Star Compass

Star Compass

by Me(whatever)

It was a compass. Sent from the sugary and salty heavens above. And it broke in my hands.

Some might say it wasn’t my fault, not my responsibility. But I was the one with the gold-bounded object in my care, and I cannot ignore the shame that wells up whenever I think on it.

The beginning had started at the end; the end of a despair that had broken into a million fragments. These fragments brightened up as a spark of hope and nestled themselves comfortably and coldly within the vast darkness above our heads. I spoke with them. The shattered despair had been mine. We conversed for a little while, but gradually became distant. These hopes had not belonged to me alone anymore. They were too busy granting wishes of my children.

And one night, a freezing hand reached out and patted me on the cheek. I could hear the celestial voice in my dozing; sounding around and ‘round like a merry-go-round might. What they said was something I cannot remember anymore with the fragile mind of something called human. But when I awoke that morning, with the sunlight hiding divine faces and streaming in to find mine, I found it on my pillow. Something that possibly might have led a single family through a brutal sea of a God’s tears to land. The dark-almost as black as death- very dark blue, palm-sized compass next to the lump of where my head had been. It does not always point to the top of my skull as some might believe; the North Star is only one to stand in the heavens.

I knew what it was. From my skin I could generate more than trillions of information from the ones living there. I knew how they acted.  My life on the surface had been a short one of only a bit more than one hundred years, however that was enough to know the limits and possibilities of a beating heart and breathing lungs. And therefore, I am one of them; because I understand. However the differences do not make it past the truth. I am not them. I understand far more and far less than they ever would. I live in the center of myself; the inside of a sphere filled with burning heat and hell-fire. And I live on the outside of myself, green and blue and many, many more shades of color left unnamed. I am beautiful. I am cruel. I am kind.

I am mother.

When my life on the surface ended, as the first daughter and mother named after Life, the evening came as I was buried into the burrows of my crumbling, future skin. The energy they call the soul was transported deep into the soil, and was burned thoroughly through the core of the planet. It was far different from Eden. I am so heavy.

The arrow of the compass pointed East.

I traveled to the first corner of the Earth. It was spring there.

I watched the beginning of life sprout up as tiny sprouts; so tiny and innocent.

And- as I watched with joy swelling in my breast- they bloomed.

Many were lost by starving teeth and tongue; however the ones that stayed sprouted seeds for the next season of happiness.

The beginning of my life was set in a Garden.  

I can remember it.  But who was there? The person I remember as myself who is no longer there; cries out for recognition. And was there someone else? The person I loved who turned into the sun? It was all there. Now there is nothing. I had forgotten when I fell asleep. The moon is my pillow.

Nevertheless, joy was there. My dispersed mind memoirs it. Memories cannot fill the present however. It cannot fill my stomach.

The arrow of the compass pointed South.

Summer and the wriggling heat waves hit me. Walking barefoot, I burned and relished them on sweltering road paths and freshly sprinkled grass-ways. Fireworks in the sky reminded people of the spring blossoms that had already withered. I walked on.

Entirely blue skies waited for me at the end of the clouds. I gazed up at the sun that now contained the soul of my spouse. The sailboats waved past me, on a journey to azure. I felt part of myself go with them; wishing them luck. The burning ground gave a mystery. What was inside it; an eaten heart? Or perhaps there was millions of rotting bones giving presence to the origin of life.

The fruit ripened. A forked tongue reached out and touched conversation. I answered. “The forbidden tree,” it said with slit eyes. The scaled body slid between the branches. You would meet me, did you know? - Between white and black. The invisible gray squashed into nothingness. Those things that never existed at all; only one word will change you.  See, over there.

An arrow was shot West.

Fall fell down upon warm colors. A place was already decided for them long ago. Crimson leaves gave a stained glass window up for naught. Autumn storms passed through my hair as though attempting Kamikaze. I could smell it. Pressed by a decision, you would always choose the one you haven’t lived. And because of this simple cat’s cradle of curiosity, I chose an unavoidable destiny.

I picked the fruit.

It looked a bit like a pear, for the pair that dropped to Earth. I ate it, lured by the single word; knowledge. And that was exactly what I gained.

I passed to North.

Winter stood at my feet, knowing the consequences. The snow twirled down in massive streaks like a waltz of sparkling faeries. Even rain from sight stuck frozen to your eyelids. Even if one was to describe the landscape as white, all I thought was black.  Distance is a valuable weapon. A weapon is made mostly for destruction. Though this wasn’t what this was. This was law. With my eyes half-shut, I tripped with the compass in my hands and it shattered amongst the shards of ice. The shards of time also concealed it.  I had searched for it a long time. MY WAY. But even so, it was lost. I lived on as I remembered so long ago; having offspring, happiness somehow present. But I always remembered.

And that is how I had lost it; my direction.

                I turned over the broken pieces of the star compass in my hands, comprehending all of these flow of memories. It was always present, but always gone wasn’t it? I laughed to myself and threw the quarter of cerulean shards to the four corners of the Earth. I had no need of it anymore. My spirit was passing away, pulled of the burden so vastly stretched. But it did not matter. The shards would guard them. Lead them to their way once I had disappeared.

I had already found mine.