Crossroads
When the Moon First Struck
I was walking down the moist pavements bordering the highway when I suddenly felt an enfeebling weight on my chest. I stopped for a moment.
“What is this?”
I glanced at the environment and realized that I was alone. I’ve never seen such lively streets turn blank. The streetlights were flickering and I could hear nothing but the sleeping deafening silence. My heart began pounding.
I took a careful step, heedful enough not to wake the noiseless. I looked up and, surprisingly, only a lone star was perceivable. Neither the moon nor any of the Earth’s neighboring planets were apparent to my eyes.
But I was positive.
The sole star in the ebony horizon seemed to fuel my strength and spirit, and the beauty of its golden glimmer seemed to compel me to stay. The mere existence of the void around it kindled my belief that there’s still more for me in this desolated world, and the reality that there’s still inventive hope for me makes me ecstatic.
For the first time in years, I saw a grin on my face.
No matter how much sorrow and despair resided in me, the star seemed to unconsciously conquer all the pain with positivity and exuberance. Everything seemed to grow better.
My broken bones seemed to heal, my blind eyes seemed to clear, and my infernal soul seemed to relieve.
The gloom was gone.
But then the star began to diminish. I was confused.
The world was already in motion. The highway was already occupied by bolting vehicles and vivid lights, and the pavements were already packed with flesh and reasoning. I found myself in the middle of the crossroads, gazing at the celestial horizon.
“Where could the star be?”
I was in deep thinking when all the world seemed to have cleared. There was nothingness.
I was in despair. I felt another exhausting weight on my chest as if the whole disheartening circumstance regained consciousness. But unlike before, there was not a single fleck of hope nor happiness in me. I was no longer convinced that there was still a possibility for me to be rapturous.
I was modestly staring at the twilight when I felt some sort of agonizing pain in my heart and in my soul. I shed a tear. Evidently, the pain was unbearable.
I wept my way through the blues and I’ve accepted my fate. I was hopeless. I attempted to stand on my own two feet yet it seemed like my strength alone was not enough for me to carry the weight of my flesh and the impairing pain that I have been through.
I laid myself down and leered at the pitch black horizon. My heart skipped a beat.
The star was there.
I felt a very strong aura of happiness. My senses were overwhelmed and my spirit was revitalized. My body and soul regained the strength that I lost with the star, and my eyes gained back all the alluring colors from the spectrum. It was comparatively brighter and more promising than ever. I was in awe of its splendor and magnificence, and I couldn’t help myself but trust the star once more.
But it wasn’t alone.
It had someone else.
And that was the end. I was perpetually lost in that second. I lost my heart, my flesh, my reasoning, and my soul.
I had nothing to live for.
It was the end of my life, my hope, and my dream that someday, the star would be within my reach. It was the demise, execution, and assassination of my fantasy that someday the star would look back at me when I called for its name because I was aware that it was the only one that could.
And finally, it was the termination of my hope that I would still find happiness in this arduous world… because it seemed like my happiness just realized its own.
