<<I swear, I rewrote this thing seven times before actually moving on from the first line.>>

They told me to write a happy ending, but I didn’t want it to end.

I wanted the happiness to last forever, beyond a lifetime. I wanted the lifetime to last forever. I wanted to keep going and never look back, just feel the energy of life and keep moving forward. I wanted to reach the highest dreams, touch far away stars, go where no one has ever gone before. I wanted to see every star in the universe.

But even stars end.

The sky we see is just a graveyard for all the lights that blew out years ago. All those wishes on an illusion, all that faith in a dead space. How far will we see until nothing exists? What if everything has already ended and we’re just watching it move closer in slow motion, oblivious to our imminent peril? They always want a happy ending but how do I know when to end it? How do you make a happy ending when it’s already slipped through your hands? The secrets of the universe hidden behind light years of distance…

Perhaps the secrets of the universe lie in the fact that the ending cannot be happy. Perhaps the very idea of a “happy ending” suggests that everything stops after one moment of joy; the happy moment triggers the doomsday clock, Ragnarok, the end of the world, end of the universe as we know it. If I am to write a happy ending, then what comes next? If they’re left satisfied with a story, they lose the passion and desire for more, to create their own alternatives, to find some other solution than exactly what the author gives them. If the ending is happy, then give no more thought to the possibilities of the universe. It is finished and will stay finished.

Unless…

Unless the ending triggers some empty hole, missing piece, unspoken word. Then, the story continues, it reaches beyond the pages or screen, beyond the mouths and minds of those who brought it to life. It connects in endless ways as people desperately search for some peaceful resolution, some wholesome tale, some fulfilled journey. Without a happy ending, the story lasts forever. The idea spreads, the audience clings to fanfiction or fanart, putting themselves literally in the characters’ shoes, trying to find some source of a different ending, another way. Desperate, we need some way to change the unhappy ending. Through an unhappy ending, people find others searching for an alternate universe, others who share their ideas and dreams, their processes and experiences. They learn, they adapt, they grow. An unhappy ending allows for the universe to move in all directions to make everything fall in place.

But with a happy ending? It ends. Everything ends. It’s a good story, people smile and move on. A nice “pick-you-up” message to remember every now and then. But just that. Just another story. Just another work of fiction so far from our world. Just another alternate life we could have had but didn’t. Just another happy ending…

They want me to write a happy ending because they believe it gives them a gentle comfort on a bad day, a soft whisper that “everything will be okay”, even if the story doesn’t exist. But the storms have yet to yield for a happy ending.

No.

This time, we need an unhappy ending for us to search beyond our limited minds, beyond the graveyard of stars, beyond the farthest reaches of the known universe. We must dare to find the Unknown and learn what to do with the unhappiness it may leave us. We must learn to deal with imbalance. We must learn to love the endless infinity of an unhappy ending, appreciate the fleeting ephemeral happiness in each moment. We must learn how to find this happiness for ourselves despite what a creator says is the end. Because nothing ends. Not really. Not if we don’t let it.

The stars don’t die if we keep them close enough to see. They still live if we believe in the wishes cast out into the darkness of space. They still breathe if we trust in the faith beyond our galaxy, a universe yet to be discovered. Even when we finally witness their deaths, we hold them in our history. They live on with their imprint on the universe. Somewhere out there, they still live. Maybe a lot smaller and a lot dimmer, but they still live in someone’s sky. 

So maybe we don’t need a happy ending. Maybe no one really gets one. But maybe happy endings feel so fleeting because they do not end. Maybe we forget the story’s end because for us, it never stopped. It kept going, the story reaching the farthest regions of the universe like starlight stretching wide.

I will not write a happy ending because life holds so much more than a last page of a memory.

I will not write a happy ending because what would be left at the last word?

I will not write a happy ending because these stories will never end.