Another trio that has everything in common but their last consonant. So, today we have stars (별), that undergo a small change to become walls (벽), and then sickness or bottles (병), we still haven’t decided which one to settle for.
Someone said that the sky is a sea. Someone said that to a child the same day he received a message in a bottle. The same day he officially ceased being a child, becoming an orphan.
Years went by, and the message of that bottle ended up on the wall of the orphan’s room. Where the family portraits and the memories of a child used to hang, now there was only a piece of paper, expressly addressed to an orphan. An orphan convinced that, somewhere, there had to be more bottles that had been thrown into the sea for him. More messages. To paper all his empty walls.
But the Sea had no bottles for the orphan, and he told himself that the stars were messages in bottles that were floating in a faraway sea. And he looked for a way to go to that starry sea because he needed to read those messages that clearly had been addressed to him.
The orphan set sail for the stars, and he returned to his room with a handful of bottles. But instead of hanging those messages on the wall, he drank those stars in one gulp. Because he wanted those words to be closer to his heart, he needed those stars to make him feel something.
Sadly, the stars made the orphan ill. Because he drank words that had never been meant for him.
If I still had a family, I wouldn’t look up at the stars. Loneliness wouldn’t have driven me to settle for crumbs. My name would be written on someone’s heart, it would lovingly trip off their tongue whenever I needed to hear it the most. But they took my name to their grave. They left me stranded in the dark silence of space. And before I knew it, I was starving for crumbs. Tongues and hearts had become a thing of the past. I forgot my name, and I started seeing mirages. Bottles with messages inside them. Addressed to no one in particular. And I blame loneliness. Because I am not just willing, I am desperate to be that no one.
What do you mean I got it wrong? Why would I send a message in a bottle if I was the one in desperate need of help? I am an orphan. I have cried this sea. There is no point in writing a message if I can’t address it to the people that really mattered to me. Nothing will bring them back, and anyone that was drowning in their own tears would know that. No. This bottle was always meant to reach an orphan like me. It was always meant to let me know that this grief is not the end of the world. That even though I am all alone right now, there is still love left somewhere out there. Don’t you see? There are tears as far as the eye can see, stretching from horizon to horizon. If I begged someone to comfort me, I would have to watch that bottle drift farther and farther away from me, and then just fall off the end of the world.
I am not sick. What makes you ask? This bottle? I found it lying on the floor when I moved into my new room. There was no star inside it, not even a drop. But even if there had been one, I would never have drunk it. I will take this chance to shine. To be self-sufficient, self-reliant, selfish, and a thousand other different selves that won’t translate to loss in the end.
I don’t need memories of happier times. If I could, I would throw all these family portraits into the closest star. I would watch them burn and disappear into the night. I would pick cold, blessed silence over imagined warmth. But the stars are out of my reach, and I have to settle for throwing these family portraits away. There will be no silence for me. There will always be echoes of my former life wrapped around my heart. Unwanted warmth, that will make everything else feel cold to the touch. And if I could bottle it, you can be sure that I wouldn’t hesitate. Those memories would already have sunk to the bottom of the universe, never to be read again.
Can I change my wish? I don’t want to grow up to be an astronaut anymore. I don’t want to see the stars up close. I don’t want to become familiar with them. The more I see, the uglier everyone around me becomes. Now I know that I need lies in my life if I don’t want to let disappointment ruin my world. Starlight is the only thing it hasn’t touched. And I need to keep it that way.
When I was down there, on Earth, there wasn’t a day I didn’t miss my family. Grief brought tears to my eyes and only let me see stars glistening in the dark. I had to leave. If memories were all I could have, I would rather drown my heart among the stars. Closer to the family that supposedly would always watch over me from the darkness of space. So, I put on a helmet, and here I am. In space. Where I will stay until I miss the world, something, anything, I left behind.
I became an astronaut because I wanted peace. I don’t know why people attach the word silence to loneliness. My loneliness used to scream at me day and night. Need! Need! Need! Need! Need! That word replaced the air in my lungs. To the point that I could no longer tell whether I was living my life or not. So, I set my sights on the stars and left as soon as I could. Empty-handed. Ready to breathe silence into my lungs and forget what I used to have. What I thought I would always have. The family, the love, I had started to build my life around.
So, this is a star. Just another blank piece of paper waiting for someone else’s words. Who knew? Thanks for teaching me something new. There is always more room for disappointment. But I should try to look on the bright side. At least you weren’t addressed to some other orphan.