The countdown starts going faster, at the same time i'm seeing the sun, outside the window, going down unnaturally fast, the shadows moving with it, and the reflections following. On the screen, the countdown reached to zero and right after, the hands are snapped instantly to 6.
The clock is making a loud sound, a chime that reverberates and wakes me up from the state i was in. i look at the clock, it's on a pole, a pole that stretches down until it stops in the asphalt. i'm on a street. On the observatory street. i look around, i try to figure out how i'm situated with the observatory. i see it, i see its rusted dome between the tree crowns. i walk towards it. When i arrive at the entrance, i see the same guard post, this time His driver was inside. i don't like to look at him, at his emptiness. The driver sees me and bends his head, maybe as sign of respect, but most likely because he knows i don't like to see inside him. Now i feel a little ashamed.
The mums that were waiting inside the garden, smoking, with their kids by their arms, get ready and go inside the observatory. i follow them. One of those mums continues smoking inside. The smoke gets denser, and the air inside becomes stifling. And the one who suffers the most is her kid that was coughing like a dying old man. The smoke was as if gliding especially towards the child. i see him trying to stay as far as he can, but he can't. He could barely breathe. But it doesn't take much for his mum to get bothered by his attempts to stay away from the smoke. So she releases him from her hold.
"Go wherever you want just, let met speak to these girls! You just can't stop from making every day worse! Just go!"
The kid, out from her grasp, runs like a beaten dog, hit hard by the words of his beloved mother. His eyes, of a stray dog, full of anguish, hurt by the same hits he receives from his mother every day. The kid passes me on all fours and runs to a dark corner. i look after him. From behind the corner comes out the kid's head, now he has a sign on his forehead. A black tattoo of a crescent shape. The kid calls me to him with his finger then disappears again in the dark corridor.
i look at the woman who's supposed to be his mother, she seems happier, relieved and carefree and not at all interested in the state of her spawn. i go after him. i take a left at the end of the corridor and look for him, but he's nowhere to be found. i keep walking forward, looking at the closed doors on the sides. Locked and then covered with grilles. i arrive at the end of the corridor and see a double black door, one is open but i don't see beyond the shade that's covering it. It's pitch black in the room beyond the doors. Above the doors, a sign turns on.
Planetarium
i try to get my head closer to the opening but still can't see anything beyond. i pull out my phone and turn on the torch. i see the cherry red carpet continuing in the planetarium and a set of steps. i get in. It seems to be a round room, and the ceiling has the shape of a dome, but a little flatter. The stairs keep going down and end in the middle of the room, the lowest point, and the place of a huge round machine with some control panels, keyboards and screens. The entire rest of the room is filled with armchairs, like the ones that are found in cinemas, but here, these chairs are tilted a little backwards so you can look at the ceiling comfortably.
The kid is nowhere in the room. i get a few more steps down and hear a dragging noise. i turn around and see the door that i came in through being closed. i hear movement in the room, around me and close but with no precise location. i look everywhere and try to light up every corner of the room with my phone. But i find nothing. i don't have a good point of view here, but i try to cover as much as i can with my phone. i keep hearing movement and see no source of it. The steps stop, it's quiet, and then suddenly, something heavy, electric, moves, the sound it makes is similar to the electric window of a car.
All is covered by the mechanical roar, stronger and longer and louder than ever. my ears ring after the roar is finished. my eardrums hurt. i snap my fingers, clap, everything is so muffled and quiet. Just the roar keeps haunting me and makes me think i still hear it. i'm just imagining it. The ring starts fading. The torch of my phone stops too and a light coming from the machine in the middle fills out the entire room. Other rays of light come out from that machine and cover and give life to the whole ceiling.
The view above is splendid. Stars filling an infinite space. my head turns back down and i see the driver in front of me. Fuck he scar…he puts his hand on my chest and pushes me violently back, the movement is so fast that i can barely keep up climbing the stairs backwards at this speed. He keeps his hand on my chest and pushes me back until i get slammed to the entrance doors. And there he holds me, pinned against the doors.
"you have nothing better to do, than to lose time on something like this? you're heading in the wrong direction!"
i'm too scared to even try to move, to resist or to fight back, i barely kept my eyes open all this time, i close them in fear and shake like crazy. i don't feel his hand against me anymore. i open my eyes back, he's gone. The ceiling lights bright and a sound that seems to announce the start of the show comes out of the speakers.
Do i leave? What do i do? i look again around the round room, i don't see the driver anywhere. It's the story of the Moon. It's important, it'll help me. And i fucking need help right now, because it seems He doesn't even try to help me! A voice starts speaking, i sit down quickly on the closest chair to me and look up at the ceiling.
"Welcome to our journey into space."
The voice is of a professional, an actor that definitely works in the voice-over industry.
"It is time to find out the truth, the cosmic truth. And to find out the story of Moon, the silver girl."
On the ceiling of the planetarium is projected an incredible lights and special effects show. The phenomena from space are so precisely rendered, or at least it looks like so, and so beautifully presented that you'd believe you're up there.
"But first. Let's go to space!"
Claps come from everywhere. Hundreds if not thousands of claps, i hear them all near me, there is no cassette or sound effect, i feel the people that clap, here in the same room with me. But the room is empty.
i feel lighter. Could it be from the hunger? No, my whole body is kind of, rising. i let go of my phone and see it floating away. my whole body is raised higher and higher until i almost hit the ceiling. But i'm still going up. i've passed the ceiling and still am going higher. i'm in space.
i turn my body, that is floating, and look behind me. i don't see the planetarium anymore, i'm in space. i don't even see the earth. Everywhere i look, i see stars and planets and different odd shapes, mist or clouds, huge areas that cover lots of stars and have different colours, like red, blue, purple and other combinations in between.
i feel my skin getting colder, but also being pulled outwards, especially around the stomach area. i feel as if the effects of being in space start transforming me, but they are not as brutal as i'd thought. i can breathe, and there is no effect that seems to actively put my life in danger.
"Good, now that we are here, let's begin."
All the stars, planets, all the mass of lively colours around me seems to come towards me at an insane speed. In fact, in one single point they gather all, a minuscule point, almost invisible. All is sucked into that point and darkness reigns again over me. There's nothing around me anymore, not even darkness. i don't see black, or white. i see that dark pink, that softly lit dark cherry red. That womb feeling.
"At first, there was nothing. Then, BAM!"
From a small lit point that came out of nowhere, everything lights up. All is this blinding light, a light that seems to have no shape, no edges, no contrast, no rival to give it form. A lone light.
"Light came into being. He was alone. Devoid of any thought, feeling, emotion or wish. And the first thing he wished was, for another like him. But that wasn't possible, so the opposite came into being."
Light takes shape, an outline that helps him take a form, and at the edge of him appears, Darkness. There are these two entities that occupy now, the universe equally. What a view! And i'm right in the middle of it. With my left eye i see white, and with my right one i see black. Divided by an invisible line, an unmoved border. If i hold both my eyes open i see them both, if i close just one, i see just one.
"Two were now, but not together, because being opposites they couldn't mix, so they joined together and became one."
The two non-colours get together, mix together, and shrink so much until they get minuscule enough that i can't see them anymore. A loud roar shakes my being and then, in a split second, i go through so many moods and sentiments and feelings and sensations. Unbearable warmth, strong forces that push me, almost throwing me into nothingness and the entire universe comes alive.
First come clouds, of different colours, these huge clouds that were moving frenetically at amazing speeds start slowing down and gathering. They become more compact, start taking different shapes of different colours. Stars come into the scenery, and then different explosions and movements take places everywhere. And all is still moving staggeringly fast. Billions of points of light that seem to not have a place to belong. As if all the stars are falling.
"And together they formed the universe, from their own selves. They were together, one unit, they were the universe. Each piece, each atom and molecule was them. But they didn't stop there. Their love and continuous movement made so they extended even further, until they got to have no edges, no ends, or if they had, not even them would know about it, because they were anyway still in a continuous expansion. An endless love."
Everything starts slowing down, a painting is being brushed in front of me. i see gatherings of stars, galaxies and galaxy clusters moving together, but so much slower. i even get to see the formation of a galaxy. Such a beautiful birth.
"After this wonderful period, the creation, the first accident came to be. Planet earth, this little accident created by Light was dangerous for the relationship between them. Then the second accident, the one created by Darkness, an abomination, she created again what they two were together, but without Light, and on an infinite scale. She created the multiverse far enough so he would not know to get there. And the last one. The accident that started the war between them, the two of them being just one, the universe, practically it was an internal war, a war on self. That's how the daughter came into being. The unwanted and at the same time wanted child. A rupture that created distance between them. And the little girl, Moon, had only to suffer from this. A molecule in a huge mass of energy. A satellite in a universe that almost reached to infinity. A child caught in the middle of a conflict between parents. Moon wanted to stop this war, and she wanted especially to reunite her parents. And then, Moon looked into the future, she broke a rule that could bring her end, and saw what Darkness wanted to do. Helped by an insignificant creature, Moon sacrificed the vase to save the water inside. The water is Light, and you, child, are the vase."
The earth starts coming into view and then approaches me until it's close enough so i can see its oceans, continents, atmosphere and clouds.
"Because what Moon saw, was so much worse than what she did to you."
In the middle of a continent a point appears, and that point grows bigger and taller until it gets bigger than the earth, until it gets out on the other side. Now the earth looks like a green and blue apple, impaled by a black stick. And this apple dries and rots until it looks drained of energy, black and devoid of life. Violated. Dead.
"The earth is the greatest thing built by the two. He created it and she gave it life, and so the earth and the creatures that populate it are each part of the two, each part of the universe. They are creatures akin to these two."
The stick that impales the earth shatters into millions of pieces that transform into dust and so, the planet comes to life back again.
"you, are the one that can save everything, the planet, the humans, Moon, the relationship between Light and Darkness, your loved ones, and yourself. That's why, Moon crushed you. So from between your shattered pieces of shell, Light could come out. So that you can rise up to the highest level you have ever been. The ultimate level."
i open my mouth to talk. Nothing can be heard, nothing comes out from my mouth, not even air. i want to talk. i want to ask a question.
"Go now, and save it all. Save everything."
The voice seems to be losing its strength, its identity.
"Go!"
The earth comes towards me so fast that i'm going to crash into it. i close my eyes. i stop. i open them. i'm in the planetarium. It's dark, but i know from the position of my body. Sitting on an armchair tilted back. i get up on my feet, numb feet, and i'm also a little dizzy from all that just happened. i lean on the back of the armchair in front of me and pull out my phone. i turn on the torch. Yes, i'm in the planetarium still, alone. i look around once more for the driver, i really am alone. i look at the door, it's ajar. i get out.
On the main corridor i see the kid that i followed. He still has a moon shaped tattoo on his forehead, but this time is a full moon. The child looks happy. He is held by his both hands, to his right is his mother, who's not smoking anymore, and to his left is his father. Behind them i see many other groups of three or four. Families skipping happily together. i get out of the observatory and stop at the top of the stairs. i then move to the side so the families can skip out and away. Fuck is this? It looks so fairy…
Outside, a beautiful evening greets me. It doesn't seem to be later than eight. i look at the phone, 8:42, three missed calls. From Sarah. i messed up, again. How much can i wrong her? i call her and she answers.
"When I don't answer, for good reason because you knew where I was, you comment and say that you miss me and whatnot. But when you disappear, with no trace or leaving at least a message, what should I do then? Tell me."
"Hi to you too my love."
"No hi. Where the fuck are you?!"
"i was at…i'm at the observatory, here near Romană Square."
"And what the fuck are you doing there?! And why couldn't you tell anybody that you're going to disappear, again?!"
"i…don't know. i was here to see a, show. i'm sorry that i didn't tell you, but what can i do, i don't know what's wrong with the phone, it doesn't work well, otherwise i would've answered you from the first call."
"Not the phone is the problem, you are the problem."
"So much love, please stop, you're making me stupidly in love."
"you are already stupid, in love."
"Aha, i heard that comma from here."
"If you don't come home sooner, you'll hear me yelling, from there!"
"i'm coming right now, i'm on my way."
"Ok, i'm waiting you, i'll warm up something for you. If it gets cold and you're not here…"
"Bye love."
"Bye."
i have to get home. It happened again. i was home, three hours passed in a second and then i'm here, at the observatory. i'm losing control more and more often. It has to be Him, He didn't talk to me lately, but i feel how i'm losing control. He said that i have to allow it, give Him permission to take it. Why does He then keep fighting for just a few hours of control? And then He tries to earn my trust. And helps me. i don't understand, what does He want from me? That if it's even his fault here…i don't know…
i see an empty taxi, wave him and get in. i tell him where to take me and the car starts. As i get in i notice a point of light coming from above. The car had a sunroof. And through that sunroof was shining the full big white moon. i notice how the colour turns slightly red and more red, until it gets to be a full bright red moon. The image shakes a little. i wipe my eyes, my hand is red too. A drop fell on my eye. Another one follows. i wipe. Also red. i look at the driver to ask him what's happening…