A Cosmic Dance

A Short Story with Two Subtexts And A Challenge

There once was a big blue planet far in space. If you had a telescope you wouldn’t be able to see it because it was that far away and even if you did have one that powerful you still wouldn’t see it because it is no longer there.The planet was near a star. The planet and the star were friends. The star was much bigger and brighter than his friend the planet but the planet didn’t mind and possibly he didn’t care. The planet had lots of little friends that rode on him everywhere he went. The planet knew that his friend the star could never have lots of little friends on him and this pleased him very much. You see the planet and the star were friends but not very good ones. The star did a lot for the planet but the planet never did anything for him. This was hurtful to the star so the star tried to hurt the planet so the planet would understand what it feels like to be sad. The star waved his big arm near the planet. His arm was very hot. The star hurt the planet very badly even though he didn’t even touch him. The planet was good after that. The memory of his pain haunted him a long time. The planet always remembered how horrible it was just to be waved at by his friend the star. He imagined what it would be like if the star ever reached out with his long fiery hot hand and actually touched him. That thought scared him. It scared him a lot.

In order to please the star and make him like him again the planet started to dance all the way around the star. The planet promised that he would keep dancing round the star as long as he possibly could to show that from now on he would be good. The planet asked his brother and sister planets to join him in his dance. They too would dance around the star. Some were very old, some very big. Some were very fast and some were very slow but each one danced around the star for years and years and years.

One day the star grew sick. His face turned very red. Redder than a tomato. All the brother and sister planets knew he was getting sick too. All the time the star was getting bigger and bigger. The star grew very hungry and the planets were more scared of him now than any of them had ever been. More scared than you or I would be of a big hairy monster creeping into your bed and shouting BOO. The star started golloping up all of the planets that danced closest to him. And as he grew bigger he ate more and more brother and sister planets. The star couldn’t help himself. It was not his fault. The star was dying. He could feel it, like he was burning up inside and everything in him was using up more effort in order to keep going as time went on. He had seen some of his extremely distant relatives suffering from the same problem. Even though he was so far away he could still see what happened to them after they had grown so large and couldn’t grow any further. Some seemed to grow big while a colourful veil would surround them so he couldn’t see them anymore until the veil lifted and what was left was a much smaller star that was incredibly bright and white.  Others grew monumentally huge then next with a loud bang and a brilliant flash disappeared forever. And all that remained was a big black smudge that crawled around the area the star’s distant relative once lived.The star knew he didn’t want to be big and black and crawl around everywhere. He wanted to be small again and brighter than he was before.

The time had come when he was so close to his old friend blue planet he would soon eat him all up. The star felt sorry for the planet. All of the planet’s little friends had gone. It hurt the star to see his friend shrivel up in front of him as he approached. It was like they weren’t friends anymore and he was a monster the planet was hiding from, pulling his face away and shrinking from his presence. The star screamed and hissed at the planet to move, telling him to flee away because he couldn’t help himself. The planet was defiant and did not budge. The planet had promised he would keep dancing for as long as he could and he wasn’t going to break it. That was the law.

The star, seeing that his friend was not going to move decided that for one last time he would do something for the planet. He would make it so that as they touched and he was about to devour him he would push so hard that he would burst eating up all the planets who danced around him in one go sparing them any more sorrow and horror he could cause. He thought for some reason this might be a good idea. So he set to it. First he thought about everything that was inside him and he told it to run and push and heat up more than it had ever done in all of his long long life. He pushed and he pressed outwards with all his might. He could feel thousands of bangs and explosions all happening at once within his colossal inside. Then he yelled. The yell was so loud that it still goes on now. It echoes for eternity through the great caverns of space. So loud, so distinct. His yell was the second to last thing he released from himself. The very last thing was a flash of light that blazed for so many miles it would make you hurt to think of how far.

After that all was still again but everything had gone leaving nothing to remain. No more star. No more planet. No more brother and sister planets. No more dancing. No more yelling. No more angry or sad. No more friends. And yet many who still know of this ancient story swear that if you look closely at the spot where the whole unfortunate event happened, you can still see what appears to be a little smudge or a smear crawling around. What is most strange is the oldest and wisest also swear that the nothing that was left there by itself does the most curious of things; they say it carries on creating more and more and more nothing. But no one can actually tell. Others say it is not creating nothing , because that sounds impossible, doesn’t it, and what it is really doing is simply moving any thing that was there to another location. To another home. So perhaps the star did do something really very good for his friend the planet and his brothers and sisters. Perhaps something much better than he had ever done for them before and that’s in spite of all the things he had done for them all their lives. Perhaps the planet and his brothers and sisters are living somewhere else, somewhere good , with new friends to dance with. As was promised, just maybe they will dance forever. Will you?