Fire Breath and Cherry Liquor

I can have it all

In my veins, no longer blood. Pure kerosene about to catch fire as I see this all unraveling in front of my once blind eyes. UY Scuti, the Sun pales in comparison, radius 1700 times smaller. The Earth, with its deep oceans and (ever decreasing) green forests, 109 times smaller, house of all these humans, 3.5 million times smaller, with their complicated networks of neurons and chemicals, 4 million times smaller, made out of electrons, protons, neutrons, random yet intentional arrangements, which in turn are made out of flavourful quarks, all together 1.2·10^27 times smaller than the biggest star we had the pleasure of observing. Oh, and what a pleasure...

And I can have it all

I stretch out my hand towards this knowledge, like Adam towards God. It does not reach, a tenth of an inch too short. So close, yet still too far. Why did my God make me so short? A few tenths of an inch, that's all I need. This vessel of mine is not large enough for the everything. The kerosene, turned fire, evaporates instantly, pushing my veins towards their limits. The pressure created by the expanding gas threatens their integrity. I will not accept this fact. I will not. I cannot.

If humanity is limitation, I do not want it. If humanity is fear of transcending, I do not want it. Fear of pushing past what any other fellow human has achieved, fear of not knowing, of not being able to know. Fear of the muscle tearing, of the lymph oozing. This flesh and blood will not chain me, the fragility of my bones will not cage me, the finite speed of my synapses will not stop me. I am a red giant, burning hundreds of millions of tonnes of hydrogen a second because

I want it all,

          I've always wanted it all,

                    I'll always want it all

Abandon weakness, fear, doubt. I don't need a Devil to sell my soul to.

But the Universe collapses back onto itself, a death deprived of grandeur. The soft dawn chorus reaches my ears as if from another realm, muffled, silenced with a rag drenched in chloroform. Almost morning. The blood crawls back into my veins. Realization. I cannot have it. This vessel is frail and unfit. Why did my God make me so short?

I carried the embers in my rib cage and in the pit of my stomach and in every single molecule for the next few days, months, years, never really managing to extinguish it, no matter how much water I choked on. Wine and cherry liquor scorch my insides. They show me that same image of the Universe that I once saw in my room on a torrid summer night and I reach out my hand again but even if I'm taller now, still a tenth of an inch too far and why, oh why did my God make me so short?

A fire is a beast that needs no taming, only a watchful eye. I've learnt to observe but never try to conquer. I gladly unclench my jaw and open wide for the torch to slither down my throat.

I want it all

Cover

Charpentier Constance Marie, Melancholy, 1801