Looking out through light years of space to planets and stars visible in this particular corner of the universe, Flash realized as never before that he was not a visitor here. Not really. The atoms that formed his very body originated here. Animated stardust. He was bits of this, come back to look at the universe that helped him to become real.
On Earth, he had always thought of space as being “out there”. All of man’s history had unfolded within the fragile bubble of a tiny planet. As wonderful and intimate as Earth was, out here, his perspective on it had changed.
Everything was changing. Some things changed quicker than others. Galaxies spread out like lawns of summer grass. Earth floated like a soap bubble blown by a child. Floating beautifully in a sparkling dance until it can no longer sustain itself.
To Flash, this was not a sad thought, but made his home and his very life all the more precious. This would never happen again. This view and himself. Everything would change. It would be spectacular, but this moment Flash found himself in was unique.
He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know the source of the music. It didn’t matter.
He lived in this moment and saw it as the point of a pencil on a page. The story had not been completed, so he was content to ride the rising and falling, the curling graphite line that scratched his life onto the paper of the cosmos.
From early childhood, Flash had been taught that everything was still here. Everything that ever was, still was… Expanding out like ripples, further and further into the universe. Looking up from Earth to the glow of stars was to look back in time. The twinkle he saw had traveled so many light years that the light that reached him may have been from a star that had long since been extinguished. The further out you looked, the further back in time you saw.
He thought again of his life as a story written on the pages of time.
When you reach the end of a book, the first chapter still sits at the at the beginning where you left it. If you turn back enough pages, you can still see it there where you left it to follow the words, allowing the story to unfold.
Traveling in the direction of the expansion, you would go back through time. If he went against the flow, would he then see the future?
Flash Meridian’s mind raced as he gazed out at the immensity of the universe, contemplating its characteristics and their ramifications. It was too vast for him to comprehend, and he again felt like a grain of sand trying to comprehend the totality of all the beaches in the world. He moved with it, even as he moved through it. One thing he knew. It was beautiful.
Looking at the spray of heavenly bodies that shimmered like bubbles in a bottomless sea, it was impossible to choose one to visit. To pick one would mean rejecting all the others. And yet without the intimacy of a visit he would never truly know any of them. Not in a tangible way. Not in a human way. And so he was conflicted.
On the path of life, we constantly make choices. We choose one option over another, hoping we are doing the right or best thing. Big choices that decide a career, a life mate, a philosophy. And small things like what to eat or how to spend an afternoon. But the cumulative effect is us. Who we are. And so Flash felt he must make a decision.
That twisting path of life’s decisions over time certainly feels like a winding road! Unexpected events seem to throw us off track, and we are forced to regroup. Disappointments and opportunities lead us to major life changes. We seem to lose our way.
But then we look in our rear view mirror, and see a straight path. Those rejected scenarios were never really options at all. They were never meant to be. There was only one journey that would result in you or me.