I hope You Sleep

III

"I hope you never see this," she said, wet eyes glistening against the artificial light of the monitor as she stared into the camera. "I hope you sleep. I hope you never have to know what we lost." She wiped a runaway tear from her cheek and bowed her head. "I've been fighting with myself for two years now, wondering if I should wake you up. It's my first and last thought every day. But I don't think I could live with myself. Right now you're dreaming, you're at peace, out here there's nothing. No hope, no future. If I wake you up just to have you for myself, I couldn't live. I know we said that I would, no matter what, but I can't. It's best if we both just sleep. No more worries. No more sadness. I wouldn't be good company for you anyways. I let my heart get cold. I let myself become bitter with resentment. Resentment for who? God maybe, time? I don't know, It doesn't matter. I think it's better this way. It's quiet. I lowered my oxygen intake; it shouldn't be long for me. I couldn't do it to yours, I just couldn't. Please don't wake up."

The screen snapped to black and I was left with the humming echo of her voice in my head. The sight of her was like a warm embrace. I wanted to be angry with her—to go back, to wake up earlier. But there was no going back and there was no rage, only the deep hollow well of missed time, more nothingness.

The sight of her was almost overwhelming. Memories attacked me, the happier they were, the more they hurt. I could smell her perfume. I saw her standing in the bridge, looking out over the swirling crimson galaxy beneath. I knew the thoughts in her head before she decided to do what she did because I had had the same ones in mine. The difference between us was choice. She could have had me but it would have cost too much of her. She had a strength I couldn't fathom.

As I sat looking out over the stars for what may as well have been the thousandth time, pondering what it would be like to forget, to let the last half of my life melt away as I slept, something dinged behind me. There was a faint pull of recognition in me, I knew the sound but couldn't remember what it meant. I stood, feeling a now familiar ache in both knees as I slowly made my way toward the monitors.

I realized now that I had left the scanner running for years. The sound was an alert. I was in range of life. It would take me twenty three days to reach it. I remained in front of the monitors, watching as the miles dripped lower and lower, the distance shrinking like a countdown. Somewhere in the darkness ahead hung a new planet, green and blue and waiting for a people that would never come.

The scanner told me what it was reading: plant life, water, breathable air. Twenty three days and I would once again be able to walk on grass, swim in oceans, watch the sun rise and fall... experience day and night, hot and cold. I would have a world to myself.

Frozen in steel drawers on the lower level of the ship there were rows upon rows of biological material, human and animal DNA, the ingredients of life. A drop in the ocean and a new world would dawn. All of this a contingency in case what happened, happened. In case there was nothing to go back to. I was to be the instrument of creation.

I pulled the drawers open and carefully removed each long tube. For hours I took them out, each heavier than the last. I filled the two escape pods with as many as I could, almost every single tube. I punched the coordinates for the planet into the guidance system and launched them. I moved to the bridge and watched as the two pods, the ones meant for Samantha and I, fired silent across the nose of the ship.

I could have chosen to live more years in a new planet, I could have basked in the knowledge that I had, in some small way, succeeded in my mission. But life isn't meant to only be lived, but shared.

I could have survived on my own, watching sunsets and observing new constellations. But I would never laugh at someone's joke or wonder what they were thinking. I would exist as I had in my ship, alone. A planet, with all its wonders, was nothing to a small crowded room.

I opened the watery chamber and stepped inside, closing my eyes. A smile crept up on me as I began to dream of my family and friends, I even dreamt of strangers, of good people and bad people, of complicated people who were cruel and sweet and insecure. I dreamt of Samantha, of her smile, both of us lying quietly beside each other in bed.

"I'm sorry I made you come with me," I told her.

"You didn't make me—I wanted to be with you."

The room darkened and the walls began to shake. Somewhere in my mind I knew I was falling and the steel can I'd called home was burning up on entry, but I wasn't afraid. I was only glad to be looking at her. My fingers laced around hers as we lay in bed, her perfume making the room sweet and familiar.

Though I knew this was a dream, I also knew her words to be true. I had forgotten them entirely. She came to be with me. Even as I had set out to an unknown fate, I hadn't left alone. As the sky above us gave way and the walls collapsed, I laughed.

The End.

Reminder:

If you want to hear this as an Audio story with music and very good actors, listen to it on my podcast Sessions X.