light

Something extraordinary happened today. We were cruising at low speed through the dark velvet curtains in a sleepy lethargia fueled, no less, by a powerless feeling of abandonment, as a bright flash inadvertedly lighted the right half of the space ahead and the whole ship shook like hit by the falcon jab of an outter-galaxy cyclope, waking me up from my semi-conscious state of oblivion and leaving me eagerly turning the ship in circles and circles and circles trying to find the source of this disruption.

We turned and turned, Marcus, for the first time in many many months, sitting next to me, his eyes open in eager antecipation for what there might be - whatever there might be -, monitoring the again dark horizon in search for another sign, in silence, both of us, sharing finally, after forever living in two sides of a single wall, a moment of common understanding, until the enthusiasm wore down and no light was left other than the beeping red alarm of overheating engines.

Marcus returned to the bunk from where he had been woken up - he never saw the light, in fact - and I poured myself some more tea and held on tight to the controls, moving on, certain, now, that, however far we might be from salvation, we are not alone, no matter what.

I fell asleep soon after, and the Ship moved on, randomly; in the early days, I used to feel anxious to let it loose drifting aimlessly around the unknown, but have since learnt that steering it towards a black multi-dimensional horizon is as good as leaving it to itself. In fact, I could sleep all day and still reach places as good as this emptiness, but there's only so much rest your body needs, and I'm no different, so I hold on tight to the machine, on my waking hours, albeit no longer convinced that my judgement plays any role in our fate.

I hope I'm awake when the next flash hits us, like I was today, because, if not for anything else, it proves me right, and Marcus wrong, and I'm the Captain of this junk, after all, and once the Captain looses his faith, we'll both just rot in despair.

Onwards, then, towards the next light.