To The Stars

Our eyes intertwined as our mouths distance shortened; could this be it? Could this be love? What of her request? A mortal achieving such a feat, it doesn’t sound plausible and yet for her, all obstacles appear frail, and impossibilities are simply hints pointing towards an exotic undiscovered horizon. Her wish in the face of romance is merely a wall for love to climb. For her I’ll make the impossible possible even if her task is… bottling stars within a jar… Oh, no.

A healthy relationship never begins with unfulfilled promises, but how on earth am I supposed to lasso the reachless stars into the confinements of a jar? From listening to my friends understanding of physics, this task can only be categorised as preposterous. However, I cannot assuage my musings at the comprehension of a life immeasurably more absurd than living without her. Nothing ventured, nothing gained; if I don’t even attempt her outlandish demands there will always remain a part of my mind plagued with the constant gnawing question of, ‘what if?’ My mind can conjure up only one plausible solution, however, my inner assessor does not approve of its findings, but what other option am I apprised of? That purple star crowned, serpent inclined, old sham of a being… The wizard.

At the departure of the winter festival, we proceed the extensive expedition back to our lodgings. All the while my scattered attention produces feasible alternative means of contacting the wizard or better still, solutions that release me of having to resort to his detestable methods in any case. There’s one way that might… might, hold the key to my conundrum; that ancient mountain auspicious in appearance of containing my dilemma’s remedy. The instance my mother is knocked out from the weary invoking journey to the hotel, I proceed to scrawl a letter telling her of my ‘early morning hike.’ Of course, she doesn’t need to know, by early morning I mean another midnight run; this time a whole forest of fleeing trees won’t halt this night’s undertaking; I will bottle those stars for her.

The evening proves five times the crueller in its frosty bites; I cannot comprehend the lives of the sane or the wise who in such a chilling darkness would either be burrowed beneath a sauna of blankets, or if they dared to brave this glacial weather, they would have the insight to bundle themselves in layers of toasted armour to defend against the icy winds. Tonight’s journey is absent of that joyful moon to compass me forwards to the mountain; I flee from the flickering trail of fire that lights a crystalline path directing me rearwards to the hotel to venture onwards to the mist paired darkness shrouded mountain. The mouth drying sprint endures for the length of a stars life or at least that’s how it felt against my untrained lungs. Doubt joins the night’s inordinate ocean of clouds above in cloaking the mountains reachability. Despite the physically taxing and mental torment of the marathon, I arrive at the base of the mountain solely to endure the slashing cuts of the bone parting gales and the harsh ascent of rigidness towards the seemingly unattainable peek of this behemoth. Atop the mountain rests a ball pit of snow waiting in wake to consume the unfortunate soul whose misstep, upon it’s lesser stable ice, sends its victim leg length deep into its frosted belly. Well, great, I have conquered this beast of a mountain with no further plan than to reach the summit and dream that the answer will appear. It’s time to call upon the wizard, for the ruthless temperatures deprive me of strength to return to the ground I herald from. Shivering and shaking I am merely one additional noise in the howls and screams of the night’s hurricane, “Wizard!” I boom, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need your guidance. Wizard! I am going to fre…”

The oxygen ceases to reach my lungs as the world falls out of focus. Double oh no. The earth picked up its twirl and spun at a speed that, to the one experiencing such a sensation, would worry they were to be flung off its limits to the lonesome abyss of the cosmos. The snow softens my body’s sudden collapse. It’s over, I am exhausted in every conceivable manner. “Boy, you summoned me.” That wretched voice echo’s clearly among the clearless night. “Wizard, I need to bottle the stars within the confinement of a jar; how can one achieve such a feat?” My whole body shivered and shook viciously on the snowy bed; I managed to rest on my knees, but the snow sapped my strength to stand. “Hmm… This is not my territory you know… I am a Melbourne wizard, and the Tasmanian wizard is the one you really ought to have sought. Only he holds the knowledge of the hidden mountains passage to the stars.” The wizard giggled as he muttered but I do not believe he nor myself found any part humorous in what he disclosed. “Please I have no way of finding him nor the power to seek him. Do something.” I pleaded in a state of despair. Wizards cannot be trusted. “It’s dangerous for my apparition to appear before your person; the council does not hold lightly to boarder breakers. But if I help attract the wizard it shall come at a cost to you.” The wizard’s teeth, formally gold, turned to shards of diamonds as his face revealed his mischief. “For love, what else can be worthy of such a deal.” I agreed to his troublesome deal.

He raised his wrinkly arms towards the bleak gloom and commanded as his apparition shifted like fading snow, “Razzleconzoo.” Lightning protruded from his melting fingers into the overcast night and within the filling of my lungs the clouds parted. “Good luck.” The whisper trailed away with the wind. A lightning flicker later and a bolt struck the mountain’s summit, parting in its release of immense energy, warmth, and sense back inside my half-deceased body. The robustness is restored to my legs allowing me to stand, however, the lightning bolts carrier’s potency delivers me back to my frail form. “Who hath awaken me from my thousand-year slumber?” His sentence crackled and chirped as he declared. Speechless in his domineering presence my jaw flopped in the winds thrusts. “Speak mortal!” He commanded. “I seek passage to the stars, well that’s what the other… Nevermind, look… Well, you see.” I fumble for words against his impatient ears, “There’s this girl…” I trail off into extensive details of the sun setting and her bodacious personality. “Prithee peace! Of what nature dost thou seekest me?” His boom hastened my silence. I swallowed before responding, grasping a second to part my clouded mind, “I need to contain stars within a jar.”

A wave of his elephantine arm revealed, hidden beneath the moss of snow, ancient markings of a forgotten language. These markings encircled themselves around a star of David. At the devastating snap of, the primitively attired giant’s, fingers the prehistoric carvings and Davidic star began to glow a frozen blue. “Root thy legs within the stars centre. Let thy mouth’s partings release this former chant, ‘Ad Astra, Ad Astra, Suscipe Me Ad Astra!’” After he imparted those words, he too, in style of the other wizard, vanished with the snows movements. Moments following the utterance of the chant, the air froze, and the snow started to twirl around me as I stood bewildered in the stars centre. The archaic scrawl increased their dazzling glow until at the climax of the snow’s dance and lighting’s show it abruptly ceased. “Another lunatic spouting nonsensical tales.” I grunted, dismayed at my failure to obtain the stars, and the even greater feat of obtaining love. As I motioned to move from the circles centre, I discovered my feet were gripped by the markings ice. Oh, no, I’m stuck atop a mountain with no one who’ll notice my disappearance till tomorrow evening. I understand that panicking won’t melt this frost, but what my mind comprehends my heart cannot. Oh, boy, here we go, that woozy feeling as the world tosses back and forth, expanding and contracting, while my head floats up to the land where my bodies forbidden, those gloating stars. It’s going to be fine; I’m not going to freeze; I attempt to lie to myself but who am I really fooling? At the height of my distress a blinding beam settles on my person, carting with it the blankets of the sun. I feel free as my body experiences a rising sensation. Steam is mixed with the sizzling sound of my captors releasing their evaporating grasp. My view becomes obscured at my eyes closure, craving the feeling rather than the sight of the moment. I’ve never been rid of gravities constricting chains and now the taste of a birds perception is served on a platter before me.

Hang on! I open my eyes to captivate the scene before me as the earths engrossing features eek further away from my parting person. I am rising! The light is ingesting me with no option to stay away from its pull. There is no escaping this tunnel; I let go of the eternal struggle and appreciate my ascent above the clouds on my journey to the stars. Peering back at the world I am reminded of the bizarre sentiment that possessed my mind on the now distant flight entering Tasmania. The night certainly furthers the romanticised situation; gazing at a distant world now more foreign than the future that awaits me, however, that future unknown to me or any other man. Caught between the stars and the earth, existing in neither realm, yet comprehending both. Venturing above for a love that rests below, a flood of puzzling thoughts begin to wrestle within my boarded mind. In this wrestle, however, my eyes remain on the world’s heart hooking appeal. The mimicking man made stars that freckle the blushing earth, the rivers made from the intrusive finger of an ancient giant carving the blood from within the earth to quench the human’s thirst. My marvelling’s are interrupted by the arrival of a long desired yet ungraspable aspiration; to drift amongst the skies bleached shadow. I return the moons smile as my cheeks dampen at euphoria’s burning impression. Beneath me the tapestry of river, earth and clouds can exclusively be dubbed the artistry of the Heavens.

As the earth shrinks the vastness of the universe becomes more apparent and my place within this macrocosm begins to dissipate. Who am I in the face of existence? I let the foreign compulsion tug my being towards its incomprehensible destination. There are limitations to the mind that the universe exceeds. In my further voyage into oblivion, I reach out to grasp the now eternal stars. With the earth erased from my sight and the stars still beyond my grasp, I let go of the reason that sparked this perception altering experience, and instead embrace the sentiment that unravels itself before unworthy me. My body dissipates and my mind evaporates with it. ‘Gloria in tenebris lucet remouens.’