A Simple, and “Grave” Tale
A Monologue of Warning
A short short story by Cory Kutschker
I am floating... no, no, that is not quite right. I am in stasis. That will not do either. No, floating has a regard for being in substance that bears you buoyant. Hmmm, stasis won't do either as that would require something to hold me in place. No, stasis won't do at all. No it is far too still, far too... motionless. Suspension... in suspense. Yes that will do. I am in suspense. awaiting activity and yet I am here, waiting. Yet I should think not even suspense would do here. <sigh> How long has it been? minutes? Yes, yes that is a good approximation. Hmmm, no, no minutes here are void. No, curse that word. Curse time, it is a damnable word. It is terrible and cruel here. What is here? Does this "here" even hold, locale? Yes, yes surely, scientifically, I can be convinced that here holds a dimensional locale. Some sort of coordinates perhaps?
Hmm, there is my tether freely passing some distance to the... left? My craft, my craft is there so many yards away. I am separated. Separated, that is a terrible, cruel word. No connection, no relation. I am separated. Shirley, Judy, Bill, they are all there. They are away, they are too far, away. No, no I can't reach. It is, too far.
At home Merideth is bound to be cooking something, something wonderful. Some smell of lavish gravy over a succulent roast, a fine dish of steamed vegetables and white fluff puffs of mashed potatoes mounded beside. It is all placed upon a fine china plate. Oh! and for dessert, what would it be? A fantastic apple pie with a proper large scoop of ice cream beside. Oh! my stomach bubbles with excitement at such a possible meal. At home, gosh, at home. I cannot, should not think of it but of course fail to arrest the long train of memory that bore down on my brain. What had we spoken of last, what was the topic? It had been some petulant argument regarding the curtains and whether we would have them be a stark violet or a calming navy. And what harsh words were exchanged that night! And now I but crave that night's later caress and her gentle skin. But now she lies on a planet at an incalculable measure of stadia, far away. Earth is now but a strange bauble now. A blue green bauble to be intangibly held in my hands, so distant.
My suit, gosh my suit. Such a burden to put on this body. The long hour it took to put it on and perform the many checks and double checks to ensure an airtight seal. The material chafes and a breath is a strange exchange between two gases. But of course weight I feel nothing of, in this "here." What a terrible thought this is! Now that I am here I must embrace the irony of ironies. That what was created to sustain should be as a prison forcing upon me an unbearable long and cold voyage before gasping and an exhaustion of breath and then a slow if not nearly interminable termination of the body. And apparently after this duration of darkness, a doom of torment that would cast this as a light jest. Indeed that judgement, which the priest spoke of, was not a light subject, it was grim. We spent those hours with solemn sour dour faces gazing at the floor with darkened minds that had no stars giving light as I had despised and loathed the blaze that was the one, true, solution.
Silence, silent as the grave. Agh! No! Perish the thought! I shall not employ cliches “here.” No, not “here.” It is such a terror where neither a whisper nor a shout or even a scream is to be heard. And neither have they, my comrades, communicated with me. Hmm, my radio ah! yes it must be my radio. It must be broken. And I am left to myself to converse with, nothing. I am now left to suffer silence.
I now peer around slowly from this one half-faced globe at this expanse before me and have but one feeling. I am alone. My body tingles against the long cold chill produced by such a feeling. Yet, I look onward as this great speckled black mouth that yawns before me, draws me in and purveys its extent of a near endless span of seeming infinite angles. It is a great vacuum and an almost endless... Space.
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