Timescape 17
The Gravity of the Me
While my timescapes are a compilation of journeys and my experiences to countless stars, this one will not follow the same pattern. This story is sad or happy, based on the perspective of the reader and it is located on just a single planet.
Impurus Minor is the name of the planet and not a name I gave. It just is. And it is classified as an Ossified astral body by the details given from my Ship Scanner.
You traveller might have gone to a planet like this one or seen an image from another traveller amongst the stars. If not, they look like this
Endless plains, mountains or cliffs, filled with Star shaped flora and Minerals and ever-joyous levitating stars. If you explore a bit, you will hear rumbling sounds and if you turn your head you will see that the planet is alive. Star shaped “animals” wandering around in endless loops. Not hunting or feeding. Just making loops. In the far edges of a mountain, somehow forgotten from the rest of the scenery, I even found an Ossified Star. I didn’t know what that was but after analyzing it, I understood that it was an anomaly in that planet, given the fact that it was the only star with an orange colored center. Either an “animal” that never got to get alive, or an animal that died but somehow got to exist forever.
In the daytime everything seemed as expected, as far as the “expected” can go, but while it grew darker, this notion started to fade away.
As light got dimmer, I realized that some “Stars” shine purple in their Hearts. It was a brilliant moment to be in the middle of the night, surrounded by purple glowing stars. It was like as if I was in the middle of a bright minefield.
Until I observed this very small detail…
The star-shaped things, did not glow on their own. They shine only IF you look at them.
You, as an individual, an entity from Light Years away, can interact with something J U S T by looking at it. You don’t have to mine it, you don’t have to shoot it with a grenade, or adjust it with you manipulator. Just look at it. And it responds. It looks back. Your f@cking stare, can awake something in the Universe. It puts to life something long dead or wake it from its long slumber. Just let it sink for a brief moment.
To prove it, here are two photos taken from the same spot over a “forest” of Stars, without looking at them. The first is without having passed through, and the other, after I did so.
I even captured, my trail back to my ship. Those are all the individual entities I awaken.
After that Eureka moment of mine, I wondered “Does this happen to every planet or just this type?” “Having travelled so much, do I have a trail by the things I woke or brought to life?” “Are they Sentient and communicate with me”? “Is that their nod to my question if I am even real?”
And if they are sentient and I wake them up or bring them to life, should I spend my whole life finding those planets and bring them to their senses? What would you do Traveller if there were millions of Travellers sleeping and your stare could wake them? Would you do it for everyone on a planet and every planet you encountered or would you let them in their eternal sleep?
I travelled so, so many Light Years and visited many stars and planets, but never in my whole journey have I imagined that I would be in such an awkward ethical dilmema. This little detail is the whole meaning of Life itself. You are not alive, or awake, until this someone -be friend, lover, relative, or stranger- stares at you in a way that your Heart shines purple. And it is up to you to figure out if in your Life, you are the Traveller for someone, or just the Idle Star.
I am not sure what path I will follow from now on, but I hope you already know yours.