The Mirage of Fame
By: Vandini Sharma
Tags: Fame, Truth, Short Story, Girl Power, Fiction

There was once a girl named Nova. She did not know everything she wanted to do yet, did not know what made the fire of passion and purpose burn in her belly. Yet she wanted to chase a bright light in the distance. A light she had seen in the distance, an invisible golden orb that she could imagine ever since she was old enough to understand and interpret the world. It was a golden orb named Fame.

She imagined it like a levitating umbrella almost; it would lift her out of her problems and the mediocre mundanity of real life. Of her chores and responsibilities, her underestimation by her family, her constant struggle with life to be more than it plainly was before her.

The day she reached that golden orb was one she had imagined to feel like how the chiming sound of heaven’s golden gates opening, should feel. Her limbs were strong and able now, the curls of her hair reached her waist, and the childish youth in her face had vanished.

But when she reached that soft golden orb, she was astonished to find it transparent. Hollow almost. She could only see her own reflection within it, staring back at her.

She saw that she was in the clouds with that orb. It was lonely at the top. Her family and friends, everyone she loved, she’d mistakenly left behind in her race to this golden ball of light, this orb named Fame.

She tapped this golden orb once. It fluttered under her fingers and glowed. Suddenly, it spilled a shower of images that were erupting from its centre. Like unlocking a veil of time, those images hovered around her. Stadiums full to the brim with screaming crowds. Flags of nations being frantically waved. The flashing lights of phones and cameras that breached the dark of the night. They click-clacked like small fireflies knocking on the black windows of limousines that were desperately trying to get away. Stadiums lit up by the light of cigarette lighters in an age when phones did not exist. Microphones echoed at these crowds, which seemed to have always existed.

Nova was taken aback. It seemed like they would always exist, awaiting their new crown prince, with each undulating wave of time.

The golden orb bobbled gently in her hands. It seemed fragile and breakable. She held it with soft palms and blew it in the direction of the sunset. Like a hot air balloon, it started levitating and she held it, so she could accompany it on its journey.

They reached a rainbow. It was beautiful to witness, all those colours streaming atop each other in a perfect soft way. Then the second surprise hit Nova. She saw that there were many more golden orbs, just like her Fame, bobbling around this rainbow. They were so many, it was impossible to count them. Big and small, they bobbled in merry circles around the rainbow. Images flashed within each like an oracle’s glass ball. Fame from different corners of the planet. It seemed like so many faces that would forever be unnamed to her, had their own golden orb.

Fame was a mirage, Nova realised.

She looked up. This high up, she could see the faint light of stars twinkling above the sun. There were millions of them. Probably many more, than there would ever exist golden orbs. Hot, warm, burning with life and the secrets of time; the secret that they started life. The Milky Way stretched out in her vision, and she realised that she was lucky enough to live on the only sentient planet yet discoverable in the universe. A wave of nostalgia gripped her and she was suddenly soaked in gratitude.

The light behind her shoulders distracted Nova. She turned around to find the rainbow warmly gazing at her. It seemed like it was nearly, impossibly winking at her.

Nova sat atop that rainbow and slid over that upturned curve, till she was in a free fall. All the golden orbs joined forces together and became a magic carpet under her body, till she was zoomed safely all those endless miles back to the Earth’s warm grass. She saw cities materialise before her eyes, and saw her hometown approaching.

She landed in a very familiar yard. Nova took a deep breath. She gazed through the kitchen windows of that familiar little house. A delicious smell was brewing and her mother was cooking something by the stove. Her brother and sister were bickering over the dinner table. Her father was in his TV chair, frowning over the day’s newspaper.

She laughed to herself. Like a gentle, happy tinkling.

And Nova opened the door, and walked in.