Pluto

This short story is part of the Astronomical Personalities compilation, which studies the personalities of the nine planets as seen by astrology. Read the other planets here.

Pluto

I have to walk through a graveyard to get home at night. It has never disturbed me and I'm not one of those people easily frightened by the unknown.

Tonight, I feel no different as I veer through the graves. The moon is full and bright, providing more light than usual, and as usual, I listen to nothing but the sound of my feet brushing the grass ... and my heartbeat. It's a fairly warm night, but suddenly and very briefly, almost as if it doesn't even happen, there is an icy chill in the air. Not a cold breeze, but a freezing "stillness", the kind that gets underneath your clothes and eats you up from the inside.

Still walking, I huddle myself up and turn to look behind me -- I don't know why. Finding nothing there, I turn once again to face my destination and stop dead in my tracks. A man stands in my path. The moonlight dances on his snow-white, almost translucent skin, and I'm sure a see flecks of silver embedded in his skin as the light muses upon his face. His blue-black hair is a startling contrast to his countenance, yet it falls softly and seems to billow in the stillness.

Once again, I feel the iciness I felt before and I know that it comes from this man. I suddenly believe in vampires, in the undead, but I do not fear this man, for his features, although imposing, are delicate and somehow ... solacing. But I fear his purpose for being here.

A million thoughts are racing through my mind, yet I cannot tell you what one of them is. I take a breath and start to ask this man a question -- I have no idea what the question is going to be -- but he silences me with a gaze from his coal-black eyes, and I am lost in his eyes. They are a deep chasm, an empty void ... no -- they are not empty. There is something behind the emptiness, something familiar, but I cannot reach it. The man raises one long, slender finger to his thin lips. "Sssssshh," he whispers, and as he does so, I feel his icy, sweet breath on my face. I close my eyes as I inhale the sweetness ... and he is gone.

Startled into consciousness, I open my eyes to find myself in the middle of the graveyard I know so well. What? Had I been asleep, dreaming? Had I been in a trance? I must have been because fragments of images keep pressing at my brain, but however hard I try I can't put the pieces together. Confused, but unperturbed, I continue out of the graveyard and cross the road opposite my house. I'm drowned in my own thoughts; something had happened tonight, someone had ... a siren goes off in my head; NO, a car horn!

I turn too late towards the sound and am blinded by the headlights. My brain is screaming, I think I am too. A sharp pain as we collide, then numbness. A mortified man shakily steps out of the car and runs screaming for help. Shortly after, a small crowd emerges and gapes down at me. Someone effortlessly makes his way through the crowd and kneels at my side. Looking vaguely in his direction, I manage to focus my eyes and his face ceases to blur. It is him. The man from my dream who I could not recall and now cannot forget. It wasn't a dream -- I remember now.

He lays one icy hand on my forehead and looks upon me blankly. My attention is drawn once again to those black, black eyes, and I search for that "something" I glimpsed before, that something beyond the bleak emptiness. Oh, yes, there it is. It is so familiar, so intense, but I still can't make out what—

Oh God, YES! Now I see; I finally see. It's so simple, so easy. I struggle to breathe, to get the words out. I need to tell this man that I understand.

His eyes shift and there is a flicker of compassion reflected in them. For the first time, he smiles -- so tender, so maternal. He knows that I know. Stroking my cheek, he raises a finger to his lips. "Sssssshh," he whispers, and as he does so, I feel his icy, sweet breath on my face. I close my eyes as I inhale the sweetness...

copyright © 1998, Dianna Hardy.

All rights reserved.