Cosmic Occurrence
(THIS WILL END, LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE)
They used to bark at the moon for nights together.
It was one foolish habit that they picked up when they were together. They love-screamed at each other, at the world, for the moon only to hear. The moon stayed shiny in the dark, back then. It stayed still, unwavering. Céleste still could feel the endlessness of the night from the tip of her tongue and fingers. At the beginning, it was creepy, scary and utterly unsafe to hang out in the dark. But as the night went on, and more piled up, she felt more at ease and comfortable; everything else stopped hurting.
She could stop hurting from the emptiness of having lost her father from an unknown disease, from the helplessness at her mother’s chronic depression, from her anxiety and low-esteem while at work, from the despair of living (it was safe to say that she was surviving each day) She could press pause on everything for a few hours, when, finally, everyone and everything became momentary darkness, and cold quietness filled her mind.
She couldn’t make out the precise lines of her friends’ shapes but she could hear their laughter tint in the night, she could discern the shimmery eyes against the moon rays. Céleste just felt at great peace under the moon, with Magdalena and Joshua by her side.
The three of them were a bit wild together as much as they were weak when separated.
Magdalena would always offer her a smoke from her joint, while giggling for no reason at all, Mary-Jane had this effect on her. She said it’d help her relax and unlock her consciousness. Céleste took her word for it.
Joshua would hum or sing songs while sitting on the fresh grass if it was Summer or Spring. They’d stay inside the car during Winter or Autumn, hoping that the police wouldn’t find and arrest them (party-poopers!) It would be another problem they didn’t want to bring on themselves again.
They’d been arrested several times for drinking on a McDonalds’ parking lot with concerned families driving in, worried that they would end up savaging the place and traumatizing their kids. They weren’t that loud, they were just drinking peacefully. They never talked much anyway (not deep conversations, just random stuff,) it would ruin the calmness and tranquillity of the night.
Céleste had so many things to talk about but she never did. They yelled but never talked. She kept everything inside her, and she would whisper some inane, useless rant to the quiet moon over her. She became her one and only confidant. She could’ve told Magdalena and Joshua about the insidious madness seeping through her veins, but she thought their painless dynamic would change if she did.
It was only when the day began and she opened her eyes to the sunny sky that the pressure started again. She had to wake up, to wash, to dress and face the world she hated so much. More than hatred, she felt despair. Her employers would start screaming at her so early in the morning that no coffee could ease this out, after a full moon, they always were particularly execrable, telling her how to act, how to move, how to talk as if she was just a doll. She was just a doll, she guessed.
She would fake a smile for them as if the sun would burn her skin if she didn’t.
If she didn’t, she’d fall apart in front of everyone, she’d be that crazy bitch who once snapped because everything was too much for her to handle (‘you’re so fucking weak!’) and she’d be diagnosed something she didn’t care about and didn’t believe she was anyway. She had to keep it deep inside her where no one could witness the horror of her thoughts.
The only reason she kept going was the longing of the ever rising night. When she finished work, closing the shop inside her head (‘bye bitches! i’m done!’) at the brink of the evening, she couldn’t wait to find Magdalena and Joshua in the car, smiling wide at her, waving at her. One rolling a joint while the other was tuning his guitar like they were preparing themselves for a concert. They were so invicible, the three of them, against the harshness of this life. Céleste thought about her mom at home for a few minutes, how she was probably having a headache from her boss rushing her and working overtime to get the design done as soon as possible — when Céleste comes home, her mom would probably eat some pills to sleep and stop spiraling. — Then she thought a bit about her father when she stared at the sky above them.
It was a moonless night ahead. The sky was dark and stars were scattered all over. M. & J. were a bit like her own stars in the sky. So shiny in the dark.
This time, they decided to drive aimlessly in the drizzle, music loud in their ears, beers in their hands, their eyes starry and heads dizzy. They knew the road was the only path towards their freedom so they drove away and away.
And far, far, there were some moons waiting for them to crash into.
