The Watcher
It was dark. Not the kind of dark where the fear sets in that there might be something in the background. This was a lonely dark. I was the only entity around for light years. The stars around me shone, like twinkle lights, or the sun coming up after a fresh snow. There were millions of them, scattered haphazardly, as if someone had taken a handful of sugar and tossed it out onto a pitch black canvas. The most fascinating thing around, however, were the planets. They looked almost like gemstones, the light from the sun piercing through them, illuminated, casting brightly coloured lights that danced off my skin. At first, I marveled at the beauty of it all, figured I could sit here for all of eternity and not get bored. The sights never become less beautiful, just normal, mundane. I donโt know how I got here. Just that I must sit here; the watcher of the Milky Way.
Itโs been enjoyable, watching the universe expand, the little humans, only here a short while, grow and develop. Theyโve become infatuated with space. A place just outside their reach. Only a select few have ever come to visit me. I too once felt that same sense of amazement. The twinkling stars, the cascading light, the most indescribable colours. But, as time passed, the colours became muted, the opalescent planets clouded, the sun less astonishing, more a blindingly harsh light. Every single moment of mine, stretched out into a thousand. The sands in my hourglass flutter down like feathers, when I wish them to be stones. Every time I looked down at their little world, I could, if only for a second, imagine what it was like to be human. Their short lives, so insignificant, yet they extract joy from even the most meaningless of encounters. Tiny things, dancing, singing, drinking fermented fruit, and falling in love beneath the stars. The one thing we have in common. The stars. Iโm not contemptuous, or bitter, I simply long for their ignorance. The chance to have my soul so fatally intertwined with another that I would rather cease to exist than go on living without. The thing that makes life so precious is the fact that it's limited. An hourglass turned at birth.
I lifted the sun, turning it between my palms, a smooth burning sensation. The thought had passed my mind before, I, never desperate enough to enact it. What use would a watcher be with nothing to watch? Praying that whatever being put me here was merciful, I closed my fist around the star in my hand and clasped as hard as I could. After a moment, a crack shot through the side of the sun, like a fire opal someone had dropped. Slowly, the crack grew longer, the star splitting and breaking between my fingers. The pain was excruciating, it felt as though I had taken shards of a thick glass and clenched them in my hands, even still, I continued. The pain was almost pleasant. After being alone for so long, any sensation, aside from the constant dullness of my surroundings, was welcome.
It was dark. The lonely kind of dark. The kind of dark where you held your breath lest something hear you. The feathers in my hourglass, not hastened by my desire to stop being, danced gently, each enjoying its fall to the ground. I released the breath I had been holding at the realization that it would be me, and me alone, for the rest of eternity; I shut my eyes in anguish and embraced the cold.
