Swirling Stardust On The March

By Sam Labun

Out of swirling stardust and infinite chance I materialized in a bedroom, in pajamas, on a sunny morning. Two tall windows looked out upon rolling green hills, forests, and glittering streams. A circular green door with a big brass knob in the middle beckoned me, and I jumped out of the bed and ran through the door to share my bright new joy with the world.

As soon as I stepped out the door I was swept away by a dense crowd of marching people, I was shoulder to shoulder, heel to toe. Whatever sunlight and green hills I had seen through the bedroom window were fake; I was in a tunnel, and the tunnel was filled completely with marching people. I walked on tip-toe and saw that the column extended forwards and backwards farther than I could see. I was as helpless in the marching column of people as a piece of driftwood on a river, but I did not give up hope- so many people would not be marching if there wasn’t a good reason.

I turned my head to look at my neighbor on the right- his face was set in firm lines that revealed no emotion. He wore a suit and a tie and a mustache.

“Hello,” I said.

He nodded stiffly.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Nowhere,” he said, and frowned at my stupid question.

“So why are we marching?”

“Because we cannot stop.”

I immediately put his explanation to the test- I stopped marching. For a fleeting moment I was still and the crowd marched around me, I was the rock that parted the river, until the crowd crashed into me from behind and swept me off my heels and onto the balls of my feet. If I tripped, the crowd would trample me and I would die. So I kept marching.

I turned my head to look at my neighbor on the left- she was smiling brightly, as I had when I looked out the window at the rolling green hills and glittering streams. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“We are going to a wonderful new place,” she said.

“Why do you think that?”

“I just know.”

Everyone else I asked gave me a different answer. Nobody knew. But everyone marched. We marched without stopping. I never got hungry or tired. As long as I marched, I stayed alive. So I marched.

One day the walls to the right and left ceased, and a flash of my old joy returned- the march was over! I raised myself to my tiptoes and looked. Our tunnel had merged with other tunnels- now we were a sea of marchers. If I wanted to die, all I had to do was stop.

After many months, maybe even years, of marching, during which nothing happened save the tread of our feet on the ground, a rumor began to pass to us from ahead. According to the rumor, the marching speed at the front of the column was slowing down, indicating that the march was coming to a halt. When this rumor reached us, many around me rejoiced, for they were as sick of marching as I was. Others cried out in fear and suspicion- the column had no front, they believed, and the march would never end.

I stumbled against the marcher in front of me- the column was slowing down! I cheered, many around me cheered, but my feet fell on a rising slope, I knew the real reason the column had slowed: the column was slowing because it was marching against an incline. The slope must have been slowly rising for some time, imperceptibly, before I noticed. Soon all those who had cheered, wept.

The slope rose steeper and steeper until we had to climb on all fours. Smoke and ash hung thick and heavy in the air, sulphurous fumes scorched my throat with each breath. If this torment went on much longer, I thought, I would lie down and let the crowd climb over me until I died.

Then I was falling through open air. Everyone was falling, we had climbed over a precipice. We fell towards a burning lake of fire. My right hand neighbor was falling beside me. He tugged my sleeve. His tie was loose and flapping around his ears. “You see?” he shouted. His once-rigid face flapped in the wind.

My left hand neighbor shook my shoulder. Her cheeks were stained with tears. “Do you see?” she said.

Swirling stardust, infinite chance, falling into a burning lake of fire. I laughed and laughed.