Heartbeats [ON HOLD]

two | vengeance

◆◇ vengeance ◇◆

•─────⋅☾＊☽⋅─────•

The stars are especially bright tonight.

Sunsets used to be lovely to her too— the reds, oranges, crimsons that scattered the sky, a prologue to the dawn, but somehow, also an epilogue, never failed to leave her in awe, but once she learnt that intense red sunsets are often visible when forest fires are spreading nearby, when volcanic eruptions happen, or in the most heavily polluted cities in the world, she didn't find them so lovely anymore. 

Sunsets, they make her feel big, like she knows something that they don't. She does. She knows that they're a result of human-made aerosols, she knows that they're a result of fireworks and industries and corporations and pollution and capitalism.

The stars, on the other hand, make her feel small. For a moment, even if it's brief, she has nothing to worry about— the stars will do that for her.

Inhaling deeply, she lets her vision adjust to the night sky, the fine blades of grass under her back pricking at her skin through her clothes, and normally, she’d be irked at the discomfort that it brings, but now, it’s grounding. It’s keeping her present when she doesn’t want to be but knows she has to be.

The loud strike of the school clock echoes through the empty field, exactly four times before it goes silent once more, save for the quiet chirping of the crickets in the distance.

It’s unsettling, having her hearing aids in at a time like this— four in the morning with no one around her and nothing to hear other than the insects and her own breaths to remind her that she’s alive— but she’s been told to always wear them when she’s conscious. And right now, despite being half-rotted away on the inside, she’s conscious.

She’s alive. 

Her ribs are moving with each breath she takes. The grass fisted in her right palm is about to be ripped out from the soil if she tugs at it any harder, but for now, it’s alive. The stars above her are winking at her, they’re the only ones who know something that she doesn’t, and they’re alive. So, so alive.

It’s easy to forget that, sometimes. When the air is still and when the trees aren’t moving and when she isn’t moving, it’s easy to forget that she’s still… alive. Existing, breathing, living. 

The grind— God, she detests that word, it’s one that the kids back home use when they’re talking about hitting the gym, a word that they’ve most definitely picked up from the Western media that they consume— that’s involved in commodifying her interests, in monetizing her love for science, such that it’s turned into a chore rather than a passion, almost always leaves her with a hollow drum where her heart should be, one that rarely, if not ever, beats. 

A body in motion will stay in motion unless and until an external force is acted upon it.

Years. It’s been years since an external force has acted upon her, forced her to stop, or even rest. She’s a rolling ball on a frictionless sloping surface, and for once in her life, she’s entirely clueless as to where she’s going to end up.

The stars, however, tell her that even though she doesn’t know where she’s going to end up, there is a somewhere to go to.

Being a student of science, a firm believer in the visible and the known, Quyen feels as though maybe she shouldn’t be trusting the stars as much as she does, because after all, they’re just as insignificant as she is in the grand scheme of things.