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We are fools to believe we can take the stars, for they aucupate in manners only the omnipresent comprehend. They are the vessels knowledge craves— ones without mouths to decept, but eyes and ears to watch and listen. It is why, when you gaze upon a star, it has nothing to do but gaze back, shining endlessly, because it knows.
He was a star. Draped in yellow, sitting upon a throne, he was everywhere and nowhere. He was everything and nothing, and he knew me for longer than I had known myself. He saw me, and I saw him, and it took everything and nothing to turn back from where I came and run.
There are many things one cannot prepare you for when being on the receiving end of a millennia of knowledge in 15 seconds. If one were to attempt to give pointers, working backwards from end to beginning, it would start with emesis; mortal bodies cannot handle the burden of what is given. Then, madness, though that part appears obvious, it is not something that is better explained than experienced. Madness is pain, which is famously subjective, so there is little point in wasting breath explaining. However, if I were to be bold— I would say it’s as if each neuron is a small fragment of glass, clawing at the pathways of your brain as you think and speak. Finally, the premonitions themselves, visions of what has passed and what has yet to come. You see what happens to every person, every being, in every timeline, for as long as time exists. Beings, including yourself.
And it was approximately 3.558 seconds into my entrapment, during the three hundred seventy-nine thousand six hundred and eighty-first premonition of the future, that I saw him. Thus, came something that, even if you could be warned beforehand, one could never prepare you for: falling in love with a stranger in just one millisecond.
Avery
In that moment, just like every other moment starting from those short few 3.558 seconds, I experienced a warm life. One that was special, full of light and laughter. One that was of goodwill and deliverance. One that, in a cruel twist of fate, got irreparably entwined with my own. The chances of it happening to begin with were negligible enough to disregard entirely, if one were to be given a calculator and a blueprint of all things to happen in the world, but someone like Avery was the reason nonzero chances are nonzero.
He finds his way to my old laptop, onto this accursed world, and brings realness into this illogical labyrinth. He is in every way a regular man, one of average intelligence, with an average build, and an average interest in Minecraft. He is teeming with life— he is brave, dull, horrified, lost, determined, and utterly captivating. With every breath I watched him take I could feel the madness of my mind give way to the swelling of my heart, and it was then that I made a vow to myself.
I will never let you endure this. I resolve to do whatever it takes to fulfill this promise, because your life is enough to quell the turmoil of a trillion distant stars.
You are my requiem, dear Avery