A Space Aubade

Anne had always been different from others.  She always wondered beyond the endless skyline, to see the blue and what existed out there. She always desired to escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into the enchanted lands of incredible adventures. A realm unconstrained by realism. Every time she looked up at the galactic bejeweled sky it would take her breath away. A billion twinkling stars offering a trillion new worlds. It would make her feel the surge of ecstasies untold.

Sitting in her multi-dimensional interstellar starship, she could see worlds superimposed on each other in layers. There were three universes but she was not supposed to be in any of them. She felt more hollow than usual. Entirely and inconsolably lonely, floating in a pool of darkness. She sipped her latte made from the finest intergalactic coffee and lit a smoke. She took a big drag and sighed. A deeply familiar scent lingered on the edge of her memory. A spirited companion who was poetically melancholic. Across millennia, they were each other’s constants and soulmates. Only, he was now nearly human-built with the best security and firewalls.

When morning breaks, dreams eventually fade. A series of meteor strikes had collapsed the tunnel to the surface and a deadly virus was spreading like a wildfire. It was the beginning of the end of the blue planet. In less than a cosmic second the whole civilization would be decimated. Cities and countries would be wiped out from existence. It stirred up the primal and instinctual dread across the planet. The entire human race was exhausted and their emotions were in a turmoil while the planet became weak and fragile. It grew dark and cold. The sky got brighter and the sand started to burn while an exponentially growing roar began to penetrate the air. And then the earth was literally ripped apart by the explosion of Sun.

The secret society of time travelers, BlackCorp sent a team to go back in time in three layers one by one to find the cure which would repair the future. Another team, was working on the recreation of inter-dimensional wormholes. Ann had been working on it but unfortunately it required gigantic amounts of energy and she couldn’t achieve the quantum states of sufficient mass. The closer someone comes to the black hole, the greater the speed they would need to escape that massive gravity. It is the ultimate prison cell; one can get in but never get out. It sucks everything into its oblivion. So, she proposed that when there is Newtonian Equilibrium between two Black Hole’s Event Horizons, space would be thin enough and the energy dense enough to potentially open such a worm-hole. Since then, she had been floating there in agonizing boredom letting millennia slip by.

She met him in a coffee shop. Buried deep down in a book, sipping black coffee he looked so handsome and refined. His slightly ruffled brown hair matched his smiling eyes. His eyes had a familiar feel like she had found home. She found something special lurking there inside so genuine, so real, a more realistic painting of the surreal. Something in her gut yearned to be held by him. She wanted to draw her hands in that sunken space between the contours of his jawline and cheekbones. They were the strangers fated to become lovers. She smiled dismally at the memory of a bygone age and then her train of thoughts was interrupted by a signal. A voice began to speak:

“THIS IS THE OFFICIAL BLACKCORP ALPHA PLANET 9/68BQ/1884. WE FOUND THE CURE. WE ARE NOW READY TO PROCEED WITH THE MISSION. ACCESSING PERMISSION.”

Anne’s happiness and elation swelled with hope. She picked another signal.

“THIS IS THE OFFICIAL BLACKCORP OMEGA PLANET 9/68BQ/2050. PERMISSION GRANTED.”

Going back in time to repair certain aspects of the future was a mammoth task. Everyone held their breath and waited impatiently for the next piece of information.

“BLACKCORP ALPHA, DO YOU COPY?”

Each passing second seemed like a century. Anne shut her eyes and crossed her fingers. Her heart was fluttering. She held his hand. It felt like he was still the same handsome man she met in the coffee shop. Despite being in the body of a robot he had his code that Anne had downloaded directly from his brain when he died. He held her close and gently caressed her cheek.

“MISSION IS SUCCESSFUL.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. She couldn’t believe the odds. Her thoughts strayed back to the wormhole at the center of the galaxy. Maybe after that, she can go back to her universe. She sobbed softly.

                                ——————————————————————————–

                She was floating amidst all the swirling dazzling radiance folding into its central point. Stars and the entire galaxies were merging and an apocalypse was rushing towards her. She wandered deeper and deeper into that labyrinth. A lingering sorrow of what-ifs permeated the shadows that flittered at the back of her mind. Instead she focused on the swirling light which was right before her. Her heart raced as a small wormhole in space-time pierced into the nearest parallel dimension. It was scaled and stable. It had a peculiar golden glow that she needed to squint to look at. She waited for this moment for so long and now when it was there, she was caught up in euphoria. She had no idea what wonders might lie beyond the golden swirly space.

She was floating towards the wormhole. Her suit started to tear up and she could feel her blood thinning. Her heart was fluttering, struggling against the lack of gravity. But she kept her gaze straight on the swirling light. Right at the edge of it, gasping for breath she fell. Still staring into the blinding infinity, she tried to push her lifeless body forward but not a bone in her body moved. Before shutting her eyes, she stretched her arm towards the light.

He was holding her hand, the warmth of his hand seemed to travel from his gentle touch, inwards towards her chilled heart. And like the trembling heart of a captive bird, she was there at his command. He was looking at her in that misty-eyed, loving and, blissfully happy way that only a person in love will do. She said something and both of them laughed. In the coffee shop their laughter was ringing like wind-chimes.