A prose piece by JESSE KENG SUM LEE.
The sky, it seems, is falling.
The moon had left hours ago. She knew what was coming and left with the tides, inky black nothing in the sky swallowing our sister’s shadow. In her wake, the ocean was peeled back like a scab and the wound beneath was still wet to the touch.
The winds fall still. Breath exhaled, the earthen body rejects and never takes it back. Nowhere to go, nothing to rush to and fro from.
Now, the sky is coming down too.
I stare up at it, the reality of it all. The whole world stares up at the falling sky. The world, in these last moments, is this grey courtyard in between greyer apartments and the sky. I can see nothing else. At least here, I can watch.
In my worn pink flip flops, my feet exposed to the warm stagnant air, I come to a stop between a planter and a concrete pathway to look up and watch. House-clothes on me. My hair, still wet. The end of the world gives so little time for one to dress up.
Up ahead, in the small playground, there is an elderly couple sitting on the rusted metal bench. The man has his chin resting on the woman’s head and the woman’s body is moulded into his. His lips move in the shape of words meant for her ears only. His eyes are skyward. Clouded white staring at the approaching stars.
Paces from me, a mother clutches her mousy-haired son to her chest, the warmth of her arms enveloping the young boy. It’s clear from his expression from where it peeks from the crook of her elbow that he was the one who wanted to come and watch. Eyes wide and brilliant. Does he understand? Does he understand that nothing survives a sky falling? The woman can’t be much older than me. In another lifetime, it could have been me. In another lifetime, life could be sowed and reaped from me. It’s too late for that now. The sky is falling. Only five people left, it seems, to witness it happen. Two, two, and one.
I look up. The sky is aflame but it is not from the sun. It burns from the heat of impending impact, a sizzling comet and a singed letter curling. The cosmos twists, a pinched cloth. Stars burst in fractals. Fireworks. An era always ends in fireworks. No one’s counting down.
—Down. Falling. Falling. Stars blinking out like eyes blinking shut, a listing lean and lips parting, the anticipation of touch and closure. The sky falls and falls. The heat licks up my face.
The sky is falling for me, I think. How strange and sweet it will be, to be held again by something warm.
Yes. Something like the heat of the universe promises love to me. This revelation will die a stillborn inside me. I close my eyes, breath held.
The sky arrives like a confession. I embrace the white heat and it tells me that I did not die alone.
