Neogenesis

By twist of fate in cosmic circumstance, a dead star’s loss of its elemental bounding propelled across blackened time converged with the masses of condensed dust and gas to form a solitary man. A man with a single beating heart who’s chest will rise and fall with the rhythmic movement of his lungs. Still caught in the womb of the maiden who instigated his creation, the fabrics of his being fuse together to compose a soft mortal body. Stretching sinew joins muscle and bone slathered with fresh taut flesh pulsing hot with flowing blood. Thick tiny filaments push through atop his plated skull and curl out and down collecting together. The intricate design of his small ears pick up the soft melody of his mother’s whisper, “Come to me. Rest on my shoulder,” and reverberate through the networking of his binding core. Synapses fire urging him to struggle against the thin caged isolation, and the walls around him begin to contract. Gradually pushing him ever downward away from his warm dark abyss, he idly falls. Bright blue eyes — two of them — open wide, and the light of the universe seeps in.

The world seems to pass him by in a flash of speeding color while he remains motionless — unable to move in a void much too large — until a leading figure holds out a gentle palm to grab his little hand, and guide him to remember how to walk. He listens intently to the dead voices falling flat in the stagnant moisture carrying vibrations throughout the stale air — a gentle cooing caught in the ear. In imitation to break the string of silence, he strikes the rigid whitened chords stretched tight in his esophagus pulsing out a vibrato that will soon thicken to a baritone. Now his hair darkens, his chest becomes broader, his bones begin to creak and ache. They thicken and elongate. The shallow memories of his underdeveloped body begin to fade away. The Earth remains familiar, but memories bleed into each other, one after another. Faces become a blur, emotions feel fabricated, his past becomes unsure of itself.

He finds the desire for a warm embrace, and a yearning that seems to consume him in a fire. It’s not carnality he craves, but a catalytic coexistence never to be fulfilled. He sits against shadowed walls waiting for his lure until a solitary soul slips her fingers underneath his wrist to feel his pulse race. He inhales the fragrant poison that pours from her lips; his blackened pupils dilate; a chilling wave sweeps through her skin; his body becomes warm and flushed; her breath becomes short and sputtered; his heart thunders in the cavity of his chest. The flame has been drawn to the fire and sparked with ecstasy. Their intoxicated bodies intermingle in a melding of two souls. She rubs a soft palm through his hair and he nuzzles in the crevasses of her body as she whispers serene melodies in his ear. They are tied at the core with a symbiotic tether. Wherever she moves, he will remain her focal point like the needle of a compass. And with a joint finger, they trace the stars to map out their fate, but fate strokes back with a deathly vice for she quietly withers away and allows her body to return to the soil of the earth. The scent of her skin somberly lingers.

He feels as if he has been emptied and gutted. That solitary soul which entered him and departed so brutally with an intrusive hand cracked open his ribs and laid his heart right next to him. And everything would be alright if someone else could just hold him tight, but he’s pushed away with rigid hands. He feels himself slipping into an abysmal void lost in the confines of his own deceased spirit. Bodies swiftly pass him to and fro and briefly stop to ask “Is all okay?”. He looks them in the eye, smiles, and nods, but he can feel his heart drop and he wishes he could say “No, I’m not okay. I just need a little bit of help”. He yearns for human contact — a simple touch here or there just to feel a little more lucid. To take a step in the right direction, he just wants to get a little closer, but a collection of hands hold him back as if to say, “You cannot advance”. He closes his eyes and he can see from their point of view: a despondent man aimlessly stumbling in the dark, stripped away of all that he had. He can hear their small voices ringing in his ear, “Now listen carefully. This is how you will die: alone and insufferable locked away in a dank quiet room with no air to breathe. Your bones are exposed — cracked open leaking out the bile of your gloom. Your sternum is cut open to allow passage to your blackened heart, and you shall remain lying under your own evisceration, drowning in the salt of your eyes.” He tries to ignore the message, but can’t quite shake it, like a pile of snow freezing over his skin. And after a time, he begins to see his path take shape before him. Without hesitation, he picks himself up and steps into the light of the sun.

The Earth is familiar. He can feel the mossy grass caressing his feet. He dusts off his knees and cracks the bones in his neck to accommodate the skeletal heap that composes his figure. Gently, he bends his legs to lie down on the ground beneath and presses a cheek to the cold dirt. He closes his eyes and allows the soil to slowly reclaim him. His skin falls apart loose and tattered and his muscles are absorbed into the earth. His bones are bare and broken and tangled in the growing vines and weeds. Budding flowers and vegetation poke their way through his scattered remains. The animals and insects consume and scavenge through his decomposition to allow his final thoughts to be heard amongst his corporal nature: 
“I am human, let me be.”