Star by Eliza Witte - HTML preview

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Ankaa (Nair al Zaurak’) - Astronomical Name: Alpha Phoenicis Derivation: Arabic: ‘Phoenix’

( Arabic: ‘the bright one of the boat’) Constellation:Phoenix 2

And before I managed to object, Ankaa forwarded all the power of her mind to me and I was about to explode by the sounds that thundered in my head. She was ecstatic. I was shocked. It was time for a serious talk.

‘Turn that down and listen up! Look, you can’t consider only what humans do down there. You are a star and have to care about your own stuff. If you are a good star, they'll make you a guiding star to a human one day and you will take care of them as long as they live.’

‘Oh, yeah? And this will happen exactly in three or four hundred years when I'll be an annoying old piece of junk - useless and fat!’ She yelled at me.

‘Nonsense!’ I yelled back, ‘You know that stars don't get old so easily. Look, you are spending too much time thinking about the humans. They are there, we are here.

They have their work and studies, and so do we!’

‘But they learn many more interesting things! They work and study, it's true but they also have the power to choose, they entertain themselves. They enjoy so many different kinds of food. Do you know what the BigMac tastes like?’

‘No.’ I had to admit defeat.

‘So I thought. And us? We have to sing! This and this only! Why? Why do I have to sing? What... if I have no talent for singing?’

What was interesting about Ankaa was that she always had her own truth. Truth is a universal term to define a well-known or established fact. However, she always seemed to pick the part of the truth that suited her best, which was quite incredible because by doing so she never changed the truth itself or its nature. So, if by now we had been having this conversation for the sake of the argument itself, I knew I was to tread into dangerous waters from that moment on. What was worse – I didn’t know how to avoid it.

‘You are a STAR! You are endowed by nature,’ I said quietly.

Ankaa erupted, ‘Endowed!? No, I'll show you who really is gifted!’ And she visualized a well known face. A face we talked so often about. I guess that the reason we actually became friends was that I was willing to listen about… Stuart Reynolds - a charismatic, dark-haired human; the slightly mad genius for whom, according to Ankaa, the most special place in the Universe should have been reserved. If I was to estimate his age in human years I’d say he was in his late-20s now but naturally this is ridiculous since the only souls who take time for the reality are the humans. For every intelligent being this is only relative but only try to explain this to Ankaa, who by the way, had continued to fury.

‘HE makes music! When HE sings... light comes out! Yes, light! And... Everything turns into blue... and then white... and suddenly you are into it all... and it's getting so 3

wonderfully warm. Maybe that's why people cry when he sings... but I haven't figured out yet why they get sad?’

‘They don’t get sad. They just cry out of happiness.’

‘Nonsense! That’s what’s written in the Purpose of Meaning but I don’t believe it.’

She re-grouped her energy and Stuart’s face disappeared but she let one of his songs play on instead. It is always like that when you want something from the World Information Center. You can take it the very moment you want it and you leave it when you don’t need it anymore but the consumed remains are in fact what shapes the hell (or the black holes as they are better known to us).

‘Don’t you like this song now? Tell me!’ She went on. I just looked at her disapprovingly and… all of the sudden she got so sad, as if the entire world’s chagrin had fallen upon her. At this moment I truly regretted having started the whole argument. What did I want? She was so young. I only tried to fix up things, ‘Hey, your friend's really good.’

‘Yeah?’ She had already switched to the dream mode. She was there talking to me but all her heart and mind were flickering somewhere far away from here… around Stuart Reynolds. I tried to get back to business, ‘Yeah, but you have to come with me now.’

‘Let me just check his configuration for tomorrow, please!’ Ankaa said impatiently.

The configuration was something like a forecast that had the humans dependant on a certain situation in order to keep the balance between them and other souls they didn’t even suspect they existed – for instance, us. In front of Ankaa’s face a light hologram shape of the Mercury symbol started to materialize. Very quickly she also evoked with the power of her mind Saturn, Orion, Cassiopeia, Neptune and other symbols. Obviously she had been doing this pretty often because the matter was a heavy task even for a big star and my little friend was handling it with ease. The configuration started to shape while every symbol was searching for its own place within a glowing circle in mild blue and red colors. Pluto, Moons, Haumea, Suns…

Ankaa suddenly cried out, ‘HE’LL BURN OUT TOMORROW?’

‘He’ll become a star tomorrow. When somebody leaves the Earth he becomes a brighter star in another dimension.’

She wasn’t listening at all. And yes, we were there with the lock of golden hair around her finger. She kept on staring at the configuration giving howls from time to time of something between anger, rage, sadness and strong disagreement. If the singing of the stars had kept the balance of the universe for ages, these howls had just ruined the work that had been done for the last half a century. She just kept on tapping angrily with her bare foot clearly at a loss on what to tackle next. Gradually the howls 4

lessened in number and at last they came to a stop. She was still staring at the hologram in front of her but she was silent. And this silence was maddening. I didn’t dare to move. All of a sudden, Ankaa said, ‘I have to see The Boss! At once!’

And before I was able to even blink, she had gone. Didn’t I know she was exactly 100 years old and thus too young, I would have sworn this was a declining meteor that had passed me by.

II

Later on, when I talked with her again, she related to me how the conversation with the Boss had passed. I was sure that if I were her, telling the things she said and behaving like she did, I would have been turned into the most miserable creature in our galaxy and even in the next one as a punishment. However… did I mention her puppy eyes?

‘Approach, Alpha Phoenicis!’ The voice of the Boss thundered, ‘I know why you are here and…’

‘Do you?’

Rule Number One: You DO NOT interrupt the Boss. He is the source of ultimate wisdom and you are only supposed to listen to Him.

‘Of course, I do.’ Here the Boss laughed. (Nobody had ever heard him laughing for real, at least nobody among my friends, and as you know they are in the millions. There had always been an ongoing dispute – does the Boss have a sense of humor at all? Some very old stars, however, claimed they saw the static electricity that was supposed to come with it. Legend had it that this phenomenon occurred ONLY when He laughed with all His heart.) He continued, ‘I thought you’d have asked for forgiveness first.’

‘Forgiveness? Ah, yes – the choir! Yes, I’ll ask for nothing but forgiveness, of course, but there are more important matters-at-hand now…’

Rule Number Two: You DO NOT argue with the Boss because… he is the source of ultimate wisdom and you are supposed to only listen to Him.

It WAS the static electricity in question that beamed all around in the Secret Space that made Ankaa apologize after all but I doubt she would have done it, had she known what it was all about. When all was quiet again, the Boss continued, ‘Let’s talk about business now. What about Stuart?’

‘You really know your stuff!’

Rule Number Three: NEVER question the powers of the Boss! Yet, Ankaa continued with no further ado, ‘Stuart’s going to burn out tomorrow.’