Each night she picked the brightest stars from the night sky and squeezed them together. Each morning she threw the bundle up high into the sky, and pulled the moon back down.

She did not grow, or change, or even talk, for she had no one to talk to. Her only purpose was picking, pulling and throwing. She kept the world moving, kept the people sane, but she never got anything in return. She had become forgotten in this new modern world, turned into a mere story told to guide the young ones to sleep.

In the beginning she thought she would be okay, just seeing their happy faces in the sunlight she created was enough. She never felt pain, or hunger, or cold. Her life was easy compared to those below her. She knew she was lucky, to be able to live so simply in her pretty dress made from the fallen stars and stray rays of light, her long, golden hair stained from the countless kisses of the sun and the moon flowing softly  behind her.

But she was alone.

She envied the people below her, always so busy with their own lives. Lives they made for themselves. They always had places to be, people to meet, they didn’t have time to look up and bathe in the beauty of the sky she worked so hard on. She wanted to be acknowledged . To have people to praise her and help her, to talk to and laugh with. To have places to be and people to meet. She had grown tired of always being in the same place, to have the whole world right below her, but not being able to explore it.

She wanted to put her hard work into living a good life, eating hearty meals and making a happy family, falling asleep together in beds as soft as the clouds surrounding her, in arms as warm as the raging sun. She wanted to experience love and heartbreak, feel the pain of hunger, feel the fresh breath of a cold winter day, see the world change right in front of her as she wrinkled and grayed. She wanted so much, yet she couldn’t have any of it.

And decides, the sky wasn’t the same as it was when she first started taking care of it. It was no longer the clear, blue ocean that she could never grow tired of. It had become murky and full of waste, leaving her sick and dizzy at times. She had to work twice as hard as before in order keep it even moderately clean. It was her home and the dream of the people below her, yet they gave her pollution in thanks.

She liked to think of how they’d react if the mess they created killed her. When the air around her becomes more toxic gas than anything, and she falls to the ground because she had forgotten what a fresh breath of air felt like. She loved imaging their terrified faces as the moon never left the sky and the sun became a sweet dream, the warmth leaving their skin and their faces pale underneath the soft glow of the moonlight.

Maybe then they’d remember her, the girl who never stopped working, the girl who lived in the sky.

She wondered when she her thoughts had gotten so twisted. When had she started wishing for whatever evils she could think of to descend onto the clueless mortals scurrying on the ground. Maybe she did deserve the pollution that seemed to grow larger each day, because she too had become polluted.

She wanted to live down below, where it was clean and pretty and you could easily forget the growing threat contaminating the sky. She had grown greedy, from living such an easy life, she wanted even more.

And now, as the strength left her body and she fell straight down, she wanted all of it with such a strong urge she almost couldn’t feel her body slowly disappearing, or the tears gliding down her face. The imaginary life she dreamt of so often flashed before her, and the beauty of living passed by in a second. Her sad smile was the last to fade away as she came in contact with the earth, before anyone could even notice her.

And as the last corner of her sweet, pink lips vanished, the sky came to a stop. The moon stood tall in all its glory, surrounded by its army of stars, protected by a shield of soft clouds. The sun lay hidden, its light still bright as ever, as it always will be, but never to be seen again.

Just like she wished, their faces became terrified, their minds confused, and their hearts nervously marched to their own rhythm. The moon never left the sky, the heat of a bright summer day, forgotten.

 

Picture from: favim.com/image/2734227/