Sometimes I write weird stuff and then let it ferment in my drafts folder for years:

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The comet had no memory, no thoughts, no consciousness at all. It existed, and that was all that it did. It was a frozen ball of rock and ice orbiting with millions of other frozen balls of rock and ice.

Then, one day out of billions of otherwise identical days, something happened. Something different happened. The comet could not feel, but if it could have felt, it would have felt a pull. Just the slightest tug. It would have felt itself veer, ever so slightly, from the orbit it had known for so long.

And it began to fall, inward, toward the Sun.

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A thousand years passed, but this meant nothing to the comet. It fell by the outer planets, and its trajectory was altered again, but not enough. By the time it passed Jupiter, the largest planet, its fate was sealed. This would be its first, and only, journey inward.

But it could not know this. It was, after all, a frozen ball of rock and ice.

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As it continued to fall, the comet heated up, it began to spew violent streams of gas. It began to earn the names it had been given by humans. Hair of the Head. And later, Sword of the Sky.

It became beautiful.

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Even as the fire tore it apart, it gave it life. For the first time in its existence, the comet felt something.

Beautiful pain.

Totally worth it.