous hero's death. I don't want that. I just want to live normally, like everyone else. Looking at the stars has to be enough.

But Yeshua didn't said a thing. He was too afraid of Athena's questions afterwards.

Yeshua strechted his arm down, so they would never be too close to the stars. It is better to just watch them.

He stood up and cleaned the sand from his clothes and hair, because his mother hated sand at home.

Yeshua allowed himself to look at the star constellations, he learned in Egypt, containing the bright, far, old stars again. They didn't seemed to change much after he looked at them.

It was nice to be with you, father, he thought. Surely you can understand why I could never visit you up there. My home is here, with ama and aba and Athena and all my other friends. I don't want to reach for the stars, it is already beautiful down here on earth, even with the desserts and the bad people. At least you can see the stars from down here.

Yeshua returned to the wedding his parents attended. His ama was two seconds away from loosing her mind because her young underage son was nowhere to bee seen and nobody seem to know where he vanished many hours ago. His aba couldn't even talk because of his worries.

Yeshua hugged his parents when they found him. It was so much better to touch them than stars, he decided.

He looked above again and suddenly he didn't felt like he missed anything because everything he wanted was already there.

Thank you, father, Yeshua thought. For the world and the night sky, that I never ever want to touch.

I smiled. I looked down at Yeshua and I thought: You're welcome, my son.