The Stars

The Stars twinkled in the newly dark night sky, excited to be able to gaze down on the world below. One of the younger stars bounced around, excited to be seeing it all for the first time.
"There's not really anything to be all that excited about," said another star.
"Now now," said one of the oldest, wisest stars. "The world below isn't all bad. Where there's life, there's hope."
"Easy for you to say." Said the cynical star. "You get to go down there and help guide them."
"?Maybe so," said the older star, "but those of us here who watch over, we give hope too. You never know when seeing us, shining up here, will give someone that little bit of extra encouragement, that little lift they might need to keep going."

The older star could remember going down to guide people in the world below, back in his younger days. He's loved it, because it had meant taking their form. Being a person, just like them. Even if it was only for a little while. He remembered one young man, possibly the last he'd been sent to see. “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet," he'd told him. "However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.” Now, looking down, he wondered whether the young man was looking back up at them. Unfortunately, the star would never know that in fact, he was. 

The young man looked up at the shimmering stars dotting the sky and smiled to himself. He still remembered the time the Angel had come to him, and told him to look up at the stars. Now, every time he felt down, all he had to do was look up when night fell and the stars appeared in the sky.

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In memory of the incredible shining star that is Stephen Hawking. Thanks for giving us hope RIP.

Going Gaga

He stopped, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Everywhere he looked, each person he laid eyes on looked the same. He couldn't tell one apart from the other. They were all identical. And he, against their backdrop, stood out like a sore thumb.

They all seemed happy. On the surface. But the smiles on their lips, it appeared, were glued upon the blank canvas of their otherwise expressionless faces. It was not true happiness, he realised, for it faltered if you studied it more closely. It did not light up their faces. It did not cause their eyes to sparkle. They were robots, and the thought saddened him. Even though this was all he had ever known, the young man couldn't help but suspect they'd been brainwashed. He could almost see them all, a vision of another life. But something was different. They were different. They were all different. Not one of them the same. They, like him, were different from everyone else. They were all distinguishable from one another, each an individual. He couldn't help but wonder; was he was going Gaga?

Left alone after everyone had returned home for the evening, to continue "socialising", alone in their rooms, on their computers, the young man wondered what the world of his dreams would be like. What if such a world actually existed? Where people were individuals, different from one another? Where the world did not seem to consist of countless robotic clones of the same person? The very thought caused him to sigh with pleasure. How wonderful, how very simple such a life would be. Trying to tell all of these clones apart, trying to pick one from another made his head spin. Were they going Gaga? The idea of being a unique individual was one that seemed so very appealing to him. He couldn't understand, not for the life of him, why they would all want to be the same. The thought of being another copy, the exact same as everyone else, sent him mad, and he wondered, were they already there? Had they already gone Gaga?

In a world where every person was the same, he'd been born to stand out. He was different from everyone else. An individual. The very idea sent them mad? Why wouldn't you want to fit in? Why wouldn't you want to be part of the group? The answers to their questions escaped them, just as the answers to his questions eluded him.

He wondered whether he was the only one who was different. Was there someone else out there like him? An individual rather than a robot? Distinguishable from everyone else? The others all spoke of the world loving them. "Someone still loves you," he'd heard them say once. At the time, he'd brushed it off. Yeah, that's them, he'd thought. But now he wondered, was there someone out there? Did he have a someone? Or, was he just going Gaga?

The question of who is really "Gaga" remained, but he was pretty confident it was them who were Gaga. It seemed to him that both he and the rest of them were miserable. But he felt less so, because his individuality had not been suppressed, and he wondered given the lighter weight resting on his shoulders, how sad must've they be, all the same? The world has gone Gaga, and they didn't even realise it.

The young man wondered whether he'd simply woken up into this strange world. He blinked, looking at the screen. He knew it had always been this way, but he hoped that someday soon, things would change and the world would be cured of their Gaga, once and for all. But for now, he pressed a couple of buttons on his watch. "To keep me from going Gaga," he said, to no one in particular, because no one was really listening, all too wrapped up in themselves to care. "I'm going offline." With one more tap, his screen went black and he smiled as he looked back up at the real world around him. "I'm disconnecting and embracing my different."

The Lion & The Deer

Deer runs freely through the forest, not a care in the world. She looks around to see countless other deer, all running alongside her. Deer closed her eyes, running blind a moment while she enjoyed the cool wind, rushing refreshingly over her as she ran. She wasn't sure where they were heading, but she didn't mind. This was what she loved doing most. Just running, endless shades of green passing by in a blur, one of many. One of the herd.

One of the herd. Until the rest of the herd suddenly disappeared, and she was all on her own. It took her a while to notice. She just went on running, too busy enjoying the breeze and the blurry greenery she passed to notice anything had changed.

She heard it before she saw it. The deafening, unmistakable sound of a roar. Stupidly, she stopped dead. She froze, wide eyed, like she'd been caught in a car's headlights, simply staring into the nothingness straight ahead of her. Just for a second. A second too long. Because a second was all the time it took for him to come closer.

He stood tall before her, casting a foreboding shadow over her. Deer shivered. This chill was not pleasant like the cool breeze washing over her as she'd run. This chill was the kind that sent her heart racing up to a supposedly safer place in her throat. She looked up and into the blazing eyes of Lion. He bared her teeth at her, letting out a snarl from deep within his throat. 

Deer closed her eyes and took a breath, trying her best to ignore the heat from Lion's breath blowing against his face. Opening her eyes again, Deer took stock of her surroundings. The tiniest of smiles escaped her lips briefly at the sight of a small opening she could just maybe squeeze through. It was tight, but she could do it. She looked back to see that Lion had stepped closer and was bending down, his nose just about touching her own.

Little did Deer know of the experiences Lion had had growing up as the youngest cub in a large family. He's had to fight for everything he got. Food, water, affection from their parents. Though it would have pleased his father, the King of the pride, it had affected Lion deeply. He had buried the wounds as best he could and released his pain in his thunderous roar, at times a warning, at others a signal of his triumph.

And so he stood before Deer. One lunge toward her with his sharp teeth bared, one swipe with his piercing claws erect was all it would take. He looked at her, his eyes baring deep into hers. He could sense the fear hidden well beneath. He hesitated for a moment, before the loud rumble of his belly pulled him from his brief daydream. Opening his mouth, he lunged toward her, her neck soon in his throat.

Once Lion had wandered away, a younger deer emerged carefully from the bush where they'd been silently hiding. They approached their fellow herd member. A shudder ran through the younger deer at the sight of Deer, lying motionless, lifeless on the leaf strewn forest floor.

A fawn may have been traumatised by the sight, but this deer, though young, was old enough to know the ways of nature. This deer knew that Deer, just like him, was intelligent. He knew that Lion was ruthless, just as he'd been raised to be. This deer knew that a creature like Lion, had had a life before this, a life that had caused him hurt. He operated from a place of pain, the only way he knew how. By preying on the innocent. 

Not the One

She sighed heavily as she reflected on the events of the night before, pushing back the tears wanting to escape. It had started out so wonderfully. There stood a man, interested in her. He had seemed sweet and nice enough. At first. She supposed strangers often appeared that way on the first meeting.

But when they'd seen each other again, the night before, things were... Somehow different. It was almost like he had relaxed and, a little too much and his true colours began to bleed through. It wasn't anything exceptionally bad, or particularly catastrophic, but for her, it was still somewhat off putting and she found herself feeling very sick.

She knew that sick was not something you were supposed to feel. At least, not with the one you were supposed to love. Not with the one you were meant to be with. There was supposed to be fireworks, and an overwhelming warmth of attraction. There was supposed to be chemistry. With him, there was none of that. When she looked at him, the smile on her face was forced as she shuddered uncontrollably inside. With him, there was no spark, and it wad because of that she knew. She knew that he wasn't the one. Not the one for her.

"It's all chance," said her mother, smiling kindly. "Some people go through a million 'not the one's' before they find their person."
She sighed again, heavier this time, defeat settling on her face.
"But the first time is always the most crushing." The older woman stared wistfully at the space over her shoulder, maybe remembering her first. "You have all of these hopes, all of these dreams of what might happen, and they're all crushed when you make that awful discovery. All these ideas and fantasies you've built up in your head are smashed into pieces."

Now, the young girl was half collapsed on the kitchen bench, her head resting on her folded arms. Her mother placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Don't give up, Darling. Your person will be out there somewhere. And with each 'not the one' you find, the vision of what your 'one' looks like becomes increasingly clearer, until one day, you find each other."

The brightness of her mother's beam could have powered the entire house as she turned round to see her husband approaching, his eyes shimmering at the sight of his wife. As if he were under her spell, and she his.
"It happened for us," he said, slipping an arm around his wife's waist, smiling at their daughter, "and when you know, you know."