Fjäll (3)

The stars become alive to me. Their movements cry to me like a river. An astral dance so full of joy and sorrow that I laugh and revel in bone-crushing despair. One light blinks out like an aperture closing. I had just seen a star die. Something that had existed for so long. Before all life and all death, had just gasped it's last breath.


"Beautiful, isn't it?" she said.

"I'm afraid to say yes." Was all I could think to say.

"You shouldn't be. As with all things, even the divine passes. Only wisdom is eternal."

And she was right. I glanced toward my companion. It was like looking at an eclipse, which I expected. So, for now, she would have to exist in my peripheral.

"What is it like?" I asked.

"Imagine jumping into the most ice-cold depth of the ocean. You're afraid and apprehensive for the first moment. You don't know what will happen. Hitting the water is like a shock of doubt. And suddenly, not peace...no, not quite. Realization. Realization that this is not the end, but merely another experience. Another level. And then you see it. In your mind's eye, and your heart's eye, and your memory. Not your memory, but your father's, and his father's, and his. The great doors. And they blow open, cast wide by some unseen hand. But you don't want to rush in. You have all the time, now. The sun screams over the horizon, igniting the shield covered roof, with the metal glittering and burning like a thousand fires. Laughter and revelry abound, and your life's goal is reached. You see Him there. Horrible and beautiful. And you begin the ascent."

She was crying. I didn't have to listen hard to hear her tears hitting the shingles and sliding off to join the gasoline-puddled sidewalk, and be lost in a ripple of rainbow.

"You're crying." She says to me. I was.

"Am I wrong to cry?" I already knew the answer, before I heard the gentle swishing of her hair as she shook her head;

"No. Our tears are what give us life. Our tears are what give us the drive to fight. They fill up our hearts and make us strive once more, as blood fills our wells. The price of freedom, of our unchained spirits. Take yourself there. Don't let yourself pass in vain. Only then is life eternal."

I knew she was gone. And I cried to the stars and waited for another one to disappear. I had more questions.