Aarvo jerked awake in total darkness and glanced around, disorientated, then recognized the column of ice at his side and remembered where he was. Relieved, he stood up. He felt better now, even though a bit shaken.
He chipped off a piece of ice, put it in his mouth, then cut out another one and walked away.
Sick of the darkness and the horizon-less confined space, he crossed the crater enshrouded in the embrace of night in space and started climbing up its inner slope, but it took him much more than he expected to get to the top. When he finally got there, he sat down, chewing on the piece of ice he had brought and feeling the fever in his blood dying away little by little.
Aarvo enjoyed the relief and took a good look around: beyond the crest of the crown lay other smaller craters, a handful of hills, and then the desolate grey plains that he knew so well, while on the horizon Eera shone full, lit by the sun. The contrast between the pale silver of the moon and the bright blue of Eera left him in awe. There was still so much beauty to be enjoyed in this world!
He stretched his arm and grabbed the first edible stone at hand even though he knew that the rocks here had a bad taste. His lips curled up in disgust as a bitter and tingling wave swept through his mouth, then a flash of energy snapped through his whole body, reviving the fusion in its core. Reluctantly, but knowing he needed it, he took another couple of bitter bites.
A pleasant warmth spread throughout his chest and into his thoughts. He missed his mother, he missed her terribly, but for the first time since she had disappeared, he no longer felt lonely. He wasn't alone—he had never been alone. His mother had not abandoned him. That core that now gave him warmth and life was ultimately a fragment of his mother's that he had always carried within himself. Inside him burned a little of her core and, for as long as it remained alive, she would always be close, inside his chest, keeping a constant flame of hope alight. Slowly, a sweet melancholy filled him to the brim and lulled him like a drifting boat.
It was an electrostatic howl that jerked him out of his blissful doze. He looked up and saw a huge boulder of deep space hurtling through the sky and crashing near the mountains to the west. A blinding flash lit up the lunar plains in the distance, then the bang of the magnetic blast detonated with a deafening roar. A colossal fountain of debris erupted from the ground, rising above the horizon in a storm of blue flashes and gray ash, then the shockwave reached him, swelling the ground under his feet and shaking it in all directions.
The colossal jet of dust and fiery debris, shot at dizzying heights, now bowed and started falling in long trails towards the silvery lunar plains.
An idea took shape in Aarvo’s mind: what if he used one of those boulders to catapult himself higher than he could ever on his own? The next time a fairly large one fell, he could place himself in the right spot and then…
He rubbed his wrists without realizing it: his body remembered all too well what had happened when he was little. One day, he got it into his head it would be nice to catch a rock of deep space with his bare hands and that nothing was going to happen if he caught it before it hit the ground—no explosion no impact craters, just a beautiful starstone to play with for a while. It made sense, right?
So, he had stood by for a while with his ears pricked and every time he heard a small enough rock flying through the sky, he ran to intercept it. At first he had been lucky and hadn’t been able to reach the high speed projectiles hurtling to the ground. Then, one day, a piece of rock from the farthest reaches of space decided that it would fall directly into his arms, and he, dumb as he was, received death from the sky with outstretched hands.
Fortunately, when the rock reached the lower part of the very rarefied atmosphere of Lissa, it lit the thin layer of dust suspended near the surface with a violent electrostatic spark and turned into an orange fireball. Then, he drew back, afraid, and that probably saved his life. An instant later, the piece of rock tore through his hand, then its metal core pierced the ground and exploded with an intense flash, cutting off his toes. The ground suddenly swelled up, and the shockwave hurled him away like a grain of sand.
That was the last time for a while he saw his right hand and his toes.
Aarvo contemplated for a few instants more the spectacle of the pillar of debris in the distance, then shook his head. He’d never make it to get pushed up by the impact of a boulder of deep space. More likely, much more likely, he'd be shattered to pieces. That certainly would be a way to leave Lissa for good, but not the one he was most keen on.
He shrugged and stood up. What ridiculous thoughts. Slowly, he started down the slope of the crater limping on his fake leg and walked away trying not to waste energy.
Soon afterwards, he spotted on the horizon the brilliant patch of a stardust field. That was the name he had given to a particular type of delicious moondust. He called it like that because the fields of stardust shone in the darkness of night in space like a blanket of stars. He sped up his crooked pace, leaving a trail of irregular footprints, and soon reached the the expanse of shimmering dust. It almost looked as if the sky had dug a recess into the ground and decided to rest there.
Aarvo moved carefully so as not to step on that delicious shimmering veil, because he knew that, once he threaded on it, it would lose its incredible flavor. He knelt down, bending his crutch awkwardly, and picked up a handful of the iridescent powder in his hand. He admired the little starry sky in his palm, then let it slip into his mouth. The dust melted on his tongue with a pleasant tickle, then descended into his core and began to burn slowly, enveloping him in a shining heat that made his head spin. He was sure that, if he ever managed to taste the light of the brightest stars, it would taste just like this, pure and liquid between his lips, and so crystal clear, that resonated to the very bottom of his stony being.
He lifted his eyes and felt one with the starry sky, with the universe itself. It was nice to be alive. It was good to be still alive.
****
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