The Voice, the Star, and the Other

This is a piece I wrote that I have continually revised and added to over the years as I tried to capture a fleeting image on paper.

One night I awoke in darkness, a darkness broken only by a thin shaft of light, a beam of iridescent innocence that shone through a gap in the curtains and fell on my hand, the skin of which lit up like sunlight on crystal.

I blinked uncertainly into the shadows, unsure of what had pulled me from sleep. Was it a faint whisper, not quite the wind, which echoed in the vault-like depths of my soul, so loud in my mind that it felt like someone was screaming an inch from my ear? Was it a gentle touch on my skin by some mysterious, night wandering fey, a tingling left by a tender brush of curious fingertips? Or was it an inner sense, an instinct, a knowledge from within, that told me that I was being watched, not threateningly, but being observed by another who waited, patient and calm, for me to stir?

I slipped from beneath my warm mountain of blankets, slithering like a snake from its hole, feeling like a bear emerging from its winter den. Frigid air brushed my bare skin, raising the hair on my arms and the back of my neck. I stood, back straight, head level, and faced the person - was she a person? - who had been watching me, who had awakened me; the Other, who stood silently before me.

The face of the Other was in shadow, hidden by the hood of a night-colored cloak. Her height and build were identical to mine; her hands, clasped before her, were slender, her almost-imperceptible movements delicate, and from that, I knew she was a woman.

The Other opened her hands and my face was suddenly awash in light. She held a glowing sphere balanced between her palms. It was a fallen star that had fallen an unimaginable distance to Earth, and had been plucked from the ground by this scavenging sprite. The Other offered it to me, like it was some sacrilegious part of me that had been lost, and had to be returned. I took it from her with the utmost care, cushioning it gently between my fingertips.

No heat emanated from the star, only light; it was a light so pure that I could hardly stand to look at it, but I couldn’t bear to look away.

I tore my gaze from the beautiful jewel, glittering like a goddess’s tear that I, so I worthy, had been allowed to hold in my hands, and looked at the Other, trying to find some way to express how the star made me feel, but all I could do was smile at her, and no words came out. The Other nodded and I knew she understood.

She reached up and pushed back her hood, and I looked into her face.

I knew that face.

I had that face.

She was me…. or maybe I was her. Perhaps we were both someone else. I asked my questions with my eyes, desperate and dazed, but the Other only smiled gently in answer.

I raised the star to our eye level with both hands and let it go. It hovered in the air as if it was at home in its place in the sky.

The Other lifted up her hands, palms forward, and I mirrored her; slowly, cautiously, I allowed our hands to touch. For a moment her fingers clasped mine, and then, without a sound, she was gone as if she had never existed.

The star however remained.

Suddenly, feverishly, but with no idea why I did so, I snatched it from its place before me, letting sparks trail behind it like the tail of a comet. I wrenched open the window and hurled the star up into the sky with all the force I could muster. Amazingly, miraculously, it flew up into the Milky Way and took its proper place in the dark background of night, where it twinkled at me like laughter in the eyes of an old friend. I let out my breath and, with that breath, let go of me, of all that I was and all that held me to my human shell, frail and mortal. For a moment my soul was free and my translucent hands reached toward the heavens, toward the star.

Not yet, a voice whispered. A force like the lovingly firm hand of a mother eased me back into my body and I felt completely whole in myself.

I opened my eyes and was back in my bed.

I asked myself, who was the other? Had she been looking for me? Had I been looking for her? Were we both searching for something entirely different and found each other instead?

Where was my star? I wondered. What was my star? Was it a tear, a soul, a light born of darkness?

And what, pray tell, was the voice that put me back?

Had it all been just a dream?

Questions for another night, I mused, drifting back into the deep, silent abyss of dreamless sleep.