One Dying Star

A wise bird once told her that she lived her life in extreme circumstances. Well, what a truly remarkable statement that was, particularly if we dig a little deeper. Remarkable for multiple reasons of course, things are very rarely straightforward but that was beside the point. Up until then, she’d never thought of things like that before, and now look, her life had been neatly summed up in a lovely little nutshell; how very thoughtful of that wise, wise bird. She’d never asked and now here she was with an innate guiding light that would forever remain a constant thought swimming around in her little brain forcing all the useful thoughts out and making way for an overwhelming paranoid sense of conformity. Conforming by not conforming is still conforming, no? Then how does one ever escape this vicious circle? Obviously it was true, and that was the reason it remained, always there, always constant. It was essentially the most perfect phrase ever attributed to anything, or anyone, and how very, very disturbing she found that fact.

No, she wasn’t a maniac, she was nowhere near as exciting as all that, at least not on the outside. On the inside she was bursting with splendor and brilliance, her mind was forever concocting and inventing, but never still. No, she may look calm and together on the outside but inside she was a burning chaos. There was no middle of the Venn diagram for her, no combination of this and that; she had to be this or that. Once a side had been chosen there was no turning back, she thrust with every atom of her being towards what she believed in so vehemently, always with such an intensity and forever stubborn. Too hot or too cold, but never warm. Warm, mild – they are not nearly striking enough, no they do not cause a stir; they are not worthy of a second glance. If she was hot, she was boiling; she was the most uncomfortable she had ever been in her whole life and everyone must know about it.

An inherent yearning for immediacy controls her, dictates her life; she cannot simply stroll, she strides as quickly as possible, defiant, confident and yet still so young at heart. Naturally other people don’t get to see that part of her: in public she is all about black or white; she has no grey area. A sense of urgency, the innate desire to be more, to know more, to better oneself intellectually, to be the brightest star shining in the sky, consumes her. Consumes every inch of her being until she feels demented. The pressure suffocates her and yet she needs it. Without it she would truly be nothing. She cannot settle for normal or commonplace and cannot fathom the fact that anyone else would desire this either. Kerouac’s fascination with folk that burn, burn, burn sparks such an intensity of feeling that forces her to run until her lungs feel like they’re going to burst, shout until she cannot speak, feel something, anything that reminds her she is alive and this is her time to experience everything.

A wise bird, the wisest one she’d ever known, demonstrated this to her and thank goodness it did or where would she be now? Come to think about it, where would you be? You wouldn’t be sat reading the ramblings of a potentially undiagnosed lunatic, and how unfortunate for you. Therefore, long may it continue, and let’s hope to God that the words on the following pages translate themselves in your mind as more of a contemporary comedy than the last confessions of a convict of death row.