I looked out from my bedroom window....
The sky was as black as the darkest well and as inquisitive as the deepest rock pool. I blinked my eyes so that my sight was as sharp as it could be. Scanning the sky, craning my neck to take in as much as I could I thought I saw something...I always saw something. Sitting..watching..waiting excitedly for an unexplainable sign of magic and mystery, my spine tingled with expectation.
The night started to take on various layers, like an oil painting on canvas, the rings inside a tree trunk or paper Mache clouds on a summer day. Swirling, morphing and contorting bursts of beautiful color and texture.
Suddenly I was walking through an alleyway, the trees took on a dark Tim Burton form and a mist gathered around my feet, dancing like the smoke from a cigarette. Vines cracked and moved over the landscape covering fences and houses like the legs of an octopus. I was alone...I could hear voices in the distance of past spirits of pain and loss. Ghosts and shadows moved in the distance. The sound grew to a crescendo, it felt like the whole place was watching me, there was no-where to hide. Through the mist in the distance a cloaked figure stood with a lantern...no face...no presence....no pain. It pointed its staff at me..
Gravity reversed sending everything skyward, I grabbed onto the nearest thing, a vine covered lamppost. Holding onto dear life the town was sucked into a spiraling vortex above me. Thunder and lightning danced across the sky like a devil laugh, and nothing was left but moon like craters and dust. I could feel now that I had no weight, still holding on I realized I was floating so I let go. I slowly fell down drifting like a feather. Realizing my new power I jumped across the dust fields flying high for hundreds of meters a time spinning, laughing with arms outstretched. I pulled out a little brown sac and I started collecting the small stars I could reach from the sky as I jumped. Luminous flowers sprouted from the dust in psychedelic colors. My last jump took me above a crater that I had no choice but to fall into. It opened up wide to catch me in a kaleidoscope of primary color like spilled paint across an easel.
The colors broke my fall its consistency was like quicksand glue, and I was well and truly stuck...and sinking. I fell through it into what felt like water and I could taste the salt on my lips. My vision opened up to reveal an underwater sea wreck site. Thousands of neon fish and sea life swam past ignoring my presence. It seems I was merely a spectator here. The barnacled ship lay defeated to one side on the sea bed, the moon light through the water made it look like a ghost ship. A light was on in one of the porter cabins so I swam up to investigate.
In the cabin a beautiful girl with auburn hair prepared food on a red and white checkered table cloth. An open fire flickered, and fresh timber and coal was at its side ready. Light danced across the room from two oil lamps. The room was littered with old maps, telescopes, instruments old typewriters and cats. She had flowers in her hair and a green dress I looked on mesmerized. I banged the heavy glass to get her attention but she couldn’t hear.
Hearing a dull thump from behind I span round in the water. A huge shadow was forming in the distance like how oil clings together in a puddle on a wet concrete road. As it grew bigger it started to take shape and I could make out its huge tail fin moving slowly. It sounded metallic groaning with sharp high end grinds echoing around the sea. Pinned through fear to the side of the ship I looked back in to the girl thumping furiously at the window for some protection..It was no good...she didn’t notice me...
I turned round to see my fate....The fish was in view. A robotic masterpiece of engineering, it was purely mechanical. Sharp teeth made from the strongest steel, rivets down its long shark like body and holes in the iron sheeting exposing rust and a clockwork inside whirring away like an expensive wrist watch.
I turned around to confront it, I was in its sights and its TV screen eyes narrowed. I pulled out one of the stars I had in my brown sac that I had collected earlier and held it out front of me...and I shut my eyes...
Black......
I pulled my duvet up to my chin, a tortoiseshell Cat nuzzled in for warmth and I shut my eyes.
I remember when the sky was an endless possibility, the horizon didn't have an answer, and time was something my Mother used to mention.
People like us have no use for the constrictions of time
People like us have no want for conditioning of the soul
People like us have no need for our dreams to come true
The chase is our reality
We are the Star Collectors
