Here I am floating in a tin-can far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do
Ground Control to Major Tom – David Bowie
*
Supernova. The inward collapse of a star once it's burnt itself out into nothing, and so it sucks itself inwards, wrought by its own uncontrollable gravity locked at its centre. A spiral of dead light and dead matter twisting into nothing. I had to learn all that back before I came out, what now seemed like life-times ago, and now that I could see the very thing before me, I realised how bloody useless that information was.
The nova was all I had, all I could see out of my tiny, round window. It was majestic, sure. But I could hardly see the point in the adoration of such a thing, by the time the same thing had happened to our own sun we'd all be dead. But it was still there, haunting me, lulling me to dream-places far away. I was waiting for a transmission, and although every second that passed in solitary silence felt so damn wasted, there was nothing else I could do except to sit and stare.
"Ca-" a voice cracked over the receiver, "Captain? Are you there?" Through the distortion of white noise, the voice had lost all distinction and identity, till it was barely audible at all. The added question almost felt like an insult – of course I was there, where else would I be?
"I can hear you."
Then I had to wait through the delay, I'm not sure how long it was – you lose all sense of time when you're cooped up in a tiny box like this – but eventually I received that reply; the one we'd all been dreading.
"Captain, we're sorry. We've exhausted all our possibilities, there's nothing left for us to do." I stared at the receiver, willing for what it had just said to be wrong, for the little grey box to tell me something better. But of course, it didn't.
I never did reply. I shut the thing off, not wanting to hear their endless apologies, though I needn't have worried about that. Within what seemed like moments of their farewell message parts of my pod began to cease functioning, dials sinking back to zero, lights slowly dimming and fading away. As I floated around aimlessly, non-essential parts were shutting down to conserve power for those that which would keep me alive but for a few more brief minutes, before I'd be hit by the cold or starved of oxygen.
It was when I dwelled on that, that I wished I hadn't cut off my communication. I wish I could have heard my Wife's soft voice again, or tell my children that no matter how far away he'd been, Daddy still loved them. It was a decision that I regretted, but at least I wasn't going to have to live with it for very long.
As the last few lights died away I drifted back over to my tiny porthole. I'd dreamed of a death with the Earth between my fingers, the smell of fresh mown-grass in the air, and the warmth of the sun upon my face. But as I looked out at that huge supernova, the spiral of dead light and dead matter twisting into nothing, I decided that at least, if one thing, this was a beautiful way to die.
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Don't ask where the title came from; I opened up the notebook where this was written and it was sat atop it. I couldn't think of anything else so it seems to have stuck. I'm also not sure if this is in the right place or not, so if one of you Mods decides that it's better placed elsewhere, feel free to move it ^^
