Celestial Odyssey

by Madi Rickel

illustrated by Caroline Antush

There is a story that has been left untold for far too long. It is the story of a wanderer who was able to visit the far reaches of our universe and encounter the many anomalies it contains. Sadly, only some of this being’s tales have been able to reach our planet, perhaps because it saw us unfit for all the wisdom it had accumulated or perhaps because it simply did not have the time. Nonetheless, I am here today to recount the story as if it were my own, not because I wish to steal it in any form, but because it was told to me so colorfully and wonderfully that it has become a part of my very soul.

This story is of a solar system many lightyears away from where my journey first began, but just as fascinating.

The first planet from the sun was, as one would expect, hot. But the heat was deceptive, for under a thick layer of red rock there was a system of cold caves so complex that it would have taken a lifetime to map out each path. The only life I encountered were luminescent, plant-like structures whose glow allowed me to observe the maze I had found myself in. I am quite sure there were other forms of life within the caves at the time I was visiting but I never saw them, though as I mentioned before, the system was so vast I believe an entire ecosystem could have been just under my nose.

I think that the beings within wished for privacy, or at least wished for me to have privacy, because the only trace of them I detected was clicking sounds reverberating on cave walls and the occasional feeling of being observed as I was exploring.

Despite the fear of being discovered by a hostile life form, I continued my expedition. I’m glad I did since the true spectacularity of the planet was solidified for me in the carvings I discovered deep within the caves. I found the carvings in a section of the cave that opened into a large dome-like room with multiple paths leading in opposite directions. The more I studied the room, the more I felt it was the heart of the system, it was a sacred place meant to be appreciated.

What intrigued me most about the carvings was what they depicted, which I did not fully understand until later in my journey. They were nothing like the drawings of cavemen, they were incredibly detailed depictions of worlds completely unlike the hot planet. It was hard to believe that whatever life was on the planet had ever been advanced enough to travel to other planets within its solar system, so I could not quite reason how there could be such foreign depictions of life.

The stone surface of the cave’s walls held swirling patterns that seamlessly transitioned into grasslands and oceans. The luminescent plants had been strategically placed in a chamber above the room so that their light would shine through small holes in its ceiling, making a room deep under the planet's surface appear as it was opening to a clear, starry night.

This planet was a wonderful start to my journey, and I eagerly anticipated the next stop.

The following planet was filled with craters. Something about its gravity or position in the cosmos had attracted destruction throughout the entirety of its long existence. Despite the bruises, its beauty was incredibly captivating. The surface of the planet was a mix of dark grays, but a bright blue river flowed in and between the scars of its surface. From above, the river looked like the root system of an ancient tree.

The conditions of the planet had been too hostile for any form of life to develop, and I felt like it had been yearning for something to deem its battered surface fit their taste, so I decided to enjoy an extended visit with the planet to keep it company for a while.

Though I know it is absurd to pity an inanimate being, my delusions were supported by the light rain that softly kissed my skin on the day of my arrival and the many clear days after that. It may be hard to understand without being there, but I felt the planet had become accustomed to heavy, heavy rain.

The days on the planet were much longer than Earth’s, so I explored much of it once the first night came around. The sky during the day wasn’t much to see, but the night was spectacular. Auroras of green and pink danced across the sky and reflected off the flowing rivers, lighting the world most magnificently.

Later into that same night, I watched as a meteor made its descent towards the ground. When it came into contact with the planet’s atmosphere, it looked like a ball of fire. I watched as fragments of it flew off on their own journey as the meteor shrunk in size until finally it crashed into the ground. The crater it carved was substantial, and the river’s course was altered.

In the time I spent on the lonely planet, many new craters formed, and without fail, each one was slowly filled by the river. The water ran over jagged surfaces and wore away the unpleasant scars until they were gone, only to find a new wound to heal.

Once I had learned from the planet and leaned on it as it had leaned on me, I moved on to the next.

The third planet in the system was full of life. All at once it was incredibly familiar and incredibly foreign. Its surface was covered in deep greens and blues of moss growing on the exposed roots of giant trees. The trunks of these trees were dark brown and decorated with purple vines. Apart from the vines, the trunks were mostly bare until hundreds of feet in the air they split into weaving branches containing slightly transparent bright green leaves which created a canopy for the world underneath. These trees were scattered around as far as I could see, situated in a way that allowed them to block all direct sunlight from reaching the world below while still maintaining a substantial distance between each other. This design filled the space between the trees with soft light and kept the surface cool.

The foliage of the trees was so dense that leaves could be constantly falling and still no rays of sun would find their way through. The delicate leaves fell in such a way that when they caught the air at the right angle, they created a song-like whistle.

I could hear melodies mixed within the whistles of the leaves reminiscent of bird calls, but I had yet to spy any. In the space between the tree canopy and the burgundy floor of the earth were plants suspended in the air. Some were small; simple flowers sitting on a mix of root and stem that resembled a bird’s nest. Larger ones spread out horizontally as braided stems, vines hung from these stems with large leaves and vibrant flowers unlike any I had ever seen.

The entire world seemed to breathe in unison, the whole ecosystem was shrouded with a cool mist.

As I observed the marvelous world I found within me a deep sorrow, sorrow that I could not always be among these wonderfully designed plants in such a peaceful, musical world.

For many moments following my journey to that beautiful world, I hoped I would find the time to visit it again, but alas, there are many things to see in this ever-expanding universe.

The next planet was gaseous, an environment far removed from the preceding ones. Because of its lack of surface, all there is to do is float—or more accurately be pulled around by its intense gravity.

I was surrounded by clouds; the way the sun reflected off their vapor was captivating, but its contents were deadly to most. Though I am above most types of worldly damage, some substance within the vapor seemed to contain a hallucinogenic that produced a minor visual reaction during my stay.

I was pulled into a part of the planet where a storm of incredible magnitude was in rampage. It spun me around and around in a deep fog, thunder boomed at me from all angles, and flashes of lightning filled my surroundings with bright, white light.

What I believed to be hallucinations occurred during my time in the storm when shadows of a being just beyond my reach appeared before me as the lightning struck. A flash would illuminate all the space around me, except for the dark silhouette floating near me in the thick storm. At the sound of thunder, the being would disappear, only to reappear somewhere new at the next lightning strike. I wasn’t sure whether I should be afraid, for I had not encountered beings like me in many galaxies.

I guess it was fear that kept me from calling for whoever was just beyond my reach, fear that they would be unpleasant, or that they would be the one to finally stop my expedition. Though they may have been unkind, I wondered if it was someone who could understand the intense isolation of simply being an observer of the universe rather than an active participant in the chaos.

The last planet in the system was barely a planet. It was small enough to be a moon of the planet before it and was quite far from the star it orbited.

But one should not read a book by its cover, for this planet was integral to my journey. On this planet, I found traces of myself. For all of my existence, I have not known where I came from or what I was made for. I have speculated that I was a mistake by the powers that be, an unfinished creation let through by mere happenstance and then left to wander. In my more hopeful times, I thought I might be a curator of the cosmos in training, destined to help expand the universe based upon close observations of my time exploring what had already been made.

My theories were proven wrong on this planet, where I discovered something peculiar, someone like me.

When I arrived at the planet, whose surface held a grayish-purple hue and had cliffs reaching deep within its core, I discovered signs that someone was nearby. I felt the presence of someone just beyond reach, someone who knew who I was and wished I knew them.

Because I felt that whoever was watching me was just as curious of me as I was of them, I waited where I was until they were ready to make themselves known, and they did.

When they finally emerged from their hiding place, I felt my soul release a breath of relief. I was staring at myself, an amorphous being who could be anything and nothing at the same time. It took the shape of a human, a tree, then a stone. It took the shape of everything I knew; of everything I had ever been.

We shared silence and the feeling that there was no longer a need to wander alone in the universe but a choice to wander together. So that’s what we did.

We traveled through the universe, meeting civilizations only to watch them be destroyed, seeing stars formed while others withered away, and sitting in the silence of uninhabited planets. I learned it was them who had created the carvings in the cave of the hot planet from the solar system where we had met when they had been lost in the caves and yearned for other worlds. I was never sure if it was a serendipitous accident or part of an unavoidable fate that we had met, but I was grateful nonetheless.

It was with this being that my passion was realized. I learned that there is a one-of-a-kind beauty in observation, exploring while leaving what was explored unaffected is a skill that not many possess. To wander is to learn, to wander is to be free, and without them, I would not have been able to understand that.

Eventually, as all eternal things must do, we parted ways.