Moonlit Musings: A Prose of Ink

Tell me about yourself, you inquire, as if I were a character in a forgotten novel, waiting to step out from between the pages. But I am no protagonist; I am merely a vessel for musings, a wanderer through the constellations of thought.

My days—those ephemeral voyages—unfold like ancient maps, their edges frayed by time. I lose myself among the moons of paper, tracing ink rivers that wind through forests of sentences. Each paragraph is a forest clearing, where sunbeams filter through leaves, illuminating forgotten memories. There, I encounter fragments of half-formed dreams—their colors muted, like old photographs left too long in the sun.

And the nights! Ah, the nights—they stretch taut, like the strings of a melancholy violin. I submerge myself in their ink-dark waters, diving into the dreams of a city built solely of horizons. This city knows no walls; its streets curve like the spines of ancient books, leading to nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. The lamplights flicker, casting elongated shadows on cobblestone streets, and I walk, a silhouette against the indigo canvas of midnight.

The warm wind—benevolent and conspiratorial—whispers secrets to me. It carries stardust from distant galaxies, and when it rustles the leaves, I imagine it melting constellations into my hair. The stars themselves, once aloof and distant, now descend to kiss my forehead. They leave behind trails of cosmic longing—a language I cannot decipher but feel in the marrow of my bones.

Yet, there are sparks that defy the vastness of the universe. Sparks of fire once danced in the hearth of my heart, fueled by stories shared over crackling flames. But that fireplace now lies dormant, its embers cooled to memory. I mourn its silence—the absence of laughter, the warmth of companionship. Perhaps, in the quietude, I still hear echoes of forgotten tales, like the fading notes of a lullaby sung by a grandmother long gone.

The sky, too, has its moods. Sometimes, it unfurls cerulean tapestries, adorned with cotton-candy clouds. Other times, it dons a gray cloak, brooding and introspective. Those flashes of lightning—brief and electric—paint jagged strokes across the canvas. I wonder if the sky, like me, yearns for catharsis, for release from the weight of its own vastness.

And fairy tales? Ah, they persist, stubborn as dandelions pushing through cracks in the pavement. Why do I still want to believe in them? Because they are the whispers of hope, the fragile wings of possibility. They tell of dragons slain, of glass slippers found, of love that transcends time and circumstance. In a world where fascism threatens to cast its shadow, where cynicism gnaws at our collective soul, fairy tales remain our defiant rebellion—a plea for magic, for transformation, for a better ending.

So, my dear friend, let us raise our glasses to the moon, to ink-stained nights, and to the stubborn belief that somewhere, hidden within the folds of reality, fairy tales await us. For even in the grayest of skies, there lies a sliver of stardust—a promise—that we are part of a grand narrative, and our words, fragile and fierce, shape the cosmos.

And perhaps, just perhaps, the moon leans down to listen, and the wind carries our stories to distant shores, where other dreamers await their own moonlit revelations. ??

? Beatriz Esmer