Sleeping Outside Under The Desert Stars
A Short Story About The Nature of Moments, Free Will, and Emptiness
“The death of the world that you live in, is the birth of another that you will hold dear.”
Introduction
Have you ever held the magic in your hands, made a wish, blown out the candle, and known that it would bear fruit? And then it does?
Some seeds fruit better in the darkness.
And some need the light.
You’ll know the difference inside.
Everything that I'm about to tell you has both already happened (in an infinite number of ways) and has not happened at all.
I know you. I know who you were as a child, I know who you were inside of your mother. I know the process of creation of your mothers womb itself.
I know your greatest struggles and how you don't think they are nearly as great as they could have been.
I know your reaction to every sentence I'm about to say, and I know how far you will read each day, and which day you will finish reading.
And I know the day that you will die.
And I know who will come to your funeral and I know the words that they will say about you. And I know who will cry.
And I am not God. But I know God. His creation of me as a being has nothing to do with any beginning or ending. It has to do with inevitability, fate, the question of free will and meat.
Chapter 1: The Edge of a Cave
“I should've gone deeper, but I'm not so brave”
When our planet was unusable, when she was so tired and sick, we had to leave. She said she'd miss me, she said she wanted me to stay. But only me.
I was every age. I was every body.
Every step that I take is a step through her.
Every sound I hear is her voice.
Every form I touch is her figure.
Every scent I smell is her perfume.
Every gust of wind is her breath.
Every name I call is her name.
Every light I see is the spark in her eye.
Every shadow revealed is the shade she casts to keep me from burning.
Everything I lay my eyes upon is her revealing herself to me.
Every tree which falls is a piece of her dying.
Every baby born is her being born again.
Every morning I wake up is her blessing.
Every dream that I have is her guiding me towards its fulfillment.
I am the ring on her finger.
My lover is the bell that rings on her ankle.
My best friend is the jewel encrusted in her earring, dangling down near her face.
My whole world is the teardrop which falls from her eye.
Everything that I do, I do through the mother.
And when I am done, it will be by her death.
And there she was. It was by her death which forced me to leave her. It was a premonition of sorts. But nobody believed me.
On the day that I left her, I left my body behind. But I was not gone yet. I was not ascended, I was not a saint, not an angel and death did not guide me by his hand.
I traveled a long way from home that day, night, evening, morning, blessing, guardian angel.
I ended up somewhere 10 million light years away at the entrance of a cave. A rift in time and space. A formless arena.
It was as black as nothing, regardless of how much light it ate up around it. I wanted to scream, but my voice didn't exist here.
I stole a voice from an angel and went inside to stay warm.
Then I met them all at once. Every part of me. Every part of my body. Every piece of my faith.
Whatever made me was there, a never ending miracle and burden.
Chapter 2: Setting The Stage
Give me a moment to explain it to you.
As a species, we are not unique. We are just like you, only you don't see it yet.
It's like a light in a dark forest, the light has always been there, it's in the mouth of a bird who picked it up to feed his young, it's in the wingspan of a crow when he blesses you in a way you don’t understand yet.
It’s in the chest of the hawk when he swoops down to offer you a piece of himself.
Have you ever seen the key in your mind which opened doors that you didn't know existed? But you know that you, yourself, built the doors?
It's like this.
When I look at my grandmother, I see half of myself inside half of my mother inside her body. I want to look away sometimes, but this is the truth of it all.
It's because it's all too bright for human eyes to see. That's why you haven't glimpsed it yet, maybe. You've had your eyes open.
It's a future which beckons you towards it, setting out a trail of clues for you to follow, rather than a future which you actively have to create.
Every possibility exists already, and has existed in the past. You don't have to plant any seeds, the seed is your body. And rather than finding a light source, there are millions already available to you, they are there, waiting behind the doors you built.
At any given moment, you make one choice and a door opens, you make another and a door slams shut.
The light you see is the sun of the future which shines upon your seed body to grow towards it.
You don't need to carve the path, the path has been cut countless times (by your own hand). You simply need to remember it.
Once you see the sun, it's not something that can be lost. It burns into your skin.
But again, humans can't look at the sun.
There is another way to see.
Chapter 3: Guiding Light
“This light guided me more surely than the light of noonday, to the place where he, well I knew who, was awaiting me. A place where none appeared.”
It can be horrifying to see the death of your father everytime that you look at him. The gruesome blood which drips from his back. It pools around his feet, it moves over to yours. You’re screaming out all the air in your lungs.
It stops.
You hear the screaming coming from another body now, inside of you, outside of you.
You look back up, and you see him holding you, you look down at your body and it's pink, it's soft and new. You've just been born.
You look around and you're at your own gravesite. It's filled with fallen autumn leaves. The tomb stone is obscured. Mother Mary is singing blessings over your dead body and filth surrounds us in the air. It's so cold.
You listen to the song, it’s the first moment he said he loved you, it repeats. It's like a scratched cd. It's like a scratched cd.
We experience everything, all at once, in every moment here. We can see everything that ever has or ever will or ever could occur, with every glance, in any direction.
We know you.
We drift through life with an endless compass which shifts magnetic north surrounding all parts of you. So many choices, and all with a map that comes with the purchase. A map on which the path is laid down, marked with every pit stop you'll make, every time you'll take a sip of water, every breath you’ll take.
Every time you have to take a piss.
Chapter 4: Celebration
There's nothing left to celebrate anymore. It's all already been done.
I sit at the base of a tree and I can see the seed sprout up and mature into a monster of itself.
I see it all, I see it all.
My breakfast is already the energy in me which it creates. My injury has already healed. My baby teeth have decayed into calcium for the roots of the tree I sit under. I want to disappear and I'm already gone. And I've already been found ten thousand times.
The only thing to celebrate anymore is the space in between spaces. The time in between days. The moments that dont even exist.
The emptiness that makes up matter which will never come to fruition. The listlessness between the atoms that make up all things.
Atoms, funny word for creation. A bit too coincidental if you ask me.
I sit at the head of the table which has no end. There's an abundance of food baked for the celebration which happens in between every moment, here we can relax. They all sit with me. Everyone.
Everyone’s here with me, and we celebrate together.
And we disappear and reappear with each and every passing of time.
Time is so beautiful here. It's not in words which can be discussed. But rather a feeling. A perpetual motion, which sends its grace upon us.
There are no goals here, no things to be done, no kitchen to be cleaned and no lover to be consoled with. We are yours, God, and we are abundant. And we are haunted.
An abundance that grows out of itself. It wilts and decomposes, it lives forever, it never dies.
A haunting which surrounds me with its smiting hand. Which I can never seem to face. But sometimes, I need to be slapped.
Ever since God got rid of my eyes to allow me to see in the lightless cave, the only thing I can not see, is nothing itself.
But darkness is the original form. It wants for nothing, it just is.
It is an ever present surrender. It is a noun, not a verb.
The light was always creating, the darkness is creation itself. It has already been created for all of time.
The word was spoken, and there came the light. But darkness sat there, watching it all unfold. He had never been stretched before. He was without creasing, all laid out, never even with the option to be put away.
Every moment between moments, I celebrate nothing. And I feel at peace.
They're all here with me,
And I feel at peace.
Please help me-
Chapter 5: Shut up