A Star is Born

Seconds tumbled by. The hours and minutes, I’d long lost track of. The day could have lasted for years for all I knew. I'd spent it plodding through the barren wilderness desperate to be rescued. And to my disillusionment, the blistering heat was by no means assuaged by shedding my shoes and jean jacket. My feet were burned bare. My back could no longer support me. I had trekked as far as I could. My skin could no longer sweat. It was tacky with a salted white film covering it. The landscape before me, warped. And every breath I took felt too big and, yet, too empty. Black spots marred my vision. And stars twinkled in my sight even with the lingering rays of the sun. Then the chill of the night snuck up on me. Suddenly I was cold. I was too alone. I had nothing left to cover me. And it became all too clear that I had nothing left to save me. So I let go. I was engulfed in the desert’s silence.

I leaned against a palm tree and let my mind wander. I pondered all the things in life I wanted to be. Every little thing I thought I’d do, every single person I wanted to meet, blew away in the silence. My life back home didn’t account to much. I was a starving artist, always on the cusp of greatness. I just hadn’t yet found where I belonged. I waitressed at the local bar to pay the bills. There I could at least hold on to the hope of finding that one unexpected patron who walks in and serves me my hopes and dreams on a silver platter. But there was really nothing there, just a dream– something to keep my fire going. There was nothing here either, not even a mirage of lake or a prickly pear cactus. The only thing that existed was the ebb and flow of time, an infinite stream of sand that engulfed the wind. A sharp coolness itched up my skin. The night’s deathly chill instantaneously switched to a dull burn. I was on fire and lost to time, drifting in the desert’s night.

Laying down in the desert, I looked up at the sky. The stars were scattered like frozen grains of sand. It was as if they found their perfect moment. They found where they belonged. They froze, and time followed. They lived in a burning bliss basking in the beauty of the night. They figured out how to silence the wind. They even discovered how to forever shine. They flashed. The hours and minutes, they were beyond them. They burned brighter as the temperatures grew colder. I was transfixed. I was listless. I closed my eyes.

My mind drifted off. And I dreamed. I dreamed I was a star finally being noticed and accepted. I was a star twinkling higher than anyone, even I, could’ve imagined. I was out of this world. And as I looked down, I saw sand left the air and settled as the night ended. The sun was beginning to rise. And I felt the jubiliation of a new day beginning to fester. I smiled. The silence faded. And I was liberated.

The dream ended and I opened my eyes to the stars still winking at me. I smirked and drank in their bewildering bemusement. This was a blissfully twisted reality I faced. My end, a time for me to live on in space, has come before I truly found my place here, in my space. Though I don’t think all my years of gassing up my ambitions were for naught. This, my end, would in fact be my beginning. I’d finally be seen. I’d be recognized and admired. I’d be able to breathe.

I inhaled and blinked. I thought of how brilliant I’d be. I closed my eyes, and exhaled. Engulfed in the desert’s parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.