it's only make-believe

Bali: I am slowly treading my way across the beach, feeling the grains of sand beneath my feet. My feet are carrying me forward of their own accord, towards the black waves, which are pounding relentlessly against the shore. A terrible fear comes over me- one misstep and the darkness could swallow me whole, inky black waters filling my nose my mouth my lungs, pulling me down into the bottomless depths- but still, I continue to move forward numbly, as if in a trance. It's only when I hear my dad in the distance, calling out something about the moon, that with some effort, I pull my eyes away.

Set high up in the clear sky is a full moon, completely suffused with light. Its brightness stuns me momentarily. Free from distracting artificial lights, free from being blocked by massive buildings- it feels like I'm looking at the moon for the first time. It is achingly beautiful, radiating rays of glowing white light, and the world is bathed in a soft, ethereal glow. I think about the atoms that make up the universe. How it would take light-years to traverse through the galaxy, and be consumed by an infinity of space, of silence. How painfully inconsequential our lives are. I feel like Aomame in Murakami's novel 1Q84, as I gaze up, wondering if the world that I exist in is even real. Perhaps it's just a paper moon, a paper world that will ultimately crumble to dust and cease to exist. And then briefly, I let myself wonder, perhaps somewhere out there, oceans away, my Tengo is looking up at the same moon, our thoughts perfectly aligned. But then I stop myself. Maybe the idea of Tengo exists, but only in another life, in another world, in another reality.