Sometimes, I wondered why the stars always seemed to glisten in the centre of his pupils.
They were onyxes - with varying degrees of tintless stains sprayed across the moonless abyss.
I watched them wander ever so slowly as he positioned himself on the murky earth beside myself; his delicate, veiny hands feeling the dewy lushness beneath him - eyelashes flickering as he took in the fresh, saturated wind of the night.
"Beautiful."
He said, gazing at the night's firmament that held the vastness of his eyes' abyss.
There was something in the way he looked at it though, that compelled me to think they were always related.
The night's sky and him.
As if there was a longing right from the start within the depths of his eyes that had longed for the stars.
And be one with them.
His gaze met mine, and I met the stars once again;
"What do you think...?", he'd asked,
"about the stars. Aren't they just amazing? I can't wait to get into uni so I can reach one myself!"
"I think you've already caught them."
He looked a bit surprised, maybe a little dumbfounded; judging by the slight contraction of his eyelids.
After a short interval that seemed too long, he finally responded -
"Well, I thought so too."
His gaze shifted to the sky's and it was almost as if the stars of the sombre nightsky traversed with him, painting a pattern of sapphire and silver with heraldic mist, and sprinkled novas.
He continued to gaze at the stars, which gazed back at him from above the heraldic night - almost as if looking for an answer he'd been searching for centuries.
And the reality of him being this close to being one of them saddened me every time I looked into the constellations in his eyes - the bitter reminder of the truth that he would no longer be within my grasp one day but into the deep, dark oblivion of the sky - where he rightfully belonged, for he was, after all, the master of all the stars there were in the hollow celestial ocean.
Galaxies danced within the palms of his hands, constellations upon constellations forming over the tips of his fingers as he stretched his hands towards their rightful abode -
He'd do this every night only to be disappointed to return to the murkiness of the wet, earthy soil welcoming him from beneath.
I wished it'd remain this way for as long as we lived.
"Do you think you'd stay here if I brought you a star?"
"Well, that depends on what kind of a star it is - "
"Okay, so it doesn't really shine."
"Mhm - go on,"
"And, well, you can't really see it from up there - so you've gotta stop gazing up there or you'll end up losing it."
"Pffft, it's a star - they're all lost somewhere in there. But you can see them all if you try, that's for sure."
I turned to look at him in all his starry glory - how could anyone be so passionate about anything?
I envied the sky, and everything it contained - for being loved so dearly by him.
What was there not to love about the sky though?
The boundless mysteries that it contains have captured the hearts of people in ways unimaginable to the human mind; the intricacies of the cosmos have only been discovered and yet I think he has unraveled all of them by a single glimpse into the abysm.
No one on earth viewed the chasmic galaxies the way he did and perhaps that was part of the reason why he attracted me.
At this point, I wasn't sure if it was the voided galaxies or his nebulous pupils that I adored but one thing I was certain of was the fact that they were both one and the same. And I was but.
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"Hey, if I was a star what'd I be?" - I asked out of curiosity. I'd always wanted to know what he thought. Whether he had thought.
"Why the sudden question? Lemme think - "
"I think you'd be all of the stars combined - like, the master of all the stars to ever exist."
"Wow, thanks but how come?"
"Just a hunch. Something tells me you're a part of it all but you don't admit it - yet I see it. Every day you come here stargazing, you look as if you've wanted to be a part of the galactic spreads stretching across endless levels of nothingness for the longest time. It's like you're just waiting for the right time to disappear from the face of the earth - "
"Hey, no, no, you've got it all wrong - well, not entirely but still! I'm not going to disappear! Not for a void of nothingness and depression! I won't disappear, ever."
I felt a bit of moisture pile up at the corners of my eyes but I chose to ignore it.
"We're still so far apart though. I won't ever be able to reach you from down here - you belong with the stars and the skies and I'll always be one with the earth and its dirt."
"The earth is beautiful and its dirt, exquisite."
"The stars are infinite and the sky's extent, infinity."
"The abundant seas on earth or the empty depressions of space?"
"Any depression is heavenly with your heart's solace."
"Yet nature's abundance will always take its place."
"Not until all the stars to ever exist finally become one with you and unknot the mysteries of the abysmal cosmos."
"Well, that, they will - except one - that will illuminate my bleak, moonless days. It's that star you asked about earlier."
"Which one is it?"
"The mighty sun in all its luminous lustre -
shining its candescence upon my astral cluster - igniting the fire in their long dead spirits,
back to their well known twinkling splendour."
I was awestruck at his words, for quite a while. I didn't have the words to respond, but my face might've done me justice.
I looked at him a while longer just in case he became one with the stars. At least this time I knew he wouldn't disappear. After all, stars don't disappear, they just become part of the beautiful celestial canvas - swimming in the vast ocean of nothingness until they come across their destined suns to illuminate their sombreness. Just like I was destined to illuminate his cluster of stars.
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This is a contest entry for MoonWolf_16 's May Challenge 2018 from Develop Your Writing Contest -
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!
(1066 words)