Serendipity

for the Gatsbys of the world

The stars that had aligned when we last met have since departed; turned away from each other, strayed into the arms of other stars, creating new constellations, under which others have had their night or day under fate’s fickle hand. Some of the stars have flown to other galaxies, driving us apart. Now, until they return to the same celestial current that had once brought us together; until they fall back into the tune of their former rhythm, like the notes that band together on a music sheet—until then, we will never meet.

And I thought that’s it, there’s nothing to do but wait for fate to smile upon us again, and move her glove across the skies, twirling the stars between her fingers and placing them back, back to where they’d once shone upon us. But after standing passively by while the years ran on and the waves of time fell upon life’s sandy shore, I decided to act.

With a lunar lasso, I tried to catch the faraway stars in its sturdy net. I stole some of fate’s needles and a spool of destiny’s yarn, and I started knitting possibilities of a different colour than her’s. I painted our likeness onto the tapestry of life, hoping the paint would bleed off the walls and into reality. I toppled god from his throne, and took our pieces off the separate paths he’d set us on. I grabbed the wheel of time, and steered its ship towards a night where we’d meet.

But the stars fall through the net and escape into the black folds of the sky. The hands of fate unravel the yarn faster than I can knit them. The paint dries and cracks, fading away. Seraphs throw me off heaven’s throne while god climbs his way back. The currents of time wildly swerve, spinning up a maelstrom into which I fall and drown as more years leak away.

Still, I beat on, wrestling for control with immortal, unseen forces; dropping the alluring shield of inaction for knives of rebellion, hoping to one day grasp in my hands the hilt of choice. For I can no longer sit and stilly wait, my eyes eternally searching for the silken cloak of serendipity that had long ago passed me by.

~