“To dream is to transcend time.” Anthony J.W. Benson (( You may post OOCly in this thread if you would like to. )) --- I'm sitting in the dark. I don't recall coming here. The smooth wood of my guitar is a comforting weight in my hands. My eyes do not adjust, but there is a reassuring familiarity to all of this. I find that despite the darkness, I am not afraid. I have been here dozens of times before. I take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and gently strum my fingers across the strings. The lights come up, blinding me. As motes of light swim across my vision, I can hear the crowd, if not see them. I can feel the vibration of their energy. I sense their shadows as I again pick at the strings of my guitar. My voice comes easily, rising to join my instrument. The crowd cheers before quieting to listen. It's amazing how easily it comes back to me. I'm dimly aware that it's been a long time since I played for a crowd, but the role fits me as easily as a glove. It feels right, to share my music with them. I know they feel the same. Why did I ever stop this? A tumble of events reminds me. A string snaps under my fingers and the lights flicker. The jeers start softly but swiftly rise in volume, drowning out my music. I can feel the insults thrown at me like so much rotting refuse. "Nonbeliever," a whisper accuses, and at once this moment of familiarity is over, leaving the once crowded amphitheater empty. The thrum of their energy fades, leaving behind a hollow sensation. I'm alone, I realize. Completely alone. As my eyes adjust to the dimness, I see him picking his way through overturned chairs, stopping only once he reaches my raised platform, looking at me expectantly. Sprinkles looks so beautiful. "Did you think they would stay?" he questions, and stiffly I nod my head. "Come on," he tosses his head, and I climb down from my stool, gently placing a hand against his neck. "We have places to go." "Okay," I rasp, my voice going. It seems natural to climb onto his back, as if I've done it before. He points his horn to the stars, twinkling out there in the dark. I hadn't realized just how cold I was before he came. "I love you, Sprinkles." "I know."
I've been drifting for a long time. I'm not sure how long. It doesn't seem to matter. Sprinkles is here, and he reminds me of how comfortable it is to be warm. I don't know where he's taking me, but it doesn't matter. I don't remember there being this many stars, before. There are almost too many for the sky to hold. The night sky was vast, back home, but this is beyond the scope of our system. How could we have looked at these stars for so long, without wondering what they were, and why? Something about them twists my gut into knots, though. Suddenly, a star shoots across the sky. It falls for what seems like forever. It comes for us, and I should be afraid, but Sprinkles is calm, and I can't seem to move. The star hits, a small wet splash that seeps into my feathers, chilling my skin. The rest of the stars follow, slowly at first, then falling in a torrent, soaking us through. The sky above loses its luster as the stars fall, leaving only a bleak darkness behind. I'm standing next to a soggy cardboard box. "Sprinkles?" I realize that he is tucked into the box, damp and droopy. He's cloth and yarn again. His warmth and calm is gone. What's left is the wet and the cold, the bustle of shadows around me, and the roar of ship engines as they enter and leave the atmosphere. All commercial flights are sold out. Please return tomorrow. All commercial flights are sold out. Please return tomorrow. All commercial fli-- A ship departing nearby cuts through the repetitive loudspeaker announcement. I feel as if I have been here for days. Flights off world are expensive, and the cheaper ones go so fast. I have been unable to secure a trip off world. It used to be so easy... I don't know why it's still raining. The commercial spacefield has yielded nothing. I drift through disreputable shipyards and seedy bars, bedraggled and hauling that single soggy box, but no where is there room for the likes of me. I just can't pay enough. All of my clothes smell like ship exhaust and wet feathers. Desperation has crept up on me like the cold of the night. It is a gradual but poignant change. I can't keep bearing this. The shame from those who recognize me. The shame from those who don't. The constant bone-chilling soak from a rainy season that refuses to quit. I have to get off of this planet. I feel as if I've been walking forever. There's another option, I've heard it talked about. But once I'm there, and the traders... I hope they're traders... are giving me looks, I'm not sure anymore. I know I've made a mistake, but it's too late to go back, and there's nothing to go back to except the rain. I'm sick of the rain. "Don't worry, Jay. You always land on your feet."
"Don't worry Jay, you always land on your feet." The thought brings me a sense of confidence. I land on my feet. Just like a cat. There's nobody here that can keep me from getting what I need. They stare, but it no longer matters. They're beneath me. They always were beneath me. How could I have ever thought otherwise? My sure-footedness brings a sashay to my step. The stars are mine to take. My worry drains away and the sky brightens with stars again, the downpour ceasing. I still do not like the wet and the cold-- but for now I feel warmer. It's easy to forget my cares, my soggy cardboard box, and gallivant through the sky. Nothing can bring me down. And, even if something tried, I'd land on my feet. I stretch across the sky, suns warming my back, and I realize that I'm happy. All I want to do now is sleep.
The stars stretch before me. The sky is vast, and I realize with shock, far beyond my comprehension. My sense of mastery over it begins to fade as it becomes apparent how truly small and insignificant I am in the universe. This is a universe of so many thoughts, hearts, and voices. How could I have ever hoped to stand out? I could take a million steps, and a million more, in this sky, and never get anywhere. 'It does not help that you are raised to feel small,' tickles a thought in the back of my mind. Yes-- we were small pieces of something bigger, but I'd never understood. That was how I got in trouble in the first place. I just didn't think we needed to stay small. After all, I'd been a star, if only for a second in time... I can feel his presence there in the sky, a dark stain. I look into his inky blackness and whisper, "Why are we smaller than you..?" He says nothing. "Aren't we all just as important as you?" He says nothing. I throw my hands to the sky, but my voice cracks, "You were just a man. Why do you..." "Why do you get to decide who flies and who falls?!" He says absolutely nothing. He never has. He never will. My stomach drops, and I fall... like so many others. No man should have so much power.
The sensation of falling fades over time, but it never quite leaves your gut. It settles there and wakes you in the middle of the night with an overbearing sense of dread that you can't quite put a name to. I've been falling for a long, long time. I know that, somewhere deep down. It would be a shock to reach the bottom, and I'm not quite sure that I could handle it. I've hit some things on the way down. I should know. It's strange to be in this smoky backwater spacefield again. He looks at me like the others did, seeing what I am: drenched, bedraggled, desperate and out of place. But he smiles. He takes my money. And he promises me safe passage to another planet. Another time, another place, and I would have never been here. A thousand hands would have picked me up off the ground, dusted me off, and got me where I wanted to go. But, I am here, and his are the only hands willing to touch me anymore. I don't know if that makes me trust him more or less than I already do. But I don't exactly have the choices that I used to, before I began falling. Leaps of faith have gotten me nowhere. But perhaps a leap of desperation...
