Morrison’s Stars
“When was the last time when you’d see the stars this closely?”
The unanswered question floated a little longer than the tears of the little girl who held the answer in her tight lipped, sheep countenance. She looked fragile, as if a touch could bring her down into pieces; like her whole existence was a delicate dilemma of whether to come undone or to harden with time. To be able to speak to her alone seemed like novelty and it surely was one. Ever wondered what should be done with broken vases and earthen pots? Most of us would like to discard it down to a pile of rubbish but then there are those who collect the remains and glue it up. That’s exactly what I was trying to do, glue her up. However, is it not an unknown fact that the broken find it hard to believe that they could ever be mended? For I have never seen a conglomerate of trash arguing with the formidable owner that they hold some value to their existence and there was always more to them than sharp edges that could bled.
“Every day since the day they blow up our roofs. Stars, lots of them and then there was blood, gallons of it, all over the road.”
The words came and so did her tears. The worst way to empathize with someone is to ask them about their pasts and then not say anything about it. The survivors often speak so as to be heard and told that there was nothing they could do about the unfortunate turn of events even if they would like to. They need to be told that they aren’t God, neither are they obliged to save the eternity. But what to make out when there are just not enough words to console? Could a few drops of water be enough to drench the acres of desert that had widely spread in her core or the fact that a few rose petals won’t be fragrant enough to cut through the foul scent of blood she had breathed in and breathed out? Once history chooses for you to be a part of it, there’s nothing you could do about it but carry it with you. But how was I to tell all of this to a little girl of ten. The only history she was concerned with was the one they taught her in school rooms and the one that graded her finals. She never wanted to be a part of the history that would recall her family to be dead, her city burnt and her country caged.
“It’s okay we will all go back home.”
The words half true. I’d say that more as an affirmation to myself than to her. She had lost all her family, was forced into the refugee camp and all her friends had gone as far as heaven. The only home she could return to was the one she’d dare to create. It would take her a lot of time but for now she’d just like to talk about stars and gaze into the infinity as she secretly prayed and complaint-“Why me?”
She had no say in why she had been a happy girl in times of war, a lone survivor in the blood bath and a ray of light in the endless nights of dark. When I’d seen her running down the street, it was hard to get a hold of her. Her white gown all blood drenched and her eyes swollen from the endless bouts of crying. A ghost of girl, pale and frightened as if she had seen ghouls popping out of the horror comics, in a dash to make it out of the very city she was born in. She had seen the city get massacred and it seemed quite strange to her. She’d seen it happen in the movies she watched with her father but then she’d see that they were all alive. The dead were always alive. Thus, the belief that she could wake up one day and all will be gone. After all why would her dad play dead when he promised to take her to the summer dance that year? She had concluded it was all a movie and she was accidentally casted in it. But then all that pain felt somehow real to her. If not a movie, then a dream. She had a better word for that, a nightmare.
“You know, on full moons we would go out camping. There were wolves in the woods but we weren’t afraid, we were together. Once we are together again, I won’t be afraid anymore.”
The silence all but an echo between us as she laid down into a slumber with the last gospel she chanted. A peace spread across her innocence, the moonlight resting on her cheeks. Millions of stars gazed down upon her. She had pointed one and told me that it was her mother’s star. Her dad told her that when she was a little kid, her mother flew away to the skies and God liked her company so much that he made her a star. Ever since that day she and her dad would sit out on the porch and talk to her. She couldn’t comprehend why he’d cry sometimes and he’d tell her that it was the star dust in his eyes; the one that her mother left for him. Was I supposed to tell her that her dad, her brothers and her sisters were now stars? I decided against it. What joy would be there for her to know that her family had escaped to the infinity…without her. For good or bad, how would she judge?
There was a tyrannical, masochistic bastard who had killed all of her beloved in his baseless pursuit. Worse was the fact that he was worshipped in a different land, prayed to and praised in a different language, has a roof over his head and could still decide whether he could go and see the stars… I wonder if he’d go and see the stars. Could a murderer just stare into the endless sea of dark and point out which star was an outcome of his ghastly thoughts and his stone-cold heart? Will he be afraid when the stars would decide not to come out on days he would like to show off his pride? What about the day when he himself becomes a star…will he still shine? Will he? With all the evil, will he still?
I’d leave it all
upto the nights.
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