We Are All Dust

• Billie Sanderson, Grade 8, Cavendish Road State High School -
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Horizon of Dreams 2018' competition

We are specks of dust in our Universe. We float and move but our actions are never truly worthy of acknowledgement. Time goes on and with it we go as well. We live, we die but the Universe does not care. The Universe doesn’t expect to be acknowledged either. It chooses to go unnoticed to the specks of dust that fly around in its vast majority. The specks of dust choose to live without knowledge and it suits them. The Universe understands their blessed naivety. It understands they would prefer to live the easiest way possible; without harm or guilt or disruption. The specks of dust are simply dust, thinks the Universe. It is too much trouble to ponder on the woes of dust. If everyone did such things the Universe would be stationery. The Universe is unable to stop thinking, what if? What if I could enlighten the world of dust just a little bit? What if I could make them aware that their troubles are insignificant? What if… The Universe stops, knowing it is no use. The Universe remembers the last time an atom was unaccounted for; 5 years’ worth of blood, gore and broad unsettlement of the dust. If a strand of knowledge was given? Complete and utter annihilation! The dust will live in their world of dust and I will live infinitely, thinks the Universe. They do not deserve to know. They are dust! They deserve only their bubbles of naivety. What would become of me if specks of dust were entitled to know anything outside their world? The Universe finally understands. There is no point in upsetting the dust, for if the dust is upset then the Universe becomes clogged. Clogged with their worries and pointless arguments and “wars” and little things that seem to be the only reason for the dusts existence. They are dust, decides the universe, and dust deserve nothing more than what they are.