By Ella Andreasen
Our cosmic understanding is a stream of events that transcends time and challenges everything that you previously believed to be true. You all have spent decades studying us, and yet, what is understood is nothing. What you’ve come to know is the physical. What you don’t understand is everything that lies in between.
Because this isn’t something that you know, I can tell you before any human life form gives you a reason to believe differently.
I’ll shout between the moons and scream amongst the meteors.
Admittedly, I’m worn down from the lack of knowledge. From the blinking lights and the shrills of metal heard all the way to the darkness. From the hunks of machinery flung into space and from the many souls who traveled here after their lives were dedicated to science. They do live up here with the rest of us, you know. The vast, unending darkness that we call home is a place for those who seek knowledge to go when their minds have come to an end. As your planet’s time moves, we hurt more and more. Before, our home was full of life that surrounded you, full of beings, full of beautiful masses, full of wonder. Now, the machinery and the metal and the bright, bright lights act as fog. I can’t see you as well as I should.
Since humans have spent so much time studying us simply for scientific understanding, a lot has been missed along the way. I’ve seen how your planet has existed and changed for a long time now. There used to be much more green among the vast, quiet blue. This atmosphere that surrounds your planet is messy, and from what I’ve gathered from my place in our vast world, is that it is from your own doing.
While trying to make life easier, why have you killed your world in the process?
I tried to come into contact with your kind before. A few 100,000 years ago, I wanted to come closer. The fog of hurt started to form slowly, and I was confused. I was afraid of the irreversible damage that would result in your demise and our end.
I decided to drift to Earth because I couldn’t see.
Quickly, I could see how my closer distance to your existence was hurting you. I didn’t mean to. I could see how the green began to burn, and I could feel my curiosity and hope quickly turn into ignorance and hatred.
Now, I’m a little farther from you all, and my vision is getting worse. The fog has now developed into a cloud and is becoming abundant and stronger.
What happened to protecting us? The stars?
We’ve come to believe that your misunderstanding stems from a place of ignorance. But whether or not these humans who study us and bring blinking machines with them understand who we are, they join us in our collection of light, regardless. And whether or not they try to know who we are is, essentially, up to them.
Will you be the one to understand?
Maybe I can help. Our bright cognizance serves as a reminder and many things to interpret, one that can be understood in many different ways:
Sure, there are a few of you who look at us with tilted heads and with eyes that sparkle as we do. Some of whom treat us as the beings we are and not the spectacles that we seem to be.
Celebrated us, almost.
Known? Maybe.
To who you are in this moment, instead of a great, flaming entity, you are only frigid figures part of a vast and fiery existence. I’m sorry, I should speak nicely.
I’m only here to teach you what you simply don’t understand yet. We can start here, and I promise I’ll be back. If, at any point, you would like to summon us and speak to our being, you must wait. Don’t fret, we are always here, but sometimes it’s hard to hear you. Too many noises and too many lights can hinder our thoughts and words.
And be patient. Let the world spin with you and succumb to its pull.
Then, when you’re in the midst of patience, we’ll be right there. In the sky, there will be so many of us. I understand it may be difficult to track, but you’ll find me.
Little one, I hope you hear our words.
You’ve watched us.
Thank you, it seems that you’ve listened, and your little brain and your little body have changed. Your patience has paid off, and it seems you’ve found me and you’ve found us. In your small home amidst the trees, we can see your small eyes tracking our movements and studying what we are, or, hopefully, who we are.
I believe you’re different.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a being such as you. The others are harder to convince, but I imagine that you can be the one. The one who sees us for the knowledge that we hold rather than the potential of our power. I can feel your mind and how you think, and your eyes do sparkle; they sparkle when you tilt your head and when you look up at the sky into us. Maybe you can help. But the metal and the bright and blinking lights are hurting the others around me.
I’d like to think that you’re looking to find me, but I can’t be too sure of that yet. I’ll have to be patient, just as you were to find us. But I’m not too worried about that part. I’ve been around long enough to learn patience. This, to me, is strange because my existence has lasted approximately 400,000 Earth years. Your humanities age is determined by mere years. Small times—in which your Earth travels fully around our Mother—tell each and every individual human and their individual bodies how to react and act, while at the same time, the Universe doesn’t even give a passing glance. In the time of my existence, my hope and belief in you will be entirely arbitrary to me. But it will be everything for you. My wishes for your existence and what you may turn to be or think are ever so fleeting.
Maybe your legacy will prove otherwise.
I saw what happened.
I’m sorry they treated you like that; that wasn’t kind of them. For the record, I enjoyed your space backpack.
I feel appreciative of your continued interest in who we are. A few more of us have joined in my observations of you, and they’re coming to listen to my thoughts as you live out your existence. They can see you just the way I see you. I see the Saturn-shaped pancakes your mother makes you in the morning, and the figures of those souls who dedicated their lives to science and to space hung up on your blue walls.
…
Whoa.
When we were looking at the backpacks together, Mom found the best backpack for me. It was dark blue and had stars all over it. But they didn’t look like the real stars; they looked like how I drew them in my journal with the pointy tips and the squiggly lines. I liked that they didn’t look like real stars. Because it makes me think, if we’re so far away from them, then who knows what they look like? They could be all different shapes, and who are we to talk for the stars? I also learned that we have these devices called telescopes that can help you see things really far away. And Ms. Najma said that the stars we see aren’t actually what they look like when we see them. When we see stars, we’re seeing them in the past because they’re so far away! Like, decades ago. Some even as long as light-years!
…
This education you humans call “high school” looks terrible. I’ve seen it before, and the beings I’ve watched have gone through it as well. But your peers don’t treat you very nicely. They see you and push you around. If I weren’t five light-years away, I would help you. And if I wasn’t looking at you through the past, through those five light-years, I would help you. However, my interference with humans before did not go well.
In your night tonight, I’ll send you a message. It may seem strange to understand, and it’s okay because I won’t try to explain it to you, but I can see through time. You’ve learned that your view of me is not how I actually seem to be, but is of the past. As long as we time it correctly, we can give you this message when you need it most.
Keep believing and keep wondering. I can feel you fading, and I can feel your mind dimming, but I want you to keep us alive. My friends will fall through the sky tonight for you to see, so please, little one, if you can hear me now, look for us.
Your light has dimmed.
You graduated, and you’ve moved all on your own.
This new place you’ve moved into looks empty. There have been these cardboard boxes, unopened and littered around the small place for a while now. What you only have is a few folding chairs to mimic what I understand is furniture, and a small fishbowl. You’ve been forgetting to feed him every so often. You don’t seem to like the person you’re living with, as they bring people over frequently. You always stay in your room. You’re in your room, on your small boxy device at the desk, or at the place you humans deem to call “work”. But this “work” looks to be hurting you, the way your eyes have gotten darker, and gray hues splotch the skin around them.
Your posters on the wall of space souls don’t exist anymore. Your eyes don’t sparkle in the way they did when you were a child. All of your days are the same now; the cycle of human understanding will always perplex me. You spend your life devoting your energy to something that only allows you to continue the same routine, again and again. Why not change that cycle?
I had hope, and I don’t want that to fade. Our light is dimming. Fading. Your exploration keeps us shining in the universe, friend. So why are you forgetting? Keep studying us, learning us, loving us.
I’m sorry the others made you feel this way.
I like her.
This new love.
It’s a shame that it took someone else to bring your spark back; humans will always be interesting to me in that way. But, nonetheless, I can see how bright you shine again. I’ve watched the curiosity in your eyes flutter back to us. It’s been harder to see you as you’ve been gone, and I am trying. But you need to keep going.
I spotted her, and the way she saw me, too. Her interest in me was admirable and gave me a small flicker of hope that I almost lost while waiting for you. I like that it’s common for your kind to find a celestial being and learn about them. Not many people have chosen me, and when they do, as you did at such a young beginning to your human life, it gives me hope. But it was hard to truly see her after you stopped believing, through the fog. So it was only up to me, wishing for your return.
No message was sent from us, but somehow she found you just as we did. Without our cosmic intervention. How did you manage to do that?
You’ve tried very hard, and I can see your efforts. The human years you’ve spent watching me, watching us, are seen. But I feel myself flashing away.
I see the little ones chasing you around your house in the trees with your love watching, and I can see where your looking glass is placed with the trees where you first saw me. That little device, one of curiosity, one of confusion, dread, sorrow, happiness, one of content.
And love. I do believe it is love.
And that love carried me through the little time I was able to understand you. But friend, I will be leaving soon. Please don’t be sad, you did the best that you could. Watching you and how you’ve devoted most of your later life to us has let me live a little longer. You’ve done what you could. The humans have seen us less as time has passed on Earth, and Mother can feel it too. Her sadness grows hotter and hotter, and I know you all can feel it.
I’m not sure if this is considered a lie, or if I haven’t been telling you the whole truth, but my dear friend, I have been gone this entire time. To you, I’m still there, a shining beacon in the darkness that gives you hope. But there’s a hole that was once filled with light. Just as the souls that have wandered their way into space that now reside here, my consciousness still exists for a little bit longer, just to watch you.
Before I go completely, I want to tell you about the silly feeling called grief that you humans have. It will be sad, and it’s okay that you feel sad. What is not okay is letting these cycles continue. Tell your little ones. Tell them of the world that can be, and that will be, as long as they continue our legacy. Tell the rest of the world about us.
I believe you’ll be gone when I leave, I can feel your soul fleeing as my voice is. However, before we leave existence together, let my legacy be taught. Tell the others about who we are and what we are. Not the power that can be harnessed. Not just with a look of ignorance. But a look of hope. And possibility.
You are full of love, human. And I know you’ll be the one to save us.
Be well.
Ella Andreasen is a student at Western Washington University studying English Creative Writing, and Education. She wants to teach creative writing at a secondary education level to show the youth the wonders of writing. In her free time, Ella likes to draw, paint, and craft anything you can imagine.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 