The meditative hush of the sea, in and out, in and out, like the breath. The pebbles beneath her grounded her to this world. It brought her into the present and drowned out the strange problems and dramas of human life. All insignificant compared to the sea and the rest of the world that lay just out of sight, but it existed, just over there. Each drop of water would eventually find itself elsewhere, connecting her to everyone and everything else; each droplet contained unreadable stories.
She gazed up into the night sky. Without streetlights, stars appeared all over, brighter, and reminded her that she not only belonged to this world but also the entire existence beyond it. She held the thought until the universe seemed impossible; a thought too big to be held. She stared into a dark spot, knowing that beyond her sight were billions of stars shining through the universe. Maybe, out there, another being was going through their daily life. Maybe they contemplated the existence of others, too. Maybe they were dealing with problems she’d never understand. In the brief belief of their existence, she felt connected to them, who or whatever they were.
In that briefest of moments, there was another being, and in that tiniest minutest undetectable moment, they had unknowingly locked eyes from a distance so far neither were capable of comprehending. Maybe in another life or universe they would have been friends and shared the same interests. Maybe they would have contemplated the universe together and the beings that may exist out there.
That being — with a name in a language so alien with a long, living history of changing sounds and words and phrases and grammar that an Earth-based human would never grasp it — contemplated the possibility of another somewhere in the universe.
The being sat on the roof of his home, watching the night sky. In a rare moment of both moons not being up at night, the sky was much darker than he’d ever seen before. He followed the lines of stars creating the images that read their origin story, a story told over thousands and thousands of year. He sat under the same stars with the same wondering about where they were and why. Was there someone out there looking back at him? Were they all lost souls soaring through the universe, never likely to meet, never likely to communicate but somehow, belonging to the same reality, same existence, enough to connect them all? A connection they could only feel without knowing if it was real or imagined.
For a second, there was a connection, but now it was lost and floating through the dark, empty, cold space of the universe. The loss unknown, yet the connection still felt deep inside.
–Rachel Speed
Stories