Story for a Friend

Once, I was a speck of dust.

I flew through through the vacuum of spacetime for lightyears. Back then there were no stars, but I had no eyes to see them even if they had been there. I hurtled with such velocity that I bounced from one side of the universe to the other faster than you could blink your eyes.

I wasn't even an atom, then. Barely a proton. I loved to fly fast, and I flew for so long that I forgot I existed. I forgot how I had been born, and I forgot how I died.

Once, I was a rock.

I was born from heat and pressure so high that I exploded into being with the fury of a planet in turmoil. Solidified, I felt the sky on my back, empty and cold. I watched as water flowed around me and stirred me endlessly, taking pieces from me and dissolving them into the salt sea.

I had no sense other than spirit of sediment. I was mineral. I flowed into and out of rock state, crushed, pressurized, heated, spewed, solidified and churned once again. I cycled endlessly through my world, tethered to the sphere of molten me. I grew old in my mineral existence, and cracked one day as a shard of black glass.

I was shaped by rough hands and attatched to a rod of non-rock. I pierced flesh and spilled life onto rock. Then I was abandoned, crushed once more and dissolved into the world.

Once, I was a worm.

Oh, sensation! Stimuli at last! The wetness of soil was my temple of ritual. I rejoiced as water returned to my lands and nourished me. I consumed endlessly, subdivided endlessly, became a multitude.

We loved each other, my worms and I. We were no longer isolated in our paths. We understood eachother, recognized eachother, helped eachother. We ate our way through the dying world to give nourishement for the living. We did it together with joy and courage.

Our existence, simple though it was, was more complex than anything we had ever experienced. The multitudes existed within us, the potential for hundreds, thousands of other individuals lay in wait in each cell of our body. We loved the world and it loved us back.

Once, I was a flower.

I danced on the wind as a seed, picked up by a strong gust and carried over oceans, whipped into a thunderstorm. I made landfall on an island, dormant in my fibrous cocoon.

With the water that landed in the storm I emerged, apprehensive, excited. I shot my roots into the soft earth and sprung forth into the air. I breathed, I soaked in light, I manufactured what I could to grow tall above the twining grasses that clung to my roots and stem. I was strong and proud, overlooking my kingdom of greenery.

I looked out over the side of the cliff of the island, watched the waves crash into the rocks, remembered. I was alone. No flowers of my kind here. I was sad, but the soil was rich and my roots grew deep, so sadness and pride mingled within my leaves.

I flowered under a full moon, pulled open by its closeness and power. My petals stretched out and broke through their casing to reveal the sweet nectar and pollen, a hopeful reach out into the wilds for another one like me.

Nothing came. I was alone, truly, perched on the ledge of this cliff, so I laid down my weary head to rest among the weeds and the worms.

Once, I was a sparrow.

I hatched in a flock of a hundred strong. We whirled in the air currents that rushed around the skyscrapers of the city we lived in. We flew together as much as we could, tightening our formation as we darted in and out of the cloud of feathers.

We moved as one and as many, each contributing minute decisions in our flight path in the form of subtle movements of wings, ruffling of feathers and the angle of our beaks. Together we coalesced into a single organism. We shared our meals and loved eachother.

I have never felt anything as freeing as surfing the air on a windy day, when all of my siblings would take to the skies at once. We ruled the city in our collective movements. No one of us controlled everyone, each of us understood the power of the individual bird.

Until a hawk pierced my body and I fell out of the sky, tumbling onto the hard gray valley between the shimmering buildings.

Now, I am a human.

I was born into a chaotic mind. A jungle of experience. I feel the wind, the rocks, the water of the earth. I know so much less than I have ever known.

I crave! What am I but a walking craving? Desire fills me so deeply.

I love people. My family, my friends.

In the cold of winter, I want to hibernate in a warm bed with my closest friend, and wait for the flowers of spring to bloom.

December 2021