The Project

 This is the end of my story. I am a child now and soon to be a helpless babe. It was all thanks in part to the arrogance of man, the belief in a doctor who could control the very forces of nature and bend the essence of the universe to his whim. My dreams all came crashing down around me due to some minor miscalculation on my part, a foolish and overlooked parameter that in my haste, ironically was missed. Now I will find myself drifting ever backward, ever onward, ever before and never after.

 Will I ever get my thoughts in order and funnel my mind back to the future days I hold so dear, to the correct and present flow of everything? My eleventh birthday, the first time I caught a baseball. Other things I had long forgotten rush back into the mind flooding up from the drain below as I revisit days long gone. What is my wife’s name? What university will I attend? I retain what I can, the start of it all, the formula, my own pride, but the little things are gone. My memories are a faucet running against the flow of gravity back through the leaky pipes of some old and ramshackle house.

 Days became years as quickly as thoughts become memories. The flow at once was one for one, but the dynamo was meant to accelerate that flow and so it did. My mind has adjusted to a backwards shift in perspective and I find myself forgetting things that I had learned only days before. The next day was the last, and when it ended, the previous came after that. It would not remain that way for long. At first, I stepped out of the machine and all appeared perfectly normal.

 Damned I was then. I had checked the equations, double checked. Certainly not. I could not have made some mistake, could I? Something felt terribly off, something went wrong. The dynamo accelerated, spinning faster and faster as I felt my essence pulled free from my timeline. I stepped foot into the chamber that housed the vast inner workings of the device, preparing myself for what was to come, and ordered my team to actualize the horological mechanism. Arrogance.

 Instantly, I would know if something were amiss. This was my life’s work after all and I’d be damned if anyone would use it to glimpse the mysteries of the universe before me. Was it arrogance that drove Prometheus to bring fire to man or merely a simple compassion and curiosity? Some claimed I was arrogant. When the device was ready and all necessary tests were complete and the proper safety protocols were in place, I declared that I would be the first to subject myself to its perceived wonders and refused all objections from my crew to the contrary.

 From what we had gleamed in our research, my team and I set about building the first prototype of the device that will change humanity’s limited understanding and interaction with the cosmos, a horological transmutation. A quantum leap in computing brought forth a chance to test wild new theories on the nature of causality. I am very excited to present the beginning of this project.

#FlashFicFeb

Untitled Sci Fi

Blackness. Thick, inky, absolute. The absence spreads out for eons into the outer depths. Minuscule pinpricks, motes of blazing eternal white show out of the deep dark like an infinitude of fireflies plastered against the endless backdrop. Some pulse and twinkle through the eternal night, many more sit motionless, apparent, breathless and waiting to bear witness to the birth, beginning, tragedy, demise, end and rebirth; a cyclic, atemporal and continuous crescendo. All is silent and still as the stars sit at the edge of their millennia worn seats for the celestial conductor to raise her hands to the heavens and signal the symphony’s climax.

Click. A single note erupts upon the quiet tenebrous stage, a small and sullen sound that booms like thunder in the absence of all other sounds. A machine hums to life waking up a metal bubble adrift in a sea of stars. How long has this solitary craft been afloat across the open skies of night when time itself loses meaning? The cacophony begins to reach new heights as more and more life preserving mechanisms trigger aboard the spaceship. Oxygen and nitrogen enrich the inner atmosphere. Heat raises temperatures from nearly absolute zero to a more comfortable earthly norm. Lights switch on to a tolerable visible dim to allow the sleepers to see upon their imminent awakening yet not overwhelm their tired eyes. Coffee beans are saturated with hot water and begin a gentle brew, filling the capsule with a rich, dark scent that would make mouths water were any noses available to inhale the heady vapors.

Throughout all this, the five cryogenic stalls begin the thawing process. The astronauts within have been in a state of suspended animation since their departure. What dreams may come to those who sleep such prolonged slumbers? The men and women come to their senses, showered by the heated gels and vaposteams that safely readjust the human body from the dangers of cryo-sleep. The wondrous odors of breakfast waft over the cabin, instructing them to eat and fill their empty maws left unsated for many days, months, perhaps years. Eggs, bacon, toast, the stalwarts of a hardy American meal, cooked by automation and readily prepared from several prepackaged insta-feasts at their disposal. The astronauts eat quickly, but carefully, ravenous with hunger but allowing for their bodies to readjust to the sensation of food and drink entering their digestive tracts for the first time in ages. There is work to be done so there is no time for idle chitchat. Besides, what would those who have only seen each other for what feels like moments ago have to talk about?

Five souls alone in the vastness, five lives among the infinite, an abundance of time and space before them, they overlook and engage the many instruments which abound their humble ensemble and begin the grand performance. Astronavigation detects the direction from which they have travelled, how far they have come and what distance they have yet to go. Environmental controls are checked for any discrepancies within their habitat: proper air pressure, sufficient food and water, the necessities of terrestrial life. The pilot looks ahead, their eyes on the prize, checking the immediate surroundings for debris and other dangers. Their job may be the most important of all this late in the venture, requiring the most deft hand and careful control. To each, they have their own little tasks and they complete these timely and efficiently. Their journey is nearing completion. Within a few short hours the craft will dock with their final destination and then the bridge to the final chorus can begin.

#FlashFicFeb