"Polar Star" By Menelaos Gkikas

Hello folks, writers and all creatives! That's the English translation of a short story of mine.

 

"Polar Star" By Menelaos Gkikas

 

Gabriella and Troy (16 years old) would like to explore at nights the starry sky… They had spent many nights together with the telescope until late at night, observing the constellations, the shooting-stars, Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, sometimes with the consolation but also the dream of the vastness of the universe they would observe and other times climbed on the treehouse at the garden of their home, reading about those things through science fiction books. Some other times, by synthesizing poetry they would travel with their fantasy into light, in a world that knew very well to cover up darkness and its terrifying attributes through the lyricism and poetic of their childhood and later on adolescence… What wouldn’t they give to turn everything into a melody through their own eyes. There were several times that Gabriella had talked to Troy about what she would call musicality of infinity…

 

“Poetry, musicalization and universe must be one my beloved friend” responded Gabriella to her adolescent love.

 

“Not in this world, Gabriella… Maybe at some other one. Maybe in this far away utopia in which everything will be judged through a star and a jasmine!” continued Troy in a complaining tone.

Moons, stars, nebulae, poetry, writing and melodies had become one in Troy’s fantasy.

 

“Gabriella! A shooting-star! Did you see it?”

 

As soon as Gabriella lifted her head from the telescope, she spread her hand onto Troy’s shoulder that was located exactly next to her.

 

“I made a wish as well. Would you like to listen to it?”

 

“I am all ears” answered Troy with enthusiasm.

 

“Today we saw a shooting-star. I wish one day we see all those things people can’t see…!”

 

They both knew very well that only the eyes of the soul could achieve something like this. Maybe though, by childish stubbornness, obstinacy but also romanticism, they would continue to search in the universe those things they should discover at Earth… And who knows? Maybe they could prove they were right!

 

Gabriella and Troy had made up a treehouse, with pillows, lanterns but also a small window at the central plane tree at the garden of Gabriella’s home. They would go there often, where they would read books, they would forget some other together with magazines, but also sharing moments. Something though was telling Gabriella’s instinct that maybe the fairytale wrap might not be enough…

 

“Maybe all these things we see at stars are vain, Troy” continued Gabriella reluctantly.

 

“It’s a promise only for the romantic ones! Are you willing to discover it?” responded Troy and immediately afterwards caught her from her hand. They went down the treehouse and directed themselves to the point at which they had left the telescope.

 

Troy had just finished reading “The Magician’s Nephew”, the first little book of The Chronicles of Narnia and indeed what precedes “The lion, the witch and the wardrobe”. Thus, he had learnt by first hand that the song of a brave lion had created a magical universe.

 

“The universe is not made by atoms but by tiny little stories” said Troy to Gabriella as if he could predict what would follow. “Which of those will we discover today?” he continued as they would both reach the telescope. Thus, they were left at the observation of stars forgetting it was time for dinner.

 

“Gabriella, children, come to eat” shouted Jessica immediately, Gabriella’s mother that had just come out from the kitchen’s door staring at the garden.

 

“Not now mom! We’re doing something, in a little while…” answered the daughter full of awe for the starry sky.

 

Both Gabriella’s and Troy’s parents were enthusiastic with the scientific inclinations of their children even though cautious in terms of the future. Jessica more specifically would try to inculcate to both of them to have a tongue equal with their height, neither smaller nor larger… Quite often their conversation while at dinner time, at least the times they would eat together, would concern school and their professors’ criticism. Jessica would try to drive away from their mind the bad influence of some of their classmates and protect them from pitfalls, often though children would misinterpret the feeling of security and goodness, they would consider it restricts them into family space…

 

Suddenly Troy, having been left at the astronomical observation, started to see an energy pulsating into the sky and through which a magical city to unfold, in a way that would remind him the epic fantasy of the books he had read… As if astronomy, ancient-Greek mythology, music but also the radiations of stars that would extend millions of light years beyond their existence, had become one! Gabriella and Troy they could see Pleiades anymore (known as the seven companions of Goddess Artemis and daughters of Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione), the radiating star of Nile known as Sirius, Ursa Minor and Ursa Major as well as many other constellations and schemata in the sky with bare eye. Stars would call the two explorers to gamify with mythology and express themselves poetically as well as lyrically. They weren’t late to discover the main delegate, Polar Star! A star almost constant, that seems to be simply connected to heaven and all other lighting outfits make their eternal motion around it… A sweet melodical wave would reach their ears anymore, motivating them to get to know a mythical city in which no one would seem to fear, at least superficially… Ever since they would both like to enter the role of explorer and scientist but also of everything they would read. Maybe this was the reservation of Gabriella’s family, trying to shift to her ideas like those of economic security, of the inflated reality of many of their classmates, responsibility that originates mainly from the family, as well as the entrepreneurial world. The obstinacy though of both of them as well as their perception about the opposite was the inception for them to open a can of worms.

 

“Wish we could travel there ourselves” responded Gabriella with a complaint.

 

“I think of your parents” continued Troy phenomenally ready for everything. “What would we say to them, if we could make it?”

 

“But they don’t need to know everything! Only those things that make them happy and probably they’re a lot, don’t you think so?”

 

As if the Polar Star had listened the wish of Gabriella with the shooting-star and would want to lead them to a long journey at the end of which they would listen either the truth or a lesson.

 

“The man is not destined for such long journeys” continued Troy and suddenly a whirling vortex that appeared exactly next to the point with the telescope sucked them both inside it.

 

Gabriella and Troy found themselves outside the walls of a city built by pure gold, sparkling as a crystal-clear glass. A wall built by precious stones inside of which life would flow with beauty, peace and majesty. People of the mythic city of gold wake up early every morning. They maintain themselves habits of the real world, like having to bake the bread, prepare a good breakfast for the members of the family, trim their houses, circulate at the market of the village to learn the news and buy newspapers and more specifically to manage their time based on their occupation with the church. It has to do with a world simple but also ambitious simultaneously. They enjoy the smell of the bread and the discussions as well as narrating orally legends but also evidence of their magical kingdom. In this world Gabriella and Troy often start to feel an inexplicable gentleness and calmness, they discover aspects of their character as well as ways of expression, that based on their life on Earth they didn’t yet know they would exist. Days flow peacefully but also full of thoughts in terms of the fate, dreams but also the magic all of the citizens will be called to confront as far as the fountain with the elixir is concerned that is located at the center of the city and according to alchemists it gifts immortality and eternal youth. Since their first family moments and up to the word of the gospel and since the activities of the citizens up to the enchanted feasts in the forests, this mythical city in heaven evolves on a delicate balance of a thin web of words, spoken but also remembered, stories but also hearsay, which really make you understand what magic means, what atmosphere means and how exactly the continuum of this fantasy universe works.

 

Utopia though, as Troy had said in the beginning of this story, often hides a dystopia, that would more concern the dystopias of Earth, of the destructiveness of people, of violence and trapping instead of the city itself. Maybe men of the past as well. Thus, Gabriella decided to begin a conversation with one of its citizens.

 

“How do you name it?” she asked reluctantly.

 

“Apollonia” answered Dodo, a peaceable citizen. “Inspired by Apollo, one of the 12 Gods of Olympus, God of music, of light, protector of the arts and divination.”

 

People that do not know or have not learned from their history, are doomed to be captives of it. Polar Star had called Gabriella and Troy in a really long journey, perhaps unsurpassed for the people of Earth so that it could finally make them understand the meaning of reconciliation with the past, the meaning of progress, the meaning of gratitude, of hope but also to keep dreaming and materializing your goals. Polar Star would function as a big magical mirror for the city of gold making people understand that the universe listens, punishes and approbates. Maybe the way the story with The Little Prince ends… Thus, Gabriella and Troy were called to confront apparitions of the past and give a battle with words, thoughts but also silences that were included in their past, their present but also their future. They would perceive evil as a nightmare that could move on the dominion of language but nothing more. The real face of evil is invisible to humans and surely, Gabriella and Troy didn’t want to fantasize what happens afterwards.

 

As the judgement day in terms of the elixir would approach more and more, Gabriella and Troy found themselves in a motel to sleep, as the cooking woman would try to wake them up in the morning.

 

“Get up! We have a lot of work to do” responded the cooking woman at both children.

 

As Gabriella and Troy woke up, they ate a good breakfast and began to walk towards the city. They wouldn’t believe they would hit or that they would confront some evil. But the last days Troy would see dreams during his sleep, in terms of the goals he would materialize in reality, remembering the words of a professor at some book that if man would know how much he is in danger when he dreams, he wouldn’t decide to sleep. Many of the foreigners, the bad ones or any enemy after all, perhaps they wouldn’t possess biological or mental being, because they would seem like inanimate objects. Some of them particularly were dimensionless figures, geometric shapes that move on their own, at least in his dreams, thus giving the feeling to people that they hide some life, at least in his dreams. Thus, Gabriella and Troy set out to solve the math problem once and for all…

 

At the central town of Apollonia an educational documentary was played on dystopias. Hostile spaces, harsh surfaces that would reflect the awkward faces of people, cyberpunk, decay and decline in meta-revelatory worlds, disturbed the two heroes in terms of the future of their world. Here, is the measure of perfection, Troy remembered the words of a priest in the real world.

 

“It can’t be everything a lie” responded Troy to Gabriella by bringing in their memory thoughts on fate, life, death and dreams.

 

“Would you like to describe to me again, what dream exactly did you see?” continued Gabriella trying to calm him down but also to understand more.

 

Unfortunately, Troy couldn’t utter more. Math would hunt him…! He had been shifted from the math of calculations to the math of syllogisms, by testing his correct thinking that would often transform to many enemies, often though of unknown origin.

 

“The history of mathematics throws down the gauntlet, challenging each one to read it and continue to deny that math is one of the greatest cultural accomplishments in the history of humanity” answered Troy with confidence. “And not cyberpunk…”

 

“As you may know” continued Gabriella, “even when the foreign is at some degree specified, we can’t not distinguish the uncomfortable coexistence of anthropomorphism, of human elements with the coldness of a non-human intellect.”

 

Soon the two heroes returned again to all those things they would love. To music, to poems, to their science fiction, to ancient-Greek mythology but also to the strange comments that would make Troy remember again and again that when we love some things deeply, these find another way to come back to us again. But the Polar Star had not completed its lesson. Now Troy had to choose, like a Boolean game 0-1, if he would choose to continue with the fuzzy, those that we don’t speak of and the unreachable dreams that often betray the man, or with the bases that he would - one or the other way - had and possess and they had verified him multiple times. “Always strive for excellence and prevail over others” he pronounced the ancient-Greek phrase of Homer and drank the elixir…

 

Polar Star had made it. It managed to persuade Gabriella and Troy that even though the most ruthless judge is time, there are rules of life and lines we have to follow and these are not surpassed by a mere ego. They are surpassed only with the will and the want to surpass a previous situation and emerge victorious. Us and only… 

 

I hope you enjoyed it folks! Here's the link of the short story in Writer's PlayBook: https://bit.ly/3Svuqsn