Flicker, a short story by Kenneth Sheerin
Last Day on Mars Colony - The Diary of Jacob Strachan, Feb 14, 2215
I know this says February, but it’s not, there’s no point in gauging time until I reach Nectus 3. I don’t know how much of time matters when you go to the colonies. I can’t stop thinking about the money, even in comparison with the prices there... Jeez, I need to focus; it’s almost time to go.
I said my goodbyes to the ‘boarders over at Olympus this morning. Didn’t even wash. I wanted to compose a haiku when I kissed that Meg lassie again, but this time it was a peck. Not like last night.
This is the first chance I’ve had to write for a couple of days, because yesterday was the third day of the tests before being allowed to leave. I was bunked up tightly the whole night with the ‘Boarders from Olympus. They’re off to the Chasm on Eros to do god knows what; I barely understood their lingo. I guess, now, I'm not sure if they meant me to.
Back to the tests though, we were hunched and rigid for seven solid hours while the scans took place. The white coat said before we went in that they did us in packs to try to stimulate any transmission of disease so that they’d know. The deep scans would catch any long incubation and the physicals the quick ones. Either way they needed to check and if the UNEC Department of Transportation had cancelled my trip because I caught something from someone else. That would be tough - a harsh but fair borders control from a military mind I bet.
Meg, that maroon-haired ‘Boarder, the pretty Australian with the soft voice and the curious laugh… I guess she liked my jokes, or maybe she was as bored as I was by the end of the seven hours. Why and how we ended doing it with those guys in the same room, I dunno... It wasn’t as if it was Valentine’s Day.
Twelve hours and we were spat back to the white coats, fondled and forgotten as we walked out the door clean, apparently untainted. And for some us, slightly anxious (in a confused way) but relieved… Jeez! I never thought leaving would be like this!
This morning, like I said, I made for the bar they were talking about in the hole; which was crammed inside a staccato biosphere, a block south of Clinton Base. I went to wish them well… I kissed Meg. Think I should try to catch her in Eros, it’s in the same system as Nectus 3, so it should be easy enough).
Later on though, I discovered I needn’t have bothered, because the mission flight itinerary was for all of us. I sat intently and stiffly until I saw them lounging and laughing, not caring about what they heard and copied them.
This Marine came in dead on ten a.m., slammed his folder on the desk and barked at us in a bored mid-western drawl you rarely hear except in reality shows.
“Tense? ‘Should be. Gonna be making yourselves a target for every unknown piece of Shinto that this ride has to offer. We don’t know jack, nothing. There’s radiation out there, when you come out of the wormhole for your first stop that messes with your head. Try this...”
Immediately the place was immersed in a pure, vaguely neon, purple light, and I saw lights, felt immensely paranoid. Everything went black and I knew something malicious was in there with us. Meg was screaming; the guys were going mental. It was just chaos, and then with a click of his fingers everything was cool like the Fonz again.
“That’s a more refined version of Radiation we get on Earth. That same Shinto is responsible, partly, for Angel Experiences, Near Death Experiences, and Abduction Experience. It’s fake. Until you hit the ‘Station, you are traffic, nothing less. Just strap yourself in, enjoy the zombie ride and try not to panic. We won’t let you unlock yourselves during jumps. Like I said, shut up and enjoy the zombie ride. It’s all normal. You get used to the radiation eventually, you’ll see the staff wandering about during it, while you’re strapped there freaking out. Just sign the disclaimer and you get to go. And no, you don’t get to sue us afterwards.
“Okay, next: How long. For you? Say twelve hours all in, including wormholes. You know about time warps inside wormholes, right?”
We nodded. “Good, you need to be teaching at Harvard to understand that stuff.”
“Or Edinburgh,” I chipped in.
“We got a Jock on this one? Jeez. Yeah, whatever... Shut up and make like you care, okay?
“Right, yeah, so you’re in there for twelve hours, but that won’t be twelve hours here. I’m not going into it, you know this Shinto. So, two stops, once in an expanse (dead space, you can barely see any stars) and next in a Gas Giant system. It’s beautiful, but you’ll be too crazy to take photos at that point, so, don’t, okay?
“So that’s us, any questions?”
That was almost it, just the slow filing along the spaceport moving floor-ways until we got to our departure lounge. I started writing this, my last entry before the journey and had to stop half way up. This should be my summing up. However, it isn’t. It’s the weirdest part of all.
The ‘Boarders were generally messing around while; I was writing my journal. Of Course, they were trying to sound Scottish and get my attention. I would laugh it off and continue.
At some point Meg walked away for ten minutes with her handbag, so I thought, “Period.”
She came back with a Kabuki Mask on. Same clothes, usual routine, but it was as if nothing was different. Everything was the same. They messed around and no one mentioned the Kabuki Mask.
One by one, they all went off somewhere sight unseen, and all came back wearing the unspoken Kabuki Masks. One by one, all was sitting down, all normal, all talking… However, each one’s return precipitated the conversation to ebb slightly slower, somewhat quieter. Each word glinting less and becoming deeper, more abstract more intellectual conversation. Themes became much more heightened, from clothes, to style in general, to the eccentric styles of, say, Existentialists, and then onto philosophy in general. From that, the values and syllables in the words grew large, three-dimensional. The tonality was would change, ever so slightly with each mood and subject metamorphosis.
It was all done so gradually, so slightly that you would barely notice it. However, I was there for the ride, so I did. Now, these fun scamps I had laughed, and even loved (yeah, that sounded a bit Whitney Houston) with, had reformed as some kind of philosophical collective. It was hypnotising.
Charlie, the tall blond longhaired guy who I thought Meg’s real boyfriend was got up, walked to the can machine, bumped into some guy on the way there and got a can. He pffted it open and had a slug, then slipped Meg a small, square, purple piece of paper.
A wee while after Charlie had replaced his seat and was quietly and, apparently, innocently conversing with Meg, she got up, replaced the purple piece of paper inside her handbag, with a large A4 memo and folded it up tightly. She folded it lengthways first, so that it was a long rectangle, then itself and around until all that she had left was a tight triangle. I don’t even know if that’s significant. Jeez.
Finally, she strode over to the toilet again, with the triangle and came out again ten minutes later. Another stranger, this time a girl in a business suit entered the toilet; I saw the smallest piece of the triangle forced into a compartment of her shoulder bag as she’s exiting the toilet.
Concurrently with all this: and this is the part that freaked me out more than anything did: Joe and Mike, (I never caught their real names, so had to make some up) as soon as the purple paper appeared blew up at each other. There was shoving, there was shouting, jostling and generally a lot of attention their way.
Meg and Charlie were, generally, much more subdued and would meld into the background throughout this, despite the actions I related previously.
Because, for the most part I was huddled over my old-school jotter, I was ignored
Between the suspicions, there was one key moment I clearly wasn’t supposed to see. I was at the Can machine myself, and through the reflection of mirrored poster saw the reflection of two subtle gestures from Charlie and Meg. Charlie bent forward, looked directly into Meg’s eyes, swivelled them in my direction and back to her. Meg then shrugged. The machine dispensed a can for me and I took my seat.
Silence and a post coital hush in the minutes remaining before the flight. The argument had been replaced by a distant hush and the occasional glance. Soon we boarded.
Now we leave, and I write these words as the spacecraft leaves Mars to be a distant spec. The metal spikes, which encase the wormhole, quiver as if they’re more industrial and mechanical than electronic. Some semblance of order was restored on proceedings when the swirling wormhole engulfed everything and the universe panicked at its incision. This is no mere convenience.
We descended into non-space and warp time as if we were spiders in the plughole, engulfed in more misunderstanding and panic than our technology and brain functions should allow, and emerged, four glorious hours later in the darkest place imaginable.
+++Switch to vocal media+++
The beast is static, satanic, reliable, dependable, quiet and eccentric flames. Why can I only focus on Meg? Why does one incident play out as theatre? I feel like there is a presence here, where I can’t move. I am as one with sleep, yet not truly part of it. I am the puppet, but feel outside the play, a voyeur… It is a strange, horrible, tenable and terrible desire… Desire… Desire…
My feelings are haunted and controlled… Why? Why does my brain burn so much?
My eyes c scade into the universe itself, as if it is a rejection of the silent sleep, a meandering through the loneliness and isolation of wondering. I am j merely watching. Somehow the whole craft swivels it on itself and I remain without. Somehow, the past and present are future and I am left wondering, wandering outside this abyss…
Finally, inev tably, I can see one star… One last flicker in the universe. A flicker of a star doomed to become a black hole and draw its last brother in on zd itself. It is the c ntre of a massive dust cloud, so mundane and featureless, but transparent and longing for creation. It should be a recognisable shape, but that shall never be, for it is the last gasp of a dead universe. My dead universe.
The star fl ckers for a second and some of the dust burns, maybe… maybe if I was a scientist, I would know what it means. Maybe because I’m not I care… I don’t know. The st r is collapsing, energy pulsing and creating flares which soon create a hole in the mass of dust around it and the red dread dead melanc hly flickers and explodes. It’s all so brief… I’m so glad it’s in slo-mo because I couldn’t see it all otherwise. The black h le is more instant that I’d have cared to see and the falling of the dust into it is frighteningly swift. The swirl creates a dance and the dance creates a flicker of life until it is finally absorbed. Aysd.
The tr mors of gravity create life, however briefly. The increase in gravity will fuel th dust, and in particular it’s components I assume, to burn in the r own gravity for a second and create a light that would be as brig t as the star itself. The pre sure will turn the amino acids of nkyjb life into a man, for s ch a brief second as to be inconsiste t with the universe’s own hla history… an uncompr mising addition to the end of life. But this flicker will reveal, as the merest glint, a mechanical satellite. One last flicker of a dead civilisation.
Some ne’s he rt had ye rned to und rstand, but s dly too late to bec me a form, en ry or light with the beyond they had expl red. Cl arly they rfhad hop d for some Saulian mn revel tion in D mascus, or t eir metaphor cal eq ival nt, to qlpz dr ve them on to imm rtality. Ygdea.
D jmkfdj gfjgfj rjre jurjrnjrji uytrf
But uej bkifr vision njksenukfe cease and I nhlmnseni continue my journey.
Ns sel aew e nae fojiepiof pae through the wormhole
…flicker…
+++transmission deteriorates beyond recognition+++
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