The Case of the Forgotten Planet

I had survived longer than I should have. At sixty-three, my back bent beneath years I could not name, and my hands shook from memories I could not untangle. My skin had grown rough from carrying every secret I had held, and my bones ached with burdens that were never mine. My eyes, once clear, were clouded with decades of quiet grief. I moved through life as though emptied, a shadow of myself, carrying pieces I had long forgotten were mine at all. Then a voice called me forward, not loud, not harsh, but insistent, and I did not question it.

The world I knew slipped away around me. Streets lost their shape, houses melted into mist, and the sun disappeared entirely. I entered the planet no one remembered. Its soil tore at my feet, stones cutting into my soles, thorns carving lines into my arms. Every step aged me further, every wound a reminder of pain I had carried too long. Shadows brushed my skin, whispering things I had buried deep, things I had refused to face. I thought I heard a voice murmur, “It’s okay to be afraid.” I paused. “I know,” I answered, though no one was there to hear me. I moved forward, though each movement brought more hurt, each breath heavier than the last. The planet demanded that I see myself fully, and I could not look away.

I stumbled into a garden where flowers grew from cracks in the stone. One bent toward me when I touched it, and a memory rose from the soil. I saw her, my younger self, sitting on a swing that moved even without wind. I joined her. The motion of the swing loosened years of tension in my chest. My knees stopped aching. I remembered running through fields as a child, feeling the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be alive. I remembered being twelve, that feeling of endless skies, almost close enough to touch.

The city twisted around me. Walls leaned like old trees, and shadows hummed the secrets I had avoided for decades. A traveler stepped forward, hollow-eyed, mouth moving silently, and I understood their words clearly. You have avoided yourself for too long. Their fingers brushed mine, and every secret I had carried struck my heart. I cried without sound, feeling the decades of avoidance, of numbing, of hiding from life, fall away. I wondered how many faces I had passed, never seen, never known, while I hid behind my own shadow.

Memories lined the streets, like old movies dusted from time. A fragment of a song I had loved as a child found me. A figure passed, familiar yet strange, and I could almost hear the laughter echo from another life. I reached for it, but it slipped through me, like a ghost from the past. I remembered dancing alone in a kitchen I had long forgotten, spinning with laughter I thought I had lost. Another memory arrived, a conversation with a friend who vanished years ago, their voice recognizing me through the silence. The planet forced me to meet everything I avoided, and I could not resist. Every hidden piece of myself pressed forward, asking to be seen. I had no choice but to confront them all.

I stumbled onto a street where travelers huddled in silence, their faces just beyond recognition, and each whispered my name. I thought I might collapse under their gaze, but I could not look away. They were me, and I was them. Every version of myself I had feared or hidden was here, and I had no choice but to see it. Their eyes held no judgement, their hands did not harm, yet I felt every truth I had denied settle deep inside me.

A room of mirrors appeared, filled with hundreds of reflections that stared back. Some cried, some laughed, some glared. I reached toward one, and the glass cut my hand, pulling memories I had thought disappeared. Another reflection nodded. Every reflection peeled away the gravity pressing upon my shoulders. My back straightened. My hands no longer shook. Years slipped away, leaving a younger version of myself behind. I felt forty. The planet reshaped me, teaching me to walk in the world not as a shadow, but as a living, breathing person again.

A voice rose around me, not from above or inside, but everywhere. You have carried pain that was never yours. You have hidden from yourself for too long. You have forgotten what it means to exist. The voice guided me to a hill where the horizon opened. For the first time in decades, I saw color again.

I climbed the hill and saw Planet Happiness far away, distant and impossible. My steps felt lighter. My hands were no longer weak. Then I saw her—my younger self—sitting at the edge of the hill, the one I had buried beneath decades of fear and doubt. She held her knees and stared at me. I feared she might vanish, something too delicate to survive. She reminded me of when I was twelve, before I learned how to fold myself smaller.

“You made it,” I said.

She did not answer. She only looked at me, and in her eyes, I saw everything I had forgotten.

I knelt beside her and held her hand. She recoiled at first, then stayed. In that moment, the years unspooled. The weight I had carried fell away. I was young again, not because the planet healed me, but because I remembered myself.

Then the shock came. Planet Happiness did not shine brighter on the horizon. It had never been far away. It had been here the entire time.

I stood, holding her hand, and the horizon stretched wide. Shadows receded. I did not need to move closer. I had survived the planet, the wounds, and the versions of myself I had feared becoming.

Even the most distant planet had remembered me.