The star, the other side of despair

Cristian Madrera Juárez

For as long as I can remember… I’ve always been alone.

The world that surrounds me is always so quiet, it is formed by such a bright palette of colours that it’s strange that no other being roams this land, but for me these colours are just normal and monotonous, I take them for granted.

One night something happened. I heard a noise, and tracking it I discovered that it came from my little treasure, a tiny round crystal. The crystal was always black as the night, but now it was less dark, I could see some grass in it, but its colour was very different from that of my world’s, it looked so lifeless.

I stared at my treasure for some time, and then I saw something, something moving, another life form. It was little, and it was looking at me. It was a male being. Suddenly, he grabbed the image and everything went dark. I couldn’t hear him, but just seeing another being made me cry, I wasn’t alone.

Time seemed to pass slowlier in his world. He came back at winter. It was dark and only the cold light of snow and water illuminated his face. He seemed so happy to see me.

I wanted to talk to him so much, but he appeared at random moments, so I always had the sphere with me. The colours of his world fascinated me. It was all dark, grey, sad…like him.

I began to show him things from my world, like snowflakes or flowers, and he always smiled at them. This made me so happy. But one day, when he came, his surroundings were different, he seemed frightened by something, so I watched him closer, and our eyes met. At that moment he looked in the opposite direction. There was a bigger life form of his same race, and he seemed to be yelling at my friend.

My friend was very scared, and then everything turned black… not only the star, my whole world began to lose its colours, until it was all surrounded by darkness, but I felt…warmth, and I sensed my friend close to me.

“Thank you”, he said.

And we both kept diving in the warm darkness together, just me and the person that gave me a name… “Star”.

October 2017