Writing
Quite bored at work, and earlier I was talking about story writing with my cousin Helen, so I felt like writing. I did, and now I am posting it under orders from just_surreal.
Basically, I came up with a very simple idea, a character and a situation, and then I imagined I was that character. I closed my eyes, and typed whatever came into my head. Stream of consciousness style. The result is below. And the lack of punctuation is intentional and not just because I was too lazy to edit it. Enjoy
it’s full of stars he said I never understood until now no frame of reference no obstructions just space and darkness and stars everywhere you look despite the distance they become almost oppressive, as if crowding into our little galaxy, filling up the space between us, spreading, eating, seeking me out
I’ve never thought of stars as hungry not alive but still they are hungry eating consuming producing energy but sucking everything towards themselves gravity and eventually when they are spent collapse explode die perhaps they are alive but some form of live too vast for us to understand to see to know perhaps they speak to each other across the emptiness some form of communication undreamt of by man unavailable to our minds our imaginations even I doubt the stars are truly alive but if they were would we ever know
I thought it would be cold I guess it would be without the suit cold as death but the suit keeps me warm nice pleasant and so I can barely tell can barely comprehend the vast empty freezing depths of the universe outside my little universe my little white suit steel and glass helmet
the ship is barely visible now a spec in the distance on earth it would be a short walk but here it might as well be among the stars so close and yet so far away salvation unattainable unreachable I cannot watch it cannot look it it can hardly bear to consider it in its remoteness
I haven’t long out here among the stars the blackness of space my air will run out soon enough this suit will be my coffin I commit my body to the deep and shallow in its emptiness in the end we are all the same I suppose no matter where our bodies lie in earth or sea or space no difference I will not care do not care
I wish the sun were close enough to see more than a distant spec little more than another star I remember as a boy I used to see how close to the sun I could look stare at the sky through squinted eyes feel the burn through my eyelids blink them open just a second close them again and wait for the imprint to disappear fade into nothing and again
stare at the edges of the circle where the brightness is not quite blinding still through squinted eyes seeking the edge of the circle the border between the sun and the illusion of space of course then I didn’t understand the illusion the sky seemed solid like a sea with the sun swimming through it the scarab from Egyptian myth Ra Apollo gods of sun and light the sun is too far away now I can stare at it openly even without the protection of the visor it is little more than another star slightly brighter maybe but no source of warmth or life
i wonder how long have I been our here I wonder how much meaning does time have anyway when the earth is gone the sun is but a distant spec and I am simply waiting to die How many fractions of the Earth’s rotation have past since my swim began in nothingness how many fractions of the Earth’s rotation around the cold and distant sun I wonder how long I have been out here
I wonder more why it matters to me to know the longer it has been of course the less oxygen I have remaining but is it better to know how much time I have left the amount of time would be no more than a guess anyway is no more than an estimate an average how much breath does the average person draw in an hour how much of an average person am I in what ways does being average effect the breath we take fitness size intelligence ambition I cannot know how long I have I cannot know how long I have been out here forever and never
happily ever after among the stars the ever is short one now I suppose but still I am happy I suppose I am happy despite the fact that soon I will be dead an empty husk meat a skeleton cased in flesh and skin empty and yet I am happy to be here out among the stars as much as anyone can be among the stars so far away so distant and inhuman I am among the stars in the blackness of space a dream from childhood come true my dream my fantasy no aliens but space in all its infinite vastness bleak and cold and beautiful
I have never thought of death before not really always assumed it would happen later I have time no need to worry about it now I am young if it happens it happens no need to be depressed morbid worry over something that might happen probably wont happen but might I have never though about death about what I believe will happen to me I went to church said the prayers sang the songs drank the wine and ate the wafer blood of Christ body of Christ do I believe did I ever believe did I go because I wanted to or because it was expected is it true is there a god a heaven a hell something greater than this life is life not enough on its own must we make it less than it is by putting something above it is it wrong to believe is it wrong to doubt am I going to hell if there is a hell I have not been a good Christian if that is what was required of me never truly bad but never truly good
so much nothingness if there is a god why so much nothingness like an oversight I doubt I blaspheme my mother would be angry my mother is dead long dead long buried far from here unseeing un hearing in heaven maybe in hell maybe nothing maybe which I don’t know will soon know or not know if it is nothing know nothing if it is nothing
father will be mad upset angry distraught concerned guilty maybe guilty but maybe not so much but angry at me I should have listened maybe I would be alive perhaps I would be dead some other way is there such thing as fate karma destiny am I here because I am meant to be here is it chance a series of choices coincidences luck bad luck I suppose to look at it perhaps if I were not here dying I would be dying somewhere else it doesn’t matter I am here I cannot change that I did not listen I don’t regret my life was good full happy is still happy at the end of things or the beginning maybe soon I will know or not
I should have brought a book humour ha even here I joke I laugh I steam up the visor with my breath condensing in front of my eyes like the blurriness of drink drunkenness like looking through a fog into nothing blackness darkness I am thirsty no water no way to drink anyway the visor blocks it blocks the emptiness blocks the nothingness and the cold keeps me alive for now but hungry thirsty blind staring through the fog
my thoughts are foggy now I think not clear I remember them being so clear eureka the moments of transcendence new ideas solutions the outline of new paths the understanding of possibilities the paths opening before me I remember as if it were a movie some other person not me never me some other me a distant past me that did those things thought those things
strange the things that occur to me now when I have no time the beauty of it all I would like to paint it maybe write sketch photograph I never did any of those things regret I should have done more so single minded in path and thought and action so little time for distractions so little now so little time for anything but distraction thoughts and death all that remain to me so close to the end so far from anything alone we are all alone in death they say I never understood now I understand the metaphor is my reality
no last words my last words speaking into a computer commands technical jargon nonsense my last words to myself my suit space the emptiness if we are all alone are last words ever to anyone but ourselves I have no last words last thoughts maybe I have so many thoughts wasted so many thoughts unthought the potential future potential
cold now the power in my suit fades the cold grows spreads rises falls creeps across my skin I feel it like a presence like a cold and reaching through me resting against my skin the end is close I think I know the end is close by has been since I came here left here was lost the end I feel it somewhere in my bones my skin in the darkness in the me that isn’t me the else that is me I feel the end in the emptiness it’s full of stars
Basically, I came up with a very simple idea, a character and a situation, and then I imagined I was that character. I closed my eyes, and typed whatever came into my head. Stream of consciousness style. The result is below. And the lack of punctuation is intentional and not just because I was too lazy to edit it. Enjoy
it’s full of stars he said I never understood until now no frame of reference no obstructions just space and darkness and stars everywhere you look despite the distance they become almost oppressive, as if crowding into our little galaxy, filling up the space between us, spreading, eating, seeking me out
I’ve never thought of stars as hungry not alive but still they are hungry eating consuming producing energy but sucking everything towards themselves gravity and eventually when they are spent collapse explode die perhaps they are alive but some form of live too vast for us to understand to see to know perhaps they speak to each other across the emptiness some form of communication undreamt of by man unavailable to our minds our imaginations even I doubt the stars are truly alive but if they were would we ever know
I thought it would be cold I guess it would be without the suit cold as death but the suit keeps me warm nice pleasant and so I can barely tell can barely comprehend the vast empty freezing depths of the universe outside my little universe my little white suit steel and glass helmet
the ship is barely visible now a spec in the distance on earth it would be a short walk but here it might as well be among the stars so close and yet so far away salvation unattainable unreachable I cannot watch it cannot look it it can hardly bear to consider it in its remoteness
I haven’t long out here among the stars the blackness of space my air will run out soon enough this suit will be my coffin I commit my body to the deep and shallow in its emptiness in the end we are all the same I suppose no matter where our bodies lie in earth or sea or space no difference I will not care do not care
I wish the sun were close enough to see more than a distant spec little more than another star I remember as a boy I used to see how close to the sun I could look stare at the sky through squinted eyes feel the burn through my eyelids blink them open just a second close them again and wait for the imprint to disappear fade into nothing and again
stare at the edges of the circle where the brightness is not quite blinding still through squinted eyes seeking the edge of the circle the border between the sun and the illusion of space of course then I didn’t understand the illusion the sky seemed solid like a sea with the sun swimming through it the scarab from Egyptian myth Ra Apollo gods of sun and light the sun is too far away now I can stare at it openly even without the protection of the visor it is little more than another star slightly brighter maybe but no source of warmth or life
i wonder how long have I been our here I wonder how much meaning does time have anyway when the earth is gone the sun is but a distant spec and I am simply waiting to die How many fractions of the Earth’s rotation have past since my swim began in nothingness how many fractions of the Earth’s rotation around the cold and distant sun I wonder how long I have been out here
I wonder more why it matters to me to know the longer it has been of course the less oxygen I have remaining but is it better to know how much time I have left the amount of time would be no more than a guess anyway is no more than an estimate an average how much breath does the average person draw in an hour how much of an average person am I in what ways does being average effect the breath we take fitness size intelligence ambition I cannot know how long I have I cannot know how long I have been out here forever and never
happily ever after among the stars the ever is short one now I suppose but still I am happy I suppose I am happy despite the fact that soon I will be dead an empty husk meat a skeleton cased in flesh and skin empty and yet I am happy to be here out among the stars as much as anyone can be among the stars so far away so distant and inhuman I am among the stars in the blackness of space a dream from childhood come true my dream my fantasy no aliens but space in all its infinite vastness bleak and cold and beautiful
I have never thought of death before not really always assumed it would happen later I have time no need to worry about it now I am young if it happens it happens no need to be depressed morbid worry over something that might happen probably wont happen but might I have never though about death about what I believe will happen to me I went to church said the prayers sang the songs drank the wine and ate the wafer blood of Christ body of Christ do I believe did I ever believe did I go because I wanted to or because it was expected is it true is there a god a heaven a hell something greater than this life is life not enough on its own must we make it less than it is by putting something above it is it wrong to believe is it wrong to doubt am I going to hell if there is a hell I have not been a good Christian if that is what was required of me never truly bad but never truly good
so much nothingness if there is a god why so much nothingness like an oversight I doubt I blaspheme my mother would be angry my mother is dead long dead long buried far from here unseeing un hearing in heaven maybe in hell maybe nothing maybe which I don’t know will soon know or not know if it is nothing know nothing if it is nothing
father will be mad upset angry distraught concerned guilty maybe guilty but maybe not so much but angry at me I should have listened maybe I would be alive perhaps I would be dead some other way is there such thing as fate karma destiny am I here because I am meant to be here is it chance a series of choices coincidences luck bad luck I suppose to look at it perhaps if I were not here dying I would be dying somewhere else it doesn’t matter I am here I cannot change that I did not listen I don’t regret my life was good full happy is still happy at the end of things or the beginning maybe soon I will know or not
I should have brought a book humour ha even here I joke I laugh I steam up the visor with my breath condensing in front of my eyes like the blurriness of drink drunkenness like looking through a fog into nothing blackness darkness I am thirsty no water no way to drink anyway the visor blocks it blocks the emptiness blocks the nothingness and the cold keeps me alive for now but hungry thirsty blind staring through the fog
my thoughts are foggy now I think not clear I remember them being so clear eureka the moments of transcendence new ideas solutions the outline of new paths the understanding of possibilities the paths opening before me I remember as if it were a movie some other person not me never me some other me a distant past me that did those things thought those things
strange the things that occur to me now when I have no time the beauty of it all I would like to paint it maybe write sketch photograph I never did any of those things regret I should have done more so single minded in path and thought and action so little time for distractions so little now so little time for anything but distraction thoughts and death all that remain to me so close to the end so far from anything alone we are all alone in death they say I never understood now I understand the metaphor is my reality
no last words my last words speaking into a computer commands technical jargon nonsense my last words to myself my suit space the emptiness if we are all alone are last words ever to anyone but ourselves I have no last words last thoughts maybe I have so many thoughts wasted so many thoughts unthought the potential future potential
cold now the power in my suit fades the cold grows spreads rises falls creeps across my skin I feel it like a presence like a cold and reaching through me resting against my skin the end is close I think I know the end is close by has been since I came here left here was lost the end I feel it somewhere in my bones my skin in the darkness in the me that isn’t me the else that is me I feel the end in the emptiness it’s full of stars