‘Gainst the Static of Space
No one should be alone in his old age he thought.
He started at the endlessly changing skies of the green and blue marble spinning silently in the void. Nailed by gravity to its orbit against the twinkling depths of infinity, the Earth span on, uncaring and ambivalent to the scuttering creatures infesting its surface.
And how you have changed over the millennia.
A giant metal torus garlanded the earth, the crowning glory of human achievement. Space elevators connected the clouded planet to the geostationary orbit above; a nanofibre webbed construct, mere wisps of carbon technology tethering the ring to its equator. And there it span in sympathy with its mother. Home to many, but carrying space labs, habitation quarters and endless amusements, the ultimate tribute to the ascension of mankind from it’s beginnings in the depth of its gravity well and the procession of evolutionary predecessors grunting their way up the evolutionary ladder to on high.
Lights blinked, a myriad stars tethered to mankind’s creation. Powered by the endless sun, the Torus’ automatic systems constantly adjusted its position; its speed and the conditions inside. Lasers monitored the skies for debris and mankind played, safe in the knowledge that they had reached the skies.
And yet you change again even as I keep my lonely vigil, leaving me with no choice other than to watch, powerless impotent and weak in my lonely place.
He was alone and dying, and all he could do now was watch: watch as the others who watched from their lonely places in the heavens succumbed or ran out of food or air, watch as one by one the lights went out. With no noise but the endless static of space, the lights were his only clue as city by city the hordes of the undead devoured all in their path, the infected spreading the disease from earth to sky to the heavens themselves.
One by one, the satellites died, the space stations falling silent and, as the earth plunged into darkness the lights grew fewer and fainter until just the Torus was left. The last bastion of mankind circled an Earth gripped by horror, yet even there, there was no escape.
And still the infection spread. Despite the fighting, exhortations to God and desperate tactics of man, the lights continued to dim as the systems failed and the darkness of space reclaimed its own.
As the last whispers of prayer rose from a dying race into the void of space, God sent his own prayer into the static of infinity to anything that might be listening. A last fading thought…
For what am I without belief… just static and silence
~~~
And yet another one with the same opening line, although this one didn't make the cut as it's only 450 words long.
BINABASA MO ANG
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Short StoryREAD my SHORTS! ('cos eating them isn't very tasty) - A collection of very short stories, micro-fiction, one-shots, drabbles, flash-fiction and other random stuff. Call 'em what you will, they're bite size little morsels from the brain of me. Crossi...
