ok. its rough. but its done.
this is a story i've had rattling around in my head since i was a sophmore in college. for such a short story, its had a looong gestation time. its not what i thought it was going ot be, and its really really rough. i thought it was going to be a comic--and i'd still kinda like it to be a comic, but i don't know if it is.
the main character is...an astronomer? or he's an astrologist. i don't know. i don't know where the story mostly takes place, and I don't know his name. all I know is that this story, after rattling around for over 4 years suddenly came out in a rush, an explosion, a torrent of weird and morbid words.
this story is weird. and morbid. and i think i like it. and it needs a LOT of work.
8 Minutes. That's how long it takes the light from our Sun to reach us here on Earth. All of the warm, life giving sunlight we have here is eight minutes old. All the time. The sun we see in the sky, huge and bright and powerful is not the sun of the now. It is the sun of the past. Time travel exists, we see it everyday. This is important.
This is important, for tonight, as I looked out of my window, I saw the stars go out. One by one they disappeared. Obviously, they didn't all go out at once, 8 minutes is nothing compared to 4 light years, or 4 billion light years. But they are all going out.
Polaris just disappeared into the black, Danube flickered and was gone. Orion, the great hunter, has finally gotten to rest in his endless journey around the heavens-he is gone as well.
My phone sits next to me, and it has been 3 minutes since I saw the first star leave the sky, and I am afraid. If I call a collegue on the other side of the world, where the sun is supposed to be shining and warm…If I call and the sun is gone…I do not know how long the world will keep warm. I do not know how long our planet and its atmosphere will keep the cold of space at bay-I do know it will not be long. If I call and the sun is still there-then what has happened to my nighttime companions? Why have they left? But at least I will have time to try to puzzle it out.
The last bits of Cleopatra are gone. I turn on the television, and see the sun blazing brightly over Japan. But that light is eight minutes old. It does nothing to ease my nerves. I glance out the window. Sirius is gone. The news anchor seems mollified by the sight of the light shining through the trees from her monitor. Her co-anchor is not so happy-he seems to glance over his shoulder, and he asks what I am thinking-if the sun is still there, then why are the stars leaving? The phone rings next to me. It startles me, and I pick it up, shaking and staring at the space where the big dipper used to be. I silently curse the fact that it is a moonless night. Even that little bit of reflection would let me see for myself what has happened to our sun. but no.
It is my wife. She sounds worried. This past year has been hard-and the worry in her voice touches off things I'd rather not think about. Not now. I lie to her, tell her that everything is fine. Tell her to turn on the television, the sun is still shining in Japan. My voice doesn't shake. My nose doesn't grow. I reassure her, soothe the fear from her voice. I tell her that it's probably just some sort of strange weather pattern. I think she buys it. I hope she buys it. I glance at the clock.
7 minutes. I tell her I'll be home shortly. I hang up. The night sky is dark. There are no more stars to be seen. The grayed out circle that is the new moon hangs there in the black like a blotted out mistake in a black painting. I'm caught by it, mesmerized by the soft gray circle in the blank night sky. I glance at the clock. 8 minutes. It's been 8 minutes.
The news anchor stops talking in the middle of her sentence. The phone rings again. My wife. I let it ring, with no way of helping her this time. The news people are sitting in silent shock. I watch, dumbfounded, as the yellow star we call our own flickers and disappears, leaving the screen black. They cut to the newsroom. The anchors, normally unflappable and collected, bastions of our society, able to handle anything with a clever quip or a concerned look, are frozen. Speechless and bereft, he starts sobbing, she shakes her head, trying to disbelieve their own cameras. I glance outside. There is no gray dot. Steam is rising from the earth already. The phone is still ringing.
I wonder how the physists feel right now. If they are doing computations to figure out when our little planet will get thrown to the suddenly empty vastness of space. I imagine that they feel like me, that none of their expertise is worth anything right now, with the sun gone.
I pick up the phone to stop the infernal ringing. I listen to my wife ask me if it's going to be ok. I lie again. I tell her that it will be ok. That I'll be home soon. That this is just some trick of the news media. She sounds calm. I don't think she belives me, but we both know that there isn't anything we can do. I look outside at the rising fog and head home.
By the time I get home, there are cracks appearing in the earth's surface. It's cold. Very cold. I hurry inside to my too-big, empty house. My wife is waiting for me. She is wearing her flannel. She's holding Devon's teddy bear. I hold her, feeling the warmth of her contrasting with the rapidly cooling air outside. The teddy bear is soft and too new. I hold her and take no comfort in the fact that it doesn't matter now anyway-this pain is something less sharp that the silence in the baby monitor. I hold her. We go to bed, pull out the winter covers, and wrap up warmly. I know it won't matter. The house heat is fine now, but it's going on all over the city, the world. It'll go off as the world freezes. And we will die. I hold my wife in the darkness. Freezing to death is not so bad, I tell myself. She is crying softly, clutching that teddy bear. There is nothing I can do. I am surprised at myself. I am not full of fear. I am calm. I know that I will die, and that the world will die, and that there is nothing I can do about it.
Outside, the world is being torn apart by the sudden loss of the gravitational pull of the sun. I imagine that we are spinning out, like balls released from a tether into the blackness of the void. But here, in my house, with my wife in my arms and my son's teddy bear between us…
I am content to sleep. Perchance, I will dream.
there it is. comments? anybody?
the main character is...an astronomer? or he's an astrologist. i don't know. i don't know where the story mostly takes place, and I don't know his name. all I know is that this story, after rattling around for over 4 years suddenly came out in a rush, an explosion, a torrent of weird and morbid words.
this story is weird. and morbid. and i think i like it. and it needs a LOT of work.
8 Minutes. That's how long it takes the light from our Sun to reach us here on Earth. All of the warm, life giving sunlight we have here is eight minutes old. All the time. The sun we see in the sky, huge and bright and powerful is not the sun of the now. It is the sun of the past. Time travel exists, we see it everyday. This is important.
This is important, for tonight, as I looked out of my window, I saw the stars go out. One by one they disappeared. Obviously, they didn't all go out at once, 8 minutes is nothing compared to 4 light years, or 4 billion light years. But they are all going out.
Polaris just disappeared into the black, Danube flickered and was gone. Orion, the great hunter, has finally gotten to rest in his endless journey around the heavens-he is gone as well.
My phone sits next to me, and it has been 3 minutes since I saw the first star leave the sky, and I am afraid. If I call a collegue on the other side of the world, where the sun is supposed to be shining and warm…If I call and the sun is gone…I do not know how long the world will keep warm. I do not know how long our planet and its atmosphere will keep the cold of space at bay-I do know it will not be long. If I call and the sun is still there-then what has happened to my nighttime companions? Why have they left? But at least I will have time to try to puzzle it out.
The last bits of Cleopatra are gone. I turn on the television, and see the sun blazing brightly over Japan. But that light is eight minutes old. It does nothing to ease my nerves. I glance out the window. Sirius is gone. The news anchor seems mollified by the sight of the light shining through the trees from her monitor. Her co-anchor is not so happy-he seems to glance over his shoulder, and he asks what I am thinking-if the sun is still there, then why are the stars leaving? The phone rings next to me. It startles me, and I pick it up, shaking and staring at the space where the big dipper used to be. I silently curse the fact that it is a moonless night. Even that little bit of reflection would let me see for myself what has happened to our sun. but no.
It is my wife. She sounds worried. This past year has been hard-and the worry in her voice touches off things I'd rather not think about. Not now. I lie to her, tell her that everything is fine. Tell her to turn on the television, the sun is still shining in Japan. My voice doesn't shake. My nose doesn't grow. I reassure her, soothe the fear from her voice. I tell her that it's probably just some sort of strange weather pattern. I think she buys it. I hope she buys it. I glance at the clock.
7 minutes. I tell her I'll be home shortly. I hang up. The night sky is dark. There are no more stars to be seen. The grayed out circle that is the new moon hangs there in the black like a blotted out mistake in a black painting. I'm caught by it, mesmerized by the soft gray circle in the blank night sky. I glance at the clock. 8 minutes. It's been 8 minutes.
The news anchor stops talking in the middle of her sentence. The phone rings again. My wife. I let it ring, with no way of helping her this time. The news people are sitting in silent shock. I watch, dumbfounded, as the yellow star we call our own flickers and disappears, leaving the screen black. They cut to the newsroom. The anchors, normally unflappable and collected, bastions of our society, able to handle anything with a clever quip or a concerned look, are frozen. Speechless and bereft, he starts sobbing, she shakes her head, trying to disbelieve their own cameras. I glance outside. There is no gray dot. Steam is rising from the earth already. The phone is still ringing.
I wonder how the physists feel right now. If they are doing computations to figure out when our little planet will get thrown to the suddenly empty vastness of space. I imagine that they feel like me, that none of their expertise is worth anything right now, with the sun gone.
I pick up the phone to stop the infernal ringing. I listen to my wife ask me if it's going to be ok. I lie again. I tell her that it will be ok. That I'll be home soon. That this is just some trick of the news media. She sounds calm. I don't think she belives me, but we both know that there isn't anything we can do. I look outside at the rising fog and head home.
By the time I get home, there are cracks appearing in the earth's surface. It's cold. Very cold. I hurry inside to my too-big, empty house. My wife is waiting for me. She is wearing her flannel. She's holding Devon's teddy bear. I hold her, feeling the warmth of her contrasting with the rapidly cooling air outside. The teddy bear is soft and too new. I hold her and take no comfort in the fact that it doesn't matter now anyway-this pain is something less sharp that the silence in the baby monitor. I hold her. We go to bed, pull out the winter covers, and wrap up warmly. I know it won't matter. The house heat is fine now, but it's going on all over the city, the world. It'll go off as the world freezes. And we will die. I hold my wife in the darkness. Freezing to death is not so bad, I tell myself. She is crying softly, clutching that teddy bear. There is nothing I can do. I am surprised at myself. I am not full of fear. I am calm. I know that I will die, and that the world will die, and that there is nothing I can do about it.
Outside, the world is being torn apart by the sudden loss of the gravitational pull of the sun. I imagine that we are spinning out, like balls released from a tether into the blackness of the void. But here, in my house, with my wife in my arms and my son's teddy bear between us…
I am content to sleep. Perchance, I will dream.
there it is. comments? anybody?