[editor’s note: this applies to noone in particular, especially at midnighte]
At first, it occurred to Comet that the planets might have collectively styled their thoughts according to some flashy fashion, even while each might have colored itself with a respectively different shade of what was nevertheless in the end the same light.
On closer inspection, however, Comet found the planets’ solar-styled thinking not merely to be trendishly curled up and dyed, but shorn bald, …a decidedly passive shining reflection of Sun. Their presence was in that respect no more remark-able than that of the nameless multitude of smaller stones and such in their vicinity, and Comet could make sensible reference to each solely by mention of their size, color, and the number according to which they so happened to have come to be ordered. Since “Comet” was at least a name which they apparently could not call themselves, the solitary rock continued to allow them the power to name it.
In contrast, accustomed as they were to those star-lit names which now were being treated as but a superfluous jumble of words, the planets found Comet’s calls too vulgar to warrant any show of recognition. After all, in view of their obvious capacity to reflect, they were not to be viewed as simple stones. Even Pluto preferred its dimly viewed name to that of a mere spatial abstraction; in fact, it had actually acquired some sort of perverse satisfaction in being known as the least luminary, since it had come to suspect that for some apparently irrational reason the other planets secretly envied it this in their darker moments.
Given the planets’ systematic observance of the law of sunlight, however, a secret envy was the extent and limit to which they could revel in such dark and forbidding ideas. The idea of not reflecting Sun at all was one they dared not imagine, let alone venture into…
Hence it was that it had to be, in spite of themselves, that the planets nevertheless continued calling out to Comet, asking how it dared to shine in opposition to Sun. It was only on their dark side that the planets could even proximally imagine what they feared the most, thus only from there could they dare to call. For Sun’s radiant show of its own brilliance worked so as to blind the planets’ thoughts, and in daylight Comet appeared as nothing but a fanciful dream soon to be forgotten.
Hence it was, moreover, that it seemed to be inspite of itself that, for the first time since the planets had drawn themselves around it, Sun ventured to speak.
It assured them that no such stone could exist, …and that even if one could, chaos would result if they came to reflect on its example instead of sunlight. Because they could not in principle envision such an example to begin with – or more especially, given that in the ever-presence of daylight all were already in the habit of fully retreating from the darkness of their dreams anyway – such a caveat had no meaningful relation to the solar system of thinking, and therefore no noticeable effect on the planets (other than some furtive murmuring-in-wonder about what Sun was referring to).
Fearing this lack of any apparent effect, Sun threatened to suspend its lawful tie with any planet which even so much as dreamed of showing itself in the way Comet did, and then to singe-away any new flair of thought that might have grown.
In light of this, while Comet continued its recurrent orbit of defiance, soon the planets began to shear themselves away from any notion of thinking about what their dark side could not help but see and hear. Eventually, Sun succeeded in re-appropriating its ability to blanche-out darkness, and the planets once again bound determined to think in terms of daylight, baldly forgetting about Comet.
……………………………………………***……………………………………………………
But Comet did not forget about them. In fact, all it could think about was the possibility that it might one day again reflect in the way of a planet. Comet so passionately despised the graveness of this dark prospect that it found the momentum needed to defy the law by which sunlight had encircled it, and in an enigmatically unnatural pathway broke out of its orbital gateway.
As a result, Comet once again found itself cold and alone. “Surely some other star has attracted a better lot than that one,” it suggested to itself, and then … supposed, somewhat more pensively, “if so, surely it would in turn be a better star.” While the next closest system seemed a nebulous prospect, Comet’s need to find a better way impelled it forward and beyond.
No longer known as “Comet”, and no longer within anything against which to refuse and thereby enflame itself, the solitary rock felt the need to find some way to refer to what it had come to be. To acknowledge the fact that it still had the potential to bring itself to others as light, it adopted one of the many other names the planets had been whispering-out when it had first showed itself.
As “Luxporos” it would be naming itself with a word whose ancient origins had been wholly forgotten by those whom it had come to despise anyway. Thus it began its voyage as the self-professed bringer-of-light, …the evening star which would still be there to be seen by matters in their dawning thoughts.
Along its journey, Luxporos discovered many terribly unsettling things. Most terrific of all was that stars eventually darken and, as if that were not enough, their darkening was typically preceded by a fiery consummation of any planetary substance which had failed to find a way of maintaining itself in that space-without the gravity of their own common view.
Sometimes a star’s self-immolation was even followed by a dragging of everything in the grasp of its law into what could only be described as a black hole of nothingness!!! Lucifer figured there had to be a brighter way to darken one’s existence than that, and subsequently took it upon itself to proclaim the same to the universe – or at least to any thing that was capable of listening.
{Part III asap, in which Lucifer meets its maker}
](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7c349bf1053f368a5729d053e1e91215f22ce66c.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
I love the journey of the little Comet…and he doesn’t give up. My heart sort of went out to him. I will read the other ones but just wanted you to know that I enjoyed this.