Hell For Stars

Hell for Stars

Interviewer: I’m sitting here today talking with Dr. Onassis, the founder and president of the SunSeeker Affiliate. This group has been in the news a lot these days as they have been gathering thousands of followers from all over the wor-–

Onassis [interrupting with a cough]: Members.

Int: Excuse me?

Onassis: We are members. Not followers. Followers implies some sort of religion or ideology. We’re not a religion.

Int: Oh, well, pardon me, Dr. Onassis. But you must understand that for the past six months you and your members have been leading a very rigorous publicity campaign, full of fliers and posters and billboards and websites but none of these materials have any actual information on them. Just a series of numbers that are seemingly meaningless and an e-mail address and yet your numbers continue to grow…

Onassis: Yes, they have.

Int: And you recently purchased a plot of land on the east coast of Texas and you are building…something. But none of you will say what it is. All we know is that over a million people have been flocking to Texas, filling up the towns of Victoria and Port Lavaca and even Corpus Christi with, well, refugees. Most of these people don’t even seem to speak English or have any resources for food or water. These members, as you refer to them, have caused small riots amongst the Texan residents as they refuse to state the nature of their business with the Affiliate. [long pause]

Onassis: [silence] I have not heard a question, sir.

Int: How can the Affiliate answer for the ten dead and the fifteen injured in the Victoria riot that happened yesterday?

Onassis [deep breath]: We do not answer for anything. Our members have never instigated any of these situations. Americans, I’ve noticed, feel entitled to information from people. Our members are not bothering anyone in their waiting, if they have not food than they will go without, if they have no water than they will dehydrate. They have not asked for anything nor taken anything.

Int; Well. I understand that you are here to describe your plans today.

Onassis: Yes. But only because you will not leave us, or our mission, in peace.   

Int: What is the Affiliate?

Onassis: We are collective of like-minded individuals who believe that we have discovered the meaning of existence and, frankly, we are tired. 

Int: Excuse me, the meaning of existence? I thought you said you’re not a religion.

Onassis: That is correct.

Int: In what situation is that not religion?

Onassis: When an objective truth can be reached, then it cannot be a matter of religion. Religion, by definition, is subjective. 

Int: So please, tell me, objectively, what is the meaning of existence?

Onassis [heavy sigh]: Anyone who is remotely familiar with cosmology or physics or chemistry or even biology is aware that the core components of our bodies did not originate out of nothing. They originated out of the remnants of ancient stars. The hydrogen, the carbon, the nitrogen, all the little pieces that made life began amidst the death of a great and powerful star that’s light traveled the universe for billions and billions of years. The Affiliate has just drawn the natural conclusion of this fundamental understanding.

Int: And that is?

Onassis: Human existence is damnation for stars. 

Int (chortles): Excuse me?

Onassis: Life is hell, quite literally.

Int (laughs nervously): I’m sorry; I fail to draw that natural conclusion for myself, or my listeners.

Onassis: Some humans draw comfort from the knowledge that when we die our decaying bits will be recycled by the earth and become nutrients in the soil that feed the grass that feed the cows that the feed the world, et cetera. That in this efficient recycling of bits we never fully cease to exist, and perhaps for some humans, that’s enough.
But imagine, sir, that you are a star. Imagine it, please, do try. You have no purpose but to burn fiercely.  You live to create energy and reach out your warm arms to the farthest reaches of your system and then your galaxy and then your cluster and so on, with nothing holding back your passionate traveling except for time. With enough time, you can and you will go anywhere. But time, time, time, time, time is always the enemy. Space, too. For if there were not so much space infinitum we would not be desperate for so much more time than we’re ever given.

Int; I’m not following…

Onassis: All things die, sir, even stars. The most powerful and noble and necessary bodies must collapse in on themselves and spread like dust in the cosmos. [slowly and halting] The dust that forms our meager and fragile bodies. We are made of starstuff! Don’t you see!?

Int: No, I – I- don’t know what you’re getting at…

Onassis: Thousands and thousands of stars have fallen and they were torn asunder and mixed up by the universe and some of the bits formed other planets with other life-forms and some of them got all mixed up and compacted in this godforsaken rock full of self-important sacks of fluid who worry about religion, and money, and producing more sacks of fluid who continue to worry about religion and money and producing more sacks of fluid. And we fight and we kill other sacks of fluid like any of it means anything. And we worry about how we know it doesn’t mean anything and we tell ourselves stories and lies so we can sleep. That sleep that, if it doesn’t kill us itself, will bring us one step closer to death so we start the whole process over again…. but maybe time delayed as we fuck around in the soil or in the cows or in the cow’s shit or wherever our atoms gets torn up and spit out. 

Int: What proof of this do you have?

Onassis: Have I said anything that’s not inherently true? Unless you have some religious espousal, I mean, and if that’s the case than I’m better off leaving now and returning to our work.

Int: But what about love? Happiness? The things that we can achieve in our lives that can’t be discussed in relation to-to- stars!?

Onassis: We seek out more pieces of the same star from whence we came, plain and simple. We seek wholeness. No one on this planet believes that there is really anything more to our existence than finding those who make us feel slightly less empty. But even that is just a torture, a device used in this hell. Because it’s always about being slightly less empty, isn’t it? It’s all about small degrees of success. I maintain that no one on this planet has really ever felt like they were complete, they just feel closer to not empty. 

And the stars we look up at with awe and wonder are just the corpses of slightly younger stars that looked on in horror as their brethren passed and went on to be crushed in pitiful orbs that lacked any light whatsoever.

Int: So, say this is all true, what does the SunSeeker Affiliate suggest we do with this information? 

Onassis: Well, as we are chained to the light of our young Sun who is punished with watching our civilizations rise and fall, we seek to get off of this rock and leave this cycle of misery and turmoil. 

Int: So you’re building something in Texas to help you leave the Earth?

Onassis: Yes. A series of vessels that will take all members of the Affiliate to join a star, our star. 

Int: But, wouldn’t that kill you all? 

Onassis (chuckles): Death is inevitable. Dying inside the fusion of the living star will give us billions of years of being a part of our true identity, our true destiny. 

Int: Are you saying your members have made a suicide pact? 

Onassis: Sure, why not.