Travelers Through Nothingness

Space, empty and black
Travelers through nothingness
Death is a journey

The plush faux leather chair made noise with every movement. They didn’t understand his fascination. They being everyone. He even had the smell of leather imparted into the fabric. Dead cow. He remembered the words said in disgust, almost like a slur, from the ambassador’s interpreter with a smile. He loved the chair and the reactions he got. 

His gaze swept along the room. Faux all around him. Faux mahogany, faux crystals, faux champagne behind a locked faux iron safe behind a faux Monet, well actually a print of a Monet but the sentiment was the same. Everything was fake aboard a starship. By necessity. When traveling through the emptiness of space and dark matter, efficiency was key. Supplies and space were limited. The banalities of the ego were sacrificed to the exigencies of space travel. 

He was stalling, he knew. He was supposed to be preparing the eulogy for one of the crew. A nice young man, hard working … Blah, blah, blah. They were all hard working, nice, people. Hell, you weren’t allowed to be part of the crew if you were a lazy, son of a bitch. That so many of them were young. And no matter how nice you were, how well you took orders, how hard you worked, sometimes being young meant you did something stupid. Sometimes doing something stupid cost you. Like sleeping with a Kuthula spin mistress. The human body isn’t meant for that kind of pressure, or velocity, and to be honest he wasn’t sure if the human body was meant for that much moisture either. 

“Dammit, I’m a captain not a speech writer!” he said to the empty room as his faux leather chair squeaked beneath him.

….

At the funeral he said all the right words. The platitudes and words of sorrow and comfort. The usual hollow homilies and recitations. And everyone gave the usual silent nods and down cast eyes, the gentle pats on the back and formal embraces. All the useless displays that did nothing to bring a person back or to help the living move forward. He felt useless. He hated feeling useless.

“He wanted me to let you know that you were a good captain and he’s sorry he messed up.”

He turned and looked into blue eyes the shade of dark calm seas. 

“And you are …? Wait, you are her. The spin mistress. I um. I’m glad you came. My um …”

“He lingers here, you know,” she said, tilting her head and moving her eyes to look around the area around them.

“Uh … yeah. Yes,” the captain replied.

She smiled gently, her blue eyes softening to a richer blue. “He hopes to prepare a better place for you, if you should happen to end up,” she spread her hands, “here.” 

“Uh, thank you, um him,” he said. He hoped his confusion did not come across to her as offensive. He did not believe her ideas but there was no reason to mention it. Diplomatic silence was one hallmark of a good captain. 

She bowed and turned to walk off. She looked back over her shoulder. 

“Dark matter is all around us. In between the vast spaces between our atoms. Look too closely and you’ll get lost; look from too far and it can’t be seen. But if you don’t look at all and just feel then you can navigate between dark and light as though they are one.”

With that she walked off into the crowd. The captain watched her as she became lost within the assemblage of people. He felt better. He didn’t know if he felt the presence of the young crew member who died. But perhaps that wasn’t the point. The point was to feel something. And that was enough. 

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This was for a dVerse prompt: Write a haibun that alludes to the themes of the excerpts from Tracy K. Smith’s “Life on Mars.”

The first thing that resonated with me from the excerpts was the use of dark matter. There’s a very sciency, science fiction feel to the poetry which comes from her father being a scientist and working with space. I really picked up on that and wanted to run with it but in a sort of Star Trekish campy sort of way. The heavy themes of death and losing someone also played in. I hope you enjoy. 😊