They dreamed they were people.

In their dreams they had arms and feet. They had ears and noses. They walked and jogged and dieted and paid taxes. But if you could have seen them as they really were in the black void of space, you would have made out the broad curves of planets draped in dense clouds, and you would have called them what they were: planets.

When worlds dreamed about being people they forgot all about who they were when awake and orbiting a star in space. They talked about sports, hairspray, and weather.

Similarly, when in space they drifted by each other, they rarely touched as they had in the distant past. They had learned not to. Touching other planets could be explosive and make a big mess.

The worlds that dreamed rarely looked at each other as they wound around their central star, traveling in an almost circular path as they always had. If they ever spoke to each other, they focused on areas where they agreed.

What did the worlds talk about? They agreed the sun was bright and asteroids could be annoying. They agreed that moons were pretty, and that the more moons, the better. They agreed that it was not fun to be too hot or too cold. As long as they talked about those subjects, they got along.

They dared not peek at what went on beneath the rolling cloud covers of other worlds. If they had, they would have seen raging storms and deep below, the uneven crusts of land that went deep into the magma and beyond into the seething molten cores of the planets.

Such knowledge was too intimate. If the observers could have looked more closely,they would have seen great monoliths containing sacred star charts, which showed only one perspective of the skies, and with the inhabitants always drawn at the center. Some star charts showed a haloed deity hovering above everything, but others did not.

Anyway it was best not to know. It was better to agree that moons were nice and that asteroids were pesky, and to go on and on in an almost timeless path around a star until, one day, the star would burn out and the planets would turn to lifeless cinders.

Eons of interplanetary small talk passed, and the small talk was reflected in their dreams of gossiping around water coolers at their dream jobs or in grocery stores.

One time, a planet had a particularly bad dream. It dreamed that outside the corporate offices where its dream self worked, the world was falling apart and no one knew. Trees withered, animals suffocated, and darkness fell. Ashes clouded the sky and the sun never rose, but all the time his coworkers stayed inside and gossiped and agreed about sports teams and what brand of deodorant was best.

The planet awoke and looked around with the urgent feeling that the universe was a dramatic place, a magical playground that was being wasted by fools who only wanted to talk about what a nuisance asteroids were.

To every other planet it crossed paths with, the planet who had seen the nightmare said, “Someday our journey will end. Maybe if we embraced the drama of being alive and were honest about things that mattered instead of hiding who we are behind clouds, our path around our star would be an adventure rather than a tedious cycle.”

The suggestion drew howls of rage from some worlds. They said such a foolish approach would be to invite “impurities” into their lands. But some of the younger worlds agreed that they were tired of talking about just asteroids and moons and liked the idea.

The “radicals” began looking more deeply at other worlds while shifting aside their own veil of clouds to reveal canyons or volcanos if they had them, and sights never seen. As they passed other worlds they began to look – really look – at them. The observers gazed, saw far and deep, and were startled.

The most sedate-looking planets had hidden violent dramas beneath, and poignant depths of knowledge, wisdom, beauty, and hurt. Resplendent colors unfurled from them, with mountains made of ice and marble. By squinting hard the observing planets could see flowers with wings flying from tree to tree; small furry flailing animals rooted to the land crust by stems; and icy volcanoes.

Not everything the worlds saw on other planets was beautiful. When a few adventurers saw anything disturbing they said, “There is nothing of this darkness in me,” and they felt moral for saying so.

They did what cautious planets had always done. They draped themselves in clouds and refused to look out anymore. They wanted to go back to the way things were. They had a contemptuous name for the radical planets: fire gazers.

The planets that stayed apart especially disapproved of the star charts of other planets. They looked at their own constellations and said, “You see? Our star charts are correct, but the other worlds, those liars, are telling us we are wrong.”

Some planets did more than criticize. They punished the worlds that had made them unhappy by veering from their orbits and ramming their moons. Then, exhausted, when the attacking worlds slept, they dreamed of guns, war, and death.

But the planets who had recognized beauty in other worlds had different dreams. They did not like the stark choice between boredom and violence. They longed for adventure and sights that dazzled.

There was magic in looking at all the violent drama of another world, the upheavals of ground and oceans, and the lightening striking the surfaces of glacial lakes, and the plumes of smoke rising from seething depths.

The “fire gazing” worlds drew in memories of events they had never known, and became more than what they were, added histories to their histories, and in knowing others, they knew themselves as they never had before.

But the worlds who withdrew sought to remain safe and content as they continued their seemingly endless cycle around their star. They dealt with any boredom by making up scandals about the other worlds and congratulated themselves for remaining “pure.”

They hated anything new, even their crazy dreams, but the dreams did sometimes make them wonder if there was something more, something beyond their lone solar system. After the dreams had ended, a lonely ache would sometimes follow, and they would venture to speak to other lonely planets as they drifted by.

“How about those asteroids?” they would say.

“Damn nuisance,” the neighboring planet would say, “almost as bad as those idiot fire gazers. But moons. Moons are nice. Sure wish we had more of ‘em.”

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