Throwing Bricks into Voids
(the eighth mystery)
The stars were emperors of the sky, more numerous in a single atmosphere than a galaxy of orbiting bodies, more radiant in their collective than any one of the heavier celestial masses. They fell upon the praise of man, they glittered to the prayers of children. They ruled as only distant and magical things can, without reaching down to their subjects. Existing and burning out in their own cycle, the stars gathered in patterns, shone in unison and remained safely aloft in defiance of man's feeble interference. Humans have long dreamt of invading that remote space and once there, found only more mysteries.
The disappearance is the greatest of these.
Despite a fascination with destruction, man could neither affect nor alter the nature and path of constellations. Clouds may shroud them and neon lights may dim them, but man's own hand could not tamper with eternity. They've hovered in their blanket of black for all time and a sky lacking them was unfathomable. To what would dreamers make their petitions? To where might the eye look for inspiration? There is comfort in the knowledge that what lies above has born witness to ancestors and history. Thus it took something more powerful than the human species to remove those faithful stars from their gifted permanence. But vanish they did and the theories are as vast as their former numbers.
Abandonment is the most persistent conjecture.
The void watchers say that the erasure of stars came on the heels of the Great Storm, God's fireflies swallowed by hungry pestilence. Others cite a more complex, mythical belief; the jealous stars wished not to share their atmosphere with a noisy intruder and ventured deeper into space to find a home far from the colossal, crackling usurper. The general consensus inhabits the breath between the two ideas. Perhaps they defended their territory and lost. These are questions rarely asked aloud. Better to keep unanswerable musings to themselves, where opinions can earn no scorn. It is a society of sameness where radical notions are sacrilege.
He will be a heretic tonight.
In a soaked field in the dark hours, Patrick Bishoff sheds the lie and lets Peter Bishop emerge, lets the man inside answer the beast spiraling above. It called him here, insistent to the point of painful, a pressured echo in his head that only proximity would alleviate. What had been sleeping upon his arrival had begun a slow stir, sending the temperature plummeting as the fissure contorted in a dangerous greeting. Against the starless sky the chasm is a purple stain brightened by sporadic lightning. It is a terrifying beauty, one Peter doubts he can reason with. Even now, standing before the vacuum feeling its fingers tug him closer, it still calls, demands he witness what it's doing. As though he's not close enough. While the corn stalks wave in warning, he struggles to stand his ground.
A familiar whisper exhales his name.
Her blond-framed face surges into his brain, lost in recent weeks and nearly forgotten. A composed woman of sturdy spirit whose smile is a rare pearl. And her name is… gone. It is not she who calls, not with any discernible voice. But every molecule within him calls back, not to the summoning voice but to that face. Neither is here. He is alone and never more so. The tear widens, pulling life from somewhere else and when he tries to push toward the beast, it roars with a force that slams him backwards. The moist soil cushions his landing. Wild winds toss the questions aside while deep, phantom pain surfaces in prickling waves. Rising to his knees, Peter casts confused agony to the storm as rain courses down his cheeks to catch on gasping lips. The sound of a thousand colliding trains batters his ears.
Abrupt is the silence.
With surgical precision, the rip is sewn up and put to rest like a weary child settled. The winds calm, the lightning abates and the man left kneeling in the dirt feels the pain drain from his body. Leaving a hole that Serrah and her acceptance cannot fill. The woman wearing his shirt waits in the doorway, long legs bare and gleaming in lamplight. What lends his lover illumination is purely external while the nameless other shines from some deep reservoir at her core. Serrah's gentle hands reach out in an invitation that he doesn't want, brushes away the dirt that he won't explain, begs for a heart that he can't give. Even as he mimics the function of satisfying her, his thoughts are elsewhere. Studying the void, certain now that he woke it, that it brought him near for kinship and pushed him away for protection. But the voice that had accompanied him in this place has stilled.
Soon another begins to call.
It is too soft at first, a vocal ghost passing through the surface of his mind. It takes two weeks before he catches the fullness of the tone. The previous voice seemed to speak as a reminder of who he is. This one seeks. This one expects an answer. This one fits the face in his dreams. Her lips move and he hears everything he needs to survive. They'd been real once and the paradox arrives with a blistering morning headache. Belonging where he doesn't belong. And he can see a child and the love of a father coaxing him into the mouth of a newborn window. A tiny void that would only grow in his absence. It had been made for him and for him it sought all these years. Peter steps out into the sunlight, watching the ever-present blemish hover over the field in restless slumber.
And he remembers her name.
Many thanks for the continued kindness of all my readers. The next installment shall feature a special guest...
