Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 00:57:14 EST
From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com
Subject: "Almost Touch the Stars"

			  ALMOST TOUCH THE STARS
			   By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		      WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM

The stars were a conflagration of blazing constellations, shining like
cadium steel knives in the velvet darkness of space. It hadn't rained at
all during that summer. Night after night, the stars had been shining
bright and clear, even through the lights of the town, the stars shone,
like a hundred thousand diamonds in the darkness. Usually, if you want to
really see the stars, you have to get far out away from any town, far from
other people. Not that summer. Every night, the stars shone down, clear as
they could be. Not such a big deal to a lot of people, I guess. But it was
to Micah Tasco.

He'd always been the quiet guy in class. Cute, in a thin, cerebral, serious
sort of way. The girls might go over and talk to him now and then, but he
was so deep in his shell, reading his books and studying all the time, they
soon gave that up. As much as anyone in school was his friend, I was. Our
friendship was limited to some conversations from time to time during lunch
or such times, when I would see Micah and he would look up and smile, and
fold his book with his finger inside the pages where he was, and we would
talk. Then came graduation and I expected Micah to go off to college and on
out of my life. I didn't expect to see him again after graduation day. But
from my talks with him, I first noticed the stars overhead, and how bright
they were. And now, how much brighter, I should say, than they were or
should be. I kept thinking it was something I wished I could ask Micah
about. If anyone could explain it to me, he could have.

Then I first noticed Micah under the tree, some time in July. Just sitting
out under a tree, looking up at the sky. Not reading like he usually
did. Just...looking up. I waved to him as I went by on my way home (I had a
summertime job; I worked late nights at a fast-food place and had to clean
up, so I would get home at nearly midnight), but at first, I was so tired
after work I would just wave as I said, smile, and go on by.

But July moved into August, and I had adapted so much to the late nights
that I found myself restless and unable to sleep as soon as I got off
work. Nothing to do that time of night. Nobody to talk to. So, one night,
on my way home, I went over to Micah under the tree. "Hey, Micah, what's
going on?" I asked him.

It took him a moment to realize I was there. He looked at me, enough to see
me, then he looked back up. "Hi, Ethan." he said.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"Looking at the stars."

"Yeah, they're awful bright this summer, aren't they?" I said.

"Yes. Very bright." He said. "So very close now."

"Close?"

"Yeah." Micah said. "I'm nearly able to reach them now. Soon, I think I
can."

"Reach them? Reach the stars?" I said, puzzled. "Dude, the stars are way
far away." I figured I was reciting elementary astronomy here, but Micah
had sounded so damned serious when he'd said that.

"No, they aren't." Micah smiled at me. "Not when you understand. Space
doesn't really exist. It's all an illusion."

"Illusion?"

"Yeah." Micah said. "I've been studying and I finally realized that the
distances between stars is all an illusion. They really are just right out
there a little ways off. And when you figure out that, you can figure out
the best way to reach them."

"Dude!" I said and backed away from him. Micah was frightening me with this
talk! Stars are billions and trillions and quadrillions and jazobojillions
of miles away. Everyone knew that! So I backed away and took off, went on
home.

It took me another three or four days to speak to Micah again. I stopped
beside him, and again, it took him a while to see me. "Micah." I said to
him. "You can't be serious about the stars being close. Are you?" Realize
that Micah was the guy who was always studying, so I wasn't 100% sure he
was crazy. He could be talking some super-astronomy theory here.

"Sure." Micah said. "Here, sit down by me and I'll show you."

I got down onto the grass, awkwardly. "Okay." I said. "Now what?"

"Look up at the stars." He said to me.

"Okay." I did so. The stars...they were so bright! I know, stars are just
stars, but these weren't! It was like being surrounded by fireflies, only
the fireflies were stars. Like I could almost touch them. Like I could just
reach out and...

I did reach out, and the moment ended, I blinked, and I was just a normal,
mortal man again, sitting under a tree with an old friend, looking up at
the stars. It was like a revelation, like the secrets of the universe had
been shown to me...and then taken away, leaving only the memory that the
secret was there to be had...somehow.

"Whoa!" I said. "What was that?"

Micah didn't seem to hear me. Or maybe he did. "Not yet." He said. "But
soon. Very soon. You'll see. Come back tomorrow night, about this
time. This is the moment, I think. The middle of the night."

I looked at my watch. "It's still a few minutes of." I said.

"No, no. Not midnight. The middle of the night." Micah said. "Come back
tomorrow. We're done for the night."

Micah got to his feet and so did I. "See you tomorrow." he said to me.

"Yeah, sure." I said. I had tomorrow night off, I wouldn't even have to
skip work. And one thing was sure...Micah had something here. Something
strange. Something...wonderful!

So I was back at the tree the next night at eleven o'clock. Micah was
already there.

I sat down beside Micah; he looked at me and smiled. "I think tonight will
be it."

"Really?" I said. "Cool."

"I'm glad you're going to go with me." Micah said. "It's beautiful out
there, but it also looks kind of lonely, I think."

The wistful tone of Micah's voice cut me to the core. Heck, I knew all
about being lonely, it was part of what had gotten me talking to Micah in
the first place. "Well, sure, I can understand that."

"You coming with me, and it'll be wonderful out there." Micah said. "The
two of us, and the stars."

"Yeah." I said, looking at him. "Just you and me, and the stars."

Micah looked up at the night sky. "Tonight is the night. Everything comes
together now, everything is next to each other. In the space that enfolds
all of the universe and all the other universes that are or could be or
will be, all the stars are touching and all of life is touching, blending,
cleansing, restoring each other." He took a deep breath, and said,
"Touching is such a wonderful thing. So wonderful...to touch."

"Yes, to touch." I said.

Micah looked over at me and the clean line of his face was the exact shape
as the curve of my hand. My palm would fit right into that arc of his
face...perfectly.

And it did. I touched Micah and the touch was electrical. No, wrong
word. It was like a harmonic chord reverberated through us, two separate
instruments sounding together to make a single note.

And Micah sighed, and that was the note sounding in the air. It moved
through my body in a wave of vibrations that transformed my soul as it
went.

I reached to kiss Micah and he reached to kiss me. It wasn't that we
decided to kiss, it was more like we would have had to make a choice to not
do it. Our bodies were moving together...everything wanting to touch.

And our bodies moved to meld themselves to each other. My arms around
Micah, his around mine, and above us, around us, inside us, the stars
coalescing into a single bright point.

I felt it, what Micah was talking about. It was why I wasn't questioning
his odd statements, it was his saying the sun was shining on a hot, bright
day, it was like his saying music was playing as the sounds of an orchestra
floated to my ears. He was naming the events that were here, that were
now. All of them, all together, the universe and the earth, the sun and the
stars, the animals and the trees, the oceans and the land...Micah and me.

Somewhere in that vast confluence of totality, I felt Micah's manhood
pressing against the palm of my hand. I hadn't reached down for it, it was
just there, and in the flow of events, warping as though transiting a black
hole, I moved down and my hands found Micah's manhood free and waiting for
me, the perfect match for me to take, my mouth opened, the two shapes
conformed, became one...I felt his cock throbbing inside my mouth, the hot
blood within it pulsing eagerly to join with me, and though his length was
enough to plunge his glans deep down my throat, my gag reflex never even
quivered. I pulled off from him not to free myself...but to set him free.

And Micah moaned and that was the harmonic note that was sounding through
the universe. We were part of a natural event, nothing arcane or
extraordinary about it, only some amazing deduction by Micah had caused him
to take notice of it. All over the world people were experiencing this, but
not having the words for it, they turned into sweet dreams, or idle
fantasy, or simple happiness. Only Micah and me knew what was
happening...the re-integration of the universe.

And in that re-integration, I sucked on Micah's prong, the hard, robust
length of him sliding in and out of my mouth and throat easily, Micah
groaning as his eyes feasted upon the congruence of the multiverse, all the
stars of all the heavens and all the worlds of all the galaxies,
together. And I was seeing it because he was, and he was sharing with me.

The passion my actions were bringing out in Micah were only a part of what
was stimulating him, he was getting ecstatic over the universe here, all of
the power and the glory was racing through him and it was my place to
service him, make him the nexus of the events, bring him to the height of
joy.

And my own cock felt Micah's hands, and then lips, upon it and I never
thought for one second to marvel at this, for Micah had been laid out above
me an instant before, he had used the confluence of the universe to move in
a microsecond what would have been long and awkward a moment before, and
now he and I were locked upon each other's cocks, our mouths feeding off
the mother's-milk of the creation itself, our juices boiling up from the
cauldron of existence, the powers that had created all life were there,
were here, were around us, were within us, were driving me over the very
edge of sanity into a madness that was so wonderfully welcome, for the
insanity that was about me was infinitely more glorious than the
mundaneness of composure.

And in that building excitement, I felt us as the tools in the hands of
God, or whatever name the Creator bore, I could tell in this moment how
pedestrian and dull our visions of the powers that shaped all creation
were, how limited and uninspired. To adequately describe this deity would
require more than words, it would take a person painting a picture, while
composing a symphony while planting a garden while husbanding animals and
holding forth about philosophy, all of these together, done properly, might
have brought forth into visible form the slightest infinitesimal amount of
this centrality that held the Universe in its hands. And Micah and I were
the tools those hands bore, and we loved everything as we loved one
another.

To call the place we were in a maelstrom is to assign to it a fury and
disorganization it did not have. Call it instead...a pageant, all organized
and beautiful and containing everything you could possibly want, the Garden
of Eden was but a bit of wasteland within it, this was Paradise and more,
Hell was within it as well, but lacking the power to hurt, there was only
unbounded, unfettered, unending joy!

For such a place, you'd think a person's orgasm would be a bit of minutiae,
but instead, I found my own rising passion to be the catalyst, the form
about which everything was shaping itself, I was like the general of an
army of ecstasy, I was the leader of the band playing desire...oh, but
words are so futile to explain it further.

Say instead that I reached my climax and I exploded the way a fireworks
display does when it's ignited! I didn't just ejaculate into Micah's mouth,
I poured my very soul into him and it would have drained me dry had not
Micah picked that same instant to reach his own orgasm, and so my soul was
replaced by his and we swirled around in each other, two glasses of wine
poured into a common bowl, until both glasses were again filled with the
mixture, and that is how the joy ended.

Or for me, it ended. I returned into my own head and I looked up at Micah,
and he was standing over me, a short distance away, only some two or three
feet. I didn't ask how he'd done that, as he'd said, time and space were
nothing, mere markers on a ruler that we mortals use to measure infinity
and so hope to contain some small part for ourselves.

No, he was simply there, and he was saying to me, "Now, Ethan, now it is
time. It is the middle of the night. Time for us to go!"

And I didn't have to ask him where that was, I knew. Knew and I
was...afraid!

And so, craven, animalistic coward that I was, I cowed back from the
glorious thing that was encompassing Micah, that was taking him away. Away
where? The only one who has come close to explaining it is Wagner, when he
has the swan-boat take Lohengrin away to Valhalla (or wherever). The image
and the music together...they give you the ghost of what I saw.

Micah was going away. He reached for me, he begged me to join him, but I
was afraid for only a few seconds...and that was all it took.

And I was alone under the tree, and when I looked up, the sky held only the
normal amount of stars you see inside a city on a not-too-clear night. I
slunk home and after a few days, I was able to crawl out of bed again and
resume the mundane, ordinary tenor of a not-too-exciting life.

That was over thirty years ago, and now I'm nearly fifty and living my life
alone, and not doing anything important and not special to anyone. And
yet...one night last week, I noticed it.

The sky. The stars. Even though I live in a huge metropolis, I looked up
that night and the stars were so many. So bright. So close. I could almost
touch them. Almost touch the stars.

I go out every night now, to sit and look up at the stars. And every night,
the stars seem closer than ever and with that closeness comes the knowledge
that is sure, because it wells from within. I know it for certain.

Micah is coming back for me. And this time, I'm going with him.

				  THE END
		   Comments, complaints or suggestions?
		  E-mail the Author at Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		      WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM