On: Living

I’ve made you.

Life says.

I’ve made you to be the other half.

I’ve made you to be me.

 I’ve made you to be the opposite of me.

I’ve made you to finish the story.

Will you?

I will.

You say. Because there is nothing else to say.

No other answer.

 This story was written before time.

You will walk the path paved for you as you have done many times, as all future versions of you will.

Certainty is the only answer

It will not be easy.

Life speaks as you feel it embrace you. Its essence warms yours.

You will hate it.

You will hate me.

I will not.

You state it as a fact because you know it to be true.

In this very moment. There is only Life and you.

There is no hate.

No other emotion.

Nothing left in this universe.

You have to.

Life’s words are getting further away. You’re getting further away.

It’s pushing you further away.

It has no choice.

Neither do you.

You seal this memory tight in your core. You can’t forget it.

You won’t.

Nobody tells you how exhausting living is. It is a side effect of the loneliness and boredom that comes with being alone on a barren planet. You’ve changed it tremendously. You’ve torn the canvas and stretched it over and over again until everything has bled into a blur of sameness.

You’re alone on this planet. The only living thing.

            Can you call this living?

And it’s alright. For now. You keep yourself entertained. You amuse yourself with funny looking sculptures. You once got angry enough to break the plates you stood on. You shift them around, separating and drawing them together to make mountains and valleys. You flatten them out again and redo it slightly different. Until all the options are complete. You only have the unconscious changes now; entirely dependent on the type of dreams you have. Sometimes, you sleep on flat ground and wake up in a cave. Sometimes, if it is really bad, you sleep on flat ground and wake up in a volcano. Ashes acting as a warm blanket.

Exhaustion eats at your bones. There is nothing you have the will to do anymore apart from laying on the soft earth and weeping. You weep until you can’t anymore. Until the hole in your chest feels acknowledged. You weep until the darkness around you feels the same as the darkness inside you. Until the water floods the majority of earth. You weep until you’ve drowned in your own tears. Until the pressure of them weighing over you is heavy enough to mean something. Underwater, the sky looks the same as it does on land.

There is nothing in the sky. Not in this universe at least. If you strain yourself enough to peer into others, you can overwhelm yourself with the brightness of the Stars. Burning the brightest through destruction, the stars are never to be trusted. This knowledge is ingrained in you almost as deep as the loneliness. Only Life has been able to entrench fear within you, nothing else has even come close. You wonder if Life also fears the Stars. If it fears anything at all. If it feels anything at all.

            It does. More than ever.

You sense Life’s looming presence. Always watching you. Never saying anything. Never reacting. Just observing. You hate it. Maybe this is what pushes you to call upon the Stars. Maybe it’s curiosity. Maybe the loneliness hurts too much. Maybe there’s nothing else you can think to do. Maybe you want to see what Life does. The reasoning is not important. There is no one to justify it to. The Stars are waiting to be called. Tugging sharply at you whenever you look to the sky. You let them in. The sliver of caution in you keeps them as far as possible. All but one. Life fixed it to the centre of your solar system. You can’t move it back. You can’t control the Stars. They are always exactly where they plan to be. It doesn’t bother you as much as it should. Something in you eased when you called on them.

            It shouldn’t have.

The Star closest to you burns. You name it the Sun. You don’t know why Life put it there. Perhaps as punishment. It doesn’t feel like it, Life could have stopped you before if it wanted to. You grin, for the first time, because you don’t know Life’s plans. You don’t know what it wants to do. You don’t know how much you can do. You grin because curiosity fights the exhaustion so well. You know what to do. Life watches a little closer than before.

You decide to test the limits first. You can’t look directly at the Sun without flinching at the thought of all the destruction used to power it. The new light now means the sky doesn’t match the darkness you feel inside. Maybe your insides will reflect the sky one day. You introduce the Moon.

The Moon follows you around no matter which part of the planet you’re on. It reflects the light of the Sun, but you can look at it with ease. It’s become a companion of yours. You speak to it. Tales of what you did before. Tales of anything you can imagine. You don’t tell it about the Stars. You don’t tell it about Life.

            It knows anyway.

The Moon doesn’t respond at the beginning, but you know it’s listening. You teach it how to communicate. You teach it everything you know. You can’t keep all this knowledge to yourself, the burden is too heavy. It understands you. Eventually, it starts responding using the waves to communicate. You stand in the ocean and let its soft words wash over you.

Maybe Life was envious. More likely, it was just bored. You can’t comprehend why Life does anything. One day, after it’s had enough of seeing the Moon make the waves comfort you on days where you wake covered in ash. After it’s had enough of the Moon orbiting you while you show it everything that the earth can do. Life makes its presence stronger. It doesn’t come to your planet. Not yet. It makes itself known. It makes the Moon quiver and quieten. It makes you wake up on the ocean floor for years on end with the word fool ringing louder than ever. It makes the Moon retreat, only revealing itself in phases before recalling itself the same way. Rage stirs in you; it builds until you need to do something with it.

You know you can’t. You would never be able to win but it isn’t about winning. Life hurt the Moon. Your Moon. You will do something. You don’t get a chance to move. It brings something new to the earth. Wind. It calls it. The Wind holds you in place. There is nothing you can do to fight it. You let the rage inside you run itself ragged until it reveals itself as grief. You let it stay within you as you motionlessly watch the Stars move themselves around in patterns you don’t understand and as the Moon phases in and out of sight while the waves stay still.

Eventually, Life releases its shackles but leaves the Wind to reside on earth. A warning. The sliver of self-preservation makes itself known and you remain stationary. Life introduces something else, harmless this time.

            Don’t fool yourself into thinking it was out of kindness.

A new creature. It’s not at all similar to the creatures Life and you are. It is small, it is vulnerable but most of all, it is living. The gnawing at your bones retreats on itself at this sight. You watch the new thing flounder at the fact of its existence. You move, finally, to look at it closely, to examine. You don’t notice when Life looms closer to examine you.

You interact with this new creature. Teaching it all the things you wish you knew when you first arrived on this planet. Guiding it in a way you wish you had been. You watch over it.

            Life watches over you.

You don’t interfere in its life. You let it run its course. You can’t interfere but you can help. You continue to do so as evolution runs its course. The creatures multiply and grow and change and you observe with fascination.

You watch them have families. Friends. Enemies. You watch them carry legacies through generations. You watch them share stories of a past that never happened, of a future that will happen. You watch them betray each other. You watch the way they love each other. The way that they all come together in a second at any conflict. The way that they turn on each other just as fast. You watch the small creatures get preyed upon. You watch bigger ones try and sometimes fail to save them. You watch multiple species move from water to land. You watch them adapt. You help them where you can.

You begin to notice that none of them Die. You’ve seen them suffer. You’ve seen them die. You’ve seen echoes of them in other creatures. No soul is identical. Which means they are returning. Why? The new creatures don’t remember but their souls do. Their souls reach out to you in ways new souls can’t. Why?  You see the souls crack with the weight of so many lives. They don’t go anywhere.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Where will they go when they shatter?

Why won’t Life take them?

Why?

Why?

Why?

You go to Life. It’s the first time you’ve seen its space. A pocket just outside your line of sight. It’s grandiose in the same way Life thinks itself to be. In all the ways never could be. It seems to be waiting for you, so you speak without any pleasantries. You lay out all the evidence because you know you’re right. It watches and listens to you with a grin. A grin that grows every passing sentence. A grin that knows exactly how this will end. A grin that knows more than you. You accuse it of hiding Death. Of not helping the souls. Of making them suffer. Of not creating something that can help the souls. Its grin grows impossibly wider and softens into a kind smile.

I made you. It says, tapping your core, like that explains everything. The memory hits you before you can argue. Be my other half. Finish the story. You can’t tell if the words are from the Life in your memory or the one in front of you. The one in your memory looked significantly more tired than this one. You’re starting to understand why. You know you can end it now. None of it has to continue. But this is not how the story was written, Life hasn’t created you yet.

            Does it need to?

You think of the Moon. You think of the souls on earth. I don’t have to hate you. You tell Life but its grin is just as cruel as you expected. You have to help the souls because you’re the only one who will. 

You return to Earth. To finish the story that will remain untold. This time when the creatures die you don’t need to listen to the sobs of their cracked souls trembling in fear of bearing the weight of another life. You don’t need to watch them helplessly. You don’t need to provide nothing but empty comfort. You can give them a choice. You cradle the cracked souls and let them choose between healing and returning to Life. It’s the most you can do.

You transport the broken souls to Life. It grows stronger with each soul. So do you. You refuse to think of the implications. You still know not to trust Life; it gives you the same feeling as the Stars. The same cautious dread.

You still watch the creatures. You watch them form civilisations. Religions. You watch them worship gods in and out of existence. You watch them make stories with the placement of the Stars and use them for guidance. The Stars don’t seem as scary anymore.

            Their danger still shines bright.

You watch one species take over most of the planet. You watch them invent things beyond your imagination. You watch them hurt each other in ways you can’t fathom. You watch them love each other in a way that makes your chest ache with the intensity, in a way that you never received, in a way you will learn give to them. You watch them create new things. You watch them destroy your planet.

You have started transporting less souls. These cracked souls of the humans, as they call themselves, want to stay on earth. You can’t take away their choice, but they are destroying this planet. Your planet. You can’t heal it yourself, not with the diminishing strength you have. You visit Life again and this Life looks like the one in your memory; withering away just as fast as you are. Where are my souls. It demands. At some point, between all the times you saw Life treat its returned souls with so much kindness, you forgot about all the cruelty it held in itself. All the cruelty that tainted the newer souls.

You tell Life the souls won’t return. They’re not ready yet. Bring them to me. It’s almost as demanding as it was before, but you can see through the cracks now. You can see the exhaustion that plagued you so strongly seeping through. It’s not pity that you feel, surprisingly, it’s care. You don’t know what to do. Both of you are dwindling and you don’t know what will happen if Life fades even more. It beckons you over. It’s almost the end. It says, but it doesn’t feel like the end. Not yet.

Life takes something from you, from the cracks in your soul. It gently pulls it out of you, like it doesn’t want to hurt you. Like it hasn’t hurt you. Like it won’t hurt you in the future. You know what happens next. My last creation. It says. Our first creation. You tug at the essence inside Life’s soul, pulling out the same amount it took from you. Together it combines to form the incomplete soul in you. Empty spaces for what you need to become. To walk the path you need to walk. The path you have paved for yourself.

Life nearly collapses once its work is done. Time is almost up. You carry Life down to earth. It needs to see its creations. Needs to feel what has happened. It can’t continue. You say as you both stand amid the destruction that occurred when you weren’t there. Your planet is collapsing. The souls are cracking. You are weak. There’s another way. Life’s voice is soft, like it’s not sure if it should say it or not. You know it doesn’t have to end like this. You can harvest all these souls for Life and start again. You know this. But you look at the cracks in the souls. It will happen again; this truth is rooted deep in you. Where do you think all this cruelty is from? It’s not a question. All this destruction? It’s all you. It will repeat forever if we let it. The story can end here. It’s already been written. 

Thank you. Life chooses as its final words. You know it’s not just for this. I don’t hate you. You choose as your own before you let yourself go. You don’t force anything. The road is already paved, and you walk it. You don’t bleed as the mortal creatures did when unravelling. You encompass everything, cradling the cracked souls. Treasuring them. You encompass everything, stretching further than you can reach. Until you’re not you anymore. Until you’re more you than you have ever been. The Moon travels back to you itself, letting the waves lap their final comforts and thanks to you. It’s always orbited you, not the earth. You reach Life and it doesn’t fight back. It lets you reach deep inside; it lets you take over; giving you everything. Until there is nothing left of it. Until there is nothing left of you. Until there is nothing left of anything except the Stars that burn brighter than ever.

- C.