The Trilogy of a Dead Star
(The Birth of a Star, How a Star Became a Black Hole, and The Graveyard of Heroes)
II . How a Star Became a Black Hole
Chorus:
Save us starlight /Save us from our tired bones/ Save us starlight/
Save us from the closing dark/ Starlight you’re our only hope/
The tower we made to cope/ Starlight you’re our only hope/
But who will save us when you implode?
The biggest mistake this boy ever made when he became a man was to believe what the people sang. That was the start of his unraveling. He thought he was sent by the gods, and the people aided him by pretending he could make no mistakes. They all forgot he was only human. They fanned his flames, and he shined so brilliantly that he lost sight of the world around him. He even forgot the outlines that made him man. The people saw no one but him, and he saw no one but himself. Soon after the boy believed he could be god among men, and he thought the lives of the world was his to give or take. He took all he could, to sacrifice for the greater good, and for his own misguided desires. The tired bones he was supposed to save he buried to the ground, nameless, forgotten. He left them for the fairies of the forest and the mermaids of the sea. The oceans laughed with the rotting corpses, the sea foam sang back and asked if this man-god was better than the crocodile kings.
The change was so sudden. The people didn’t know what to make of it. Wasn’t he our hero, our most beloved? They wondered, maybe this is just a joke; perhaps this is something only the likes of him could understand. They gave him their blind trust believing he could do no wrong even when blood was painted on every street, on every window, on each door the locus knocked and everyone opened their doors to be devoured. He had tasted power, a taste far more addicting than any drug that has ever been created. All the people jumped into the biggest maw of all, willingly. He in turn exercised it like the lion of the fields, he was now at the top of the hierarchy, and the whole of Perlas bowed to him. No man told him he was wrong. He was what the elders told their children to strive for: intelligent, handsome, and strong. All these things, the formula for admiration, never predicted how a star became a black hole. Perhaps when man has labeled another as perfect it’s hard to take back, the remainder of their pride would be nothing but shattered glass and then they’d have nothing left. For one must remember, in this land where people believe they have nothing but their hearts to be proud of it’s hard to admit when the heart realizes it’s wrong.
The first to fight him where the men and women who never liked him, some who abhorred him even before he began to fall. Those who followed were the ones who never knew him and thus never loved him. They were the first to know that he was turning cruel and knew this was not the man they wanted to rule. They saw the bodies on the floor and knew they had to fight, to the death, if it means saving a father, mother, daughter, son, husband or wife. For others it was too late, they can only avenge the dead. Third to take arms were the ones who loved him but couldn’t hold on to what he has become, they were the ones who felt betrayed the most for they knew that he had taken their prides, locked it in his box of gold, and the only way to take it back is to fight the one they once loved the most. The last to fight were those who were afraid but knew if not now then they’d never say a word or fight any other injustice in the world. They all fought him with the forces of a lover betrayed, for no wounded animal could be more vengeful. No greater wound could be given than the wound of a heart, those who died have gone but the wails they left behind echoed through time and will not cease until those who had sorrowed no longer need to pass their wounds.
There are some who never fought against him but for him, they are those who cannot dispel his faded image of heroism and gulped down blood for the sake of their beliefs. They knew he wasn’t completely bad, he was still a man they honor, perhaps a friend, a father, a husband, or what comes in between. They love him so much that they bore his cross; they bore what the world hurled at them and stood up with pride despite the pool of shame they were to drown in. They showed their faces and let a million hands slap them, received the spit of a thousand mouths with honor. In the end they cried for mercy they did not show, they formed a barricade with their bodies but forgot how they pierced through the flesh of those who opposed them. How they shattered the bones of the young and the old to offer to their man-god, a sacrifice worth making. They forgot the many beloveds they had to quiet through a slice of a knife, a gunshot, a push off a bridge, a hundred watts, and a hundred nail-less hands for the sake of their most beloved one. They fought with all their shattered pieces for a man that to everyone else wasn’t worth saving. Monsters can be saved, right? Their hearts asked everyday, but it never stopped for its question to be answered. This is perhaps true love, but perhaps true love shouldn’t be so selfish.
There are many who cowered in fear, who didn’t fight on either side. They trembled at the opposition but they also trembled for the king. They didn’t sleep for they knew a small indication of allegiance would drown them in hate from either camp, so they shut their mouths and became like sheep. They did not oppose, they did not fight, and they only cared for their lives and those of their kin. They fought for what was valuable to them, the rest of the world wasn’t just valuable enough, and they’d say this: no one really fights for the motherland, no one can love land that much, but they fight for the people who lives there, the people we love. If you put your head close enough to their chest you would be able to hear their hearts yell, “When you say you fight for a country, you mean the people in it. And we choose to hush for the people we love just as you yell and cry and fight for those you love.”
In each exchange the heart won over the mind, right or wrong didn’t matter quite as much when one’s beloved becomes at stake. Each and everyone man listened to their hearts to fight or hide or runaway. The heart in times of great distress overrules the brain. It is also the hearts of the many that will over turn the tides for the fallen star.
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In the end he shot another hero down, the golden hero created to stop him for he was now a crocodile king. And that was when the people fought for now he has destroyed their new love. Soon this dead hero’s wife will rally the people, she would know close to nothing but her heart would tell her to fight. She’d hide her own skeletons in the villas her family owns, she’d wipe her slates clean for she knew how much people could hate heroes who’d gone rogue. His golden cloaks she wore to battle. She’s afraid but she’d never let them know, in these islands a leader must never let their people know that she is afraid of them for then whom shall she control? Why would they follow her? She must be flawed but all the good kinds of flawed, she mustn’t act perfect like him, she must be toned down, she must be like all the wounded citizens. Who ever the people loves has the power, so they must love her. They have to love her, even when she’s wrong. She casts away the northern star past lands he never thought he’d need to go, and told the people now that the monster’s gone they can now call this home, but even she doesn’t believe that her words are true for even her home is empty now that her children’s father has gone where all the bones go.
In exile he found a place of clear water like that of his home. There were pearls there too but they weren’t the same, nothing was the same, no gold or silver could make it the same. He remembers all the riches he took along, he could spend the rest of his life here but his mother was always calling him home, among the fireflies she stood in all his dreams. In his dying days he’d ask an old friend to send back a message, one last request, hoping that someone out there still loves him. “I want to be buried home,” he whispered for all these beautiful places were simply beautiful but they were never warm. “I want to be buried home,” they sent the letter to the people of Perlas but no one answered his call.
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The Trilogy of a Dead Star (I. The Birth of a Star)
The Trilogy of a Dead Star (III. The Graveyard of Heroes)
PAPER SUNS 