Almost a Poem

"I saw where a hippo was not, and said no. This will not do." - Penny Arcade

The heat of the earth-worn stones presses against my feet. The silent stillness of the summer breeze teases my hair, lightly, gently, against my ears. I turn my head skyward and gaze, blinking only for my mind to comprehend the pervasive presence of the night above.

There will never be another night like this.

The crickets grow louder as they accept my trembling form into their hallowed homes. Shadows trick the corners of my vision, and my mind wanders from the sky, feeling its black, shining light wash over my subconscious as I snatch at the figures in my periphery.

There is no one there. Just the sky. The stars glare down at me, I imagine their heat, their light, and then...I'm floating. Speeding through space, through atmospheres and debris and silence, so much silence, a silence no one has ever heard before and will never hear, not in the future, not in the past.

I cannot understand the night sky. I cannot live there, I cannot visit, I am constrained by the lenses and frames and air of this earth. Of this planet. 

But there are many planets. The sky holds wonders, it holds fear and death and silence. And wonders.

One day, there will be those who travel the night sky. I will look up and know that although it is not night to them, it is night to me, and only during night can I feel them, see them, imagine them weightless, floating about space.

They will find a way to travel, find a way to live. The night sky will change, from impenetrable, imperfect silence to a conquered future home. Terraform, warp speed, hyperdrive, space station. One day, one day, one day. Not today, not my lifetime.

I will always have the night sky, but there will never be a night like this.

Although I imagine so much, so often, and gaze at the sky in its glory, it does not notice me. I feel the wind and see the figures and pretend, the universe cares. Cares for me, touches me, watches me as I watch it, it that cannot be quantified, explained, understood, examined.

They try to. They explore. Many years, many ships, many people, many places. It will never be understood. The earth is not understood, and so the universe cannot be examined. We are not ready. We are not advanced. We are not prepared. The night is powerful, and beautiful and calm and always, always there.

But it will never be like tonight, never again.

The crickets will forget me and chirp as they hop away. The sky will never shimmer again, not like tonight. The breeze will flow, warmer and warmer, then colder, colder, but never perfectly teasing like tonight. I will never feel alone and bonded to a million other lifeforms like I do tonight. The fading, fainting feeling of firm devotion to a world outside the world, a billowing landscape of rippling, empty space, will fall from my lips and mind and my imagination will never play with the shadows of night again.

I will never shut my eyes and blindly piece the constellations together with a heavy, ambivalent arm like I did tonight.

There will never be any more stars for me.

Not like tonight.