1023 Stars
From: Enrique Lopez
Date: October 13 2025
The universe is so vast, and ever-expanding, that if you were to (try to) walk
across it, I am certain you would never truly find it's end. Maybe you get lucky
and can walk at the speed of light or maybe space-time freezes just for you
because you became a fourth-dimensional being. But, however you get to this
hypothetical debacle, bring a measuring tape with you or some bread crumbs.
Just begin walking, step by step, one foot at a time, leaving a marker for your distances.
After a few million years of walking you might past a few stars, maybe even a supernova if you're lucky.
By now you have passed many crucibles breweing new stars, and constellations exploding in the skys, with
quasars piercing the vast empty with their extensive glow. Hopefully you see of the most beautiful sights you've
ever seen. Maybe you saw a passing alien in a little metallic ufo, waving a peace sign like you're back on
Route 66. After a few billion years, your tape marker still following along, maybe a bit beat up, maybe a few
comets or planets or maybe supermassive stars have knocked it off course, but your still walking amongst the constellations
to find it's end. The planets are growing fainter, some brighter but they are few and spread far in between. Subtle twinkles
from the stars so far far away, maybe you can see home from here.
You keep walking for a few trillion more years and the views are bland, maybe a little sparkle but you're unsure,
you've walked a trillion years so you are definitely tired by now. But you see a sign ahead:
✦ End of the Universe Park ✦
1.314 Lightyears Ahead
No restroom or utilities
You briskly began to walk with more than a strut, you also ponder why this is the first sign you've seen in all of the cosmos,
maybe CalTrans finally finished their infrastructure project but anyway you continue walking. You see small flickers of
warm lighting, not like a star you've seen in a billion years. These have a more earthly glow, you haven't thought of that place for
a long time. That walking has sure made you tired. At least no headaches for a few trillion years, the
air of the cosmos might've been a nice medley for the health.
As you approach, you see a small floating rock, with a patch of grass adorned the top. A lightpole on the left of rock, a tree on the right. Lightly
glowing with a warm touch. In the middle of grass is a red-white-checkered gingham blanket, with a plate of berries and cheese which
you haven't seen in like, a billion years (literally). Your intergalatic super-tape finally reaches it's end. Strucken with curiosity
from the milleniums of mundane and needing the allure against the mediocrity, you take a look. It says, to you're pleasant suprise:
Congratulations! You've reached the end of:
Infinity Corporation's Inini-Tape ©
Around 1023 stars have been seen!
You're confused by the unit, wondering why it is stars seen and not total distance, nontheless you
walk towards the patch of Earth floating near the edge of the universe. The glow is a familiarity you haven't felt in lifetimes,
the feeling of grass and tired feet bring a serenity of nature unlike any other. Your eyes examing this anamoly, spot again the
board of berries and cheeses, many familar, many new, maybe alien imports you wonder. That thought grosses you out, they are all terran
cheese again. Adorned against raspberries, strawberries, cherries, grape, apricot jam and jalapeño jelly. Exactly ten crackers, just the ones you
remembered from when you back home, oh how many eons ago that was. You have lost the time behind many memories behind you but not a part about you has changed
for the worst, for you have conquered the cosmos (albeit peacefully), it is now of your domain.
You sit, as people do, it feels comfortable. You realize you have not sat in a long long time. As you wind down, the questions come
raining down like a storm (which you also haven't seen in a while). How do I walk so long without eating? Where am I actually? How was I
breathing in space? As you think of this hagelschauer of thoughts, you notice another plaque, enscribed into it's metal face, it reads:
No Questions!
The author never thought of them!
Go with the flow! (In space!)
You agree with the plaque. It was the infinite improbability drive, it does not exist in your universe or timeline but that is the only
conclusion, or you are just a god. Both of plausible.
You sit, in peace, eat two raspberries and continue pondering. After walking for eons and eons, to see how many stars are in the sky. You remember that you also lost count eons ago.
Maybe a pen and paper for tallies next time will be good, or an abacus, whatever floats your boat. Your tape gave you a number: 1023. That is:
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars
"That's a lot of stars", you say outloud. After you say this sentence, you hear a light ruffling of leaves in the tree to your right-hand side.
It startles you. You haven't heard leaves ruffling in at least 30 days (this is true, but professional estimates make it to be around 13 billion years in which you haven't heard
leaves ruffling). At this point, you have a feeling of confusion, fear and excitement. As your eyes widen, you see a young man fall through the branches of the small tree, landing face
first into the plate of cheese, berries and crackers. You recognize parts of this indiviudal, messy curly hair, tucked in white shirt (albeit covered in twigs and leaves), he looks up at
you with bliss-filled eyes, beaming with excitement and splendor.
"Hey you, long time no see!", he says in an awkward tone. He is trying to keep his cool, it isn't working.
You freak out, exclaiming:
"Where have you been! I didn't see you for months! I thought you died! I missed you so much! Why did you leave!", she exclaims pulling him in towards a hug.
The young man, awestruck and embarassed, filling with tears in his eyes, tries to pull to stare at her but with the might of 10,000 suns, won't let him pull away.
"It's a really stupid story" he says,
"You can't just run away from me and not expect me to be sad!" she counters back, like a dagger to the chest,
"I wasn't trying to disappear! I was trying to get something for you and I got lost!" he exclaims,
"Got lost?! I thought you died! I was sad, I was depressed!" she cries out,
"Please let me explain" he pleads,
"Oh you stupid boy, it better be good" she says in an anger-filled endearing half-cry, half-chuckle,
"I saw this really pretty gemstone, it was the most vibrant green, just a green that screamed you, it was a verdigris without the toxicity,
just the alluring blend that would encompass you into a small object, there is nothing else in the universe like it, nothing, and I wanted to
buy it for you, to make it the stone in your engagement ring. I was going to make it myself, with this mirror to your soul in the middle, the
whole thing would just have screamed you! But the lady, Oh, she was a mean old lady. She said the only way I could get the stone was to go see
the most beautiful light show in all space and time, and then ponder. I had no idea what she meant by this, But I agreed, you deserved the stone,
I wanted you to have it, I think you are so beautiful and this stone would just accentuate every part of you. I agreed, I shook her hand. I blacked out,
I ended up here",
he pleaded.
"So you disappeared over some silly stone" she questioned,
"Yes", he mumbled,
"Yes?", she rebuked,
"Show it to me", she followed,
"I never got it", he said, wallowing his head below his shoulders.
With her face, beginning to turn red, a whirlwind of emotions rushes through her brain like a stampede of bulls
hoping to graze through a field but are unfortunately trapped in Spain, all she can say, even through a wall of rage
begging to be released is:
"Did you ponder?"
A silence followed, no crickets in the air, but a silence that remained thick in the air.
"I did ponder, for a long time",
With a glance to the base of the light post, there is a little clock,
adorning the hands of the clock were a sun and moon, dancing around as hours and minutes go back, both gleamming with
an ectasy only found in Terran Golden Retrievers.
"I have watched the hands and minutes, go by for so so long. Days, weeks, months, years, so so long. The clock broke a few times, I
fixed it, but never once in those bajillion million minutes did I ever stop thinking about you, and maybe the old bitch of a witch lady
was trying to test me, maybe sitting here on the little grass patch was the pondering I needed, I know what I need in life:
it's you",
"I'd wait at the edge of the universe for life-times and life-times over and over, just waiting to get the gift of seeing again,
and I would wait on this grassy atoll, until my bones are frail to see you again", he says with tears flowing down his eyes
The couple begin to hug, with her body tired from millenia of walking, they lay in embrace on the gingham blanket holding each other the most dearest,
feeling a warmth neither has felt in years. Both filled with that look in your eye, the one filled with passion and rememberance.
With a faint laugh, she questions: "Why were you in the tree?
He rebuttles, "It is dark in there; I have never had visitors",
She giggles him with a hug.
As the hands of the clock dance in the rythm of the universe, they stop, imposed upon one another.
With the sun and moon becoming a green colors, like the color of a penny too long lost in the sun, the faints glows of the sky
began to wane. Unbeknownst, to the lovebirds (oo-la-la), the sky grew darker and darker, and the universe grew colder until it was just
the two beings atop the grassy rock.
A small rumble grew in the never-ending distance. A small light began to follow.
The couple hear the shaking and begin to stand, looking around in distress, until before them,
the colors of a thousand lives, with new colors them since, rampaging through their eyes.
This must be what heaven looks like , young man thinks. But even with this beauty that will never be seen by
humans again, he turns to look at his true love. Seeing something more beautiful than anything in the newly born universe, nothing
but love fills his brain, he knows hes complete now that shes here.
They watch as the light show ends, and 1023 stars born in the universe born anew, now with each other, there is a universe for them to explore, for eons and eons,
together forever and ever. The only thing they both wish for is it to never end (and it never will).
Oh the adventures which lay ahead!
For the love of my life, Dakota Barnhardt
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