To Kiss the World Through a Veil of Lead

Movement

You float amidst vacuum. You spin around yourself, a movement you liken to a dance. Your limbs are magnetic fields, escaping gases, radiation, the reflection of cosmic rays. You use them with grace, feeling the threads of particles and waves of energy as they flow into the void, drifting away until they are no longer part of you.

You accelerate some of the processes on your surface: plates move, spit out molten rock and detritus. You create a small storm close to your crust, a growing sphere of strong convection. You feel it pulsating – it tickles – and then force it as high as you can, almost at the level of your ionised hydrogen skin. Many particles pierce that membrane and become new limbs, new performers in your dance. Initially they float and absorb light and radiation, agitating with potential energy. Electrical impulses caress you with a vaporous delight. You use those impulses to further shape the detritus into another cloud-like limb.

You remember the birth of a moon you witnessed in the past. You decide your dance will now re-enact that event. You stretch your magnetosphere and then contract it. The elliptical cloud limb accompanies the flow. You continue expanding and contracting, moving it in all directions. First it is completely circular; you stretch it, change its shape numerous times, make it oval, move it again. The trail of energy that you feel in its wake is perfect, just like in your memories.

Your oceans become restless with the resurfaced memory. Images of molten rock, minerals, dizzying flashes of photons, so many unexpected chemical reactions. With a final effort you release all your limb's electrical charge and make it explode and drift away. You are unaware of how the echoes of your dance will propagate throughout the universe.