Spaghetti At The End Of It All - my rejected story
Whoa! My first update in 5 months. Wow, at this rate, I can see this blog really going places...
Here is the story that I submitted to http://www.crimsonhighway.com/. It was rejected. My rejection letter was quite nice, for whatever that's worth ;)
--
Spaghetti At The End Of It All
He would soon be dead and could already swear that he felt his chest
tightening, or maybe it was his intestines being squeezed?
He wasn't sure. He tried to stay calm, but all of his techniques were
failing. He couldn't control his breathing, he couldn't latch onto any
hope.
His craft accelerated ever closer to the singularity and began to make
sounds, creaking and grinding sounds, sounds of super strong
nanoalloys pleading, "Stop! We can't bend that way! We can't stretch
any further, PLEASE! GROAN!"
He repeated the standard soldier's, "I shall not fear" mantra to no
avail. He had no sense of speed even though he was being accelerated
very close to the speed of light. It felt to him instead like he was
gently falling down into a vertical sea of nothing.
The ship turned towards the outside, to the real world, to his world,
to everything he had already lost. He could barely detect the stars in
a small circle, a small disk of sky atop an impossibly long tube.
Light came into this bottomless hole with him, but could never escape.
He knew that everyone he had ever loved, every planet, every outpost,
every thing he had ever seen or touched had already been rusting and
rotting for millions of years. Even Sol, lovely Sol, would have
exploded by now, incinerating the birthplace of all humans in the
process.
Someone had to complete this mission - it was vital, it was dire.
Someone had to fly along a path which intersected with an event
horizon. It didn't have to be him. He half-convinced himself at the
time that he chose this out of a sense of duty, honor and martyrdom.
*Wasn't that at least part of the reason? Couldn't it have been?*
He heard a rather violent snapping sound and the ship jerked backwards
against its spin for a moment and then resumed its slow ballet. He
felt a little nauseous. He wondered if this was from the gradual
forced thinning of his body, or from the further breakdown of all
mental training.
He couldn't help being honest with himself, truly honest, as if
gravity was squeezing it out of him along with his air and blood and
life. He had chosen this mission for her. It was all always about her.
He would show her!
Would she weep as she turned 80? 120? 300? Would she cry herself to
sleep at night knowing that he was slowly sinking into a black abyss,
frozen in the prime of life, pondering the incredible and ruthless
time distortions that would stretch his noble act across the eons?
What pain it must have caused her, mourning someone who had sacrificed
his own life but who wouldn't be dead for billions of years! What
closure could come from such bizarre cruel cosmic realities, from a
universe that cared little for those pathetic parasitic beings who
inhabit its cold belly?
Against all training, against all self control, he began to weep as he
tasted her breasts and recalled her smells. He saw the long
icicle-like tears coming out of his eyes. Momentarily shocked, he
looked down and noticed his own distorted body. He could see it
happening. The sick salty taste of sweat and blood entered his
awareness, and his mouth, and his head began to throb.
*It will be over soon.*, he thought, *Soon! What a cosmic farce!*
Moments later, his skull shattered a lifetime of memories and
experiences, and she died her second death. The signals of protest
from his body were no longer interpreted and patterned into pain. His
fluids formed long slender daggers stretched alongside pieces of hull.
The ship became a single long glowing beam. As the universe itself was
nearing its twilight, spaghettified remnants of a human and his ship
met up with other strands from a thousand worlds and screamed in
energetic glory.
The universe remained unconcerned.
Here is the story that I submitted to http://www.crimsonhighway.com/. It was rejected. My rejection letter was quite nice, for whatever that's worth ;)
--
Spaghetti At The End Of It All
He would soon be dead and could already swear that he felt his chest
tightening, or maybe it was his intestines being squeezed?
He wasn't sure. He tried to stay calm, but all of his techniques were
failing. He couldn't control his breathing, he couldn't latch onto any
hope.
His craft accelerated ever closer to the singularity and began to make
sounds, creaking and grinding sounds, sounds of super strong
nanoalloys pleading, "Stop! We can't bend that way! We can't stretch
any further, PLEASE! GROAN!"
He repeated the standard soldier's, "I shall not fear" mantra to no
avail. He had no sense of speed even though he was being accelerated
very close to the speed of light. It felt to him instead like he was
gently falling down into a vertical sea of nothing.
The ship turned towards the outside, to the real world, to his world,
to everything he had already lost. He could barely detect the stars in
a small circle, a small disk of sky atop an impossibly long tube.
Light came into this bottomless hole with him, but could never escape.
He knew that everyone he had ever loved, every planet, every outpost,
every thing he had ever seen or touched had already been rusting and
rotting for millions of years. Even Sol, lovely Sol, would have
exploded by now, incinerating the birthplace of all humans in the
process.
Someone had to complete this mission - it was vital, it was dire.
Someone had to fly along a path which intersected with an event
horizon. It didn't have to be him. He half-convinced himself at the
time that he chose this out of a sense of duty, honor and martyrdom.
*Wasn't that at least part of the reason? Couldn't it have been?*
He heard a rather violent snapping sound and the ship jerked backwards
against its spin for a moment and then resumed its slow ballet. He
felt a little nauseous. He wondered if this was from the gradual
forced thinning of his body, or from the further breakdown of all
mental training.
He couldn't help being honest with himself, truly honest, as if
gravity was squeezing it out of him along with his air and blood and
life. He had chosen this mission for her. It was all always about her.
He would show her!
Would she weep as she turned 80? 120? 300? Would she cry herself to
sleep at night knowing that he was slowly sinking into a black abyss,
frozen in the prime of life, pondering the incredible and ruthless
time distortions that would stretch his noble act across the eons?
What pain it must have caused her, mourning someone who had sacrificed
his own life but who wouldn't be dead for billions of years! What
closure could come from such bizarre cruel cosmic realities, from a
universe that cared little for those pathetic parasitic beings who
inhabit its cold belly?
Against all training, against all self control, he began to weep as he
tasted her breasts and recalled her smells. He saw the long
icicle-like tears coming out of his eyes. Momentarily shocked, he
looked down and noticed his own distorted body. He could see it
happening. The sick salty taste of sweat and blood entered his
awareness, and his mouth, and his head began to throb.
*It will be over soon.*, he thought, *Soon! What a cosmic farce!*
Moments later, his skull shattered a lifetime of memories and
experiences, and she died her second death. The signals of protest
from his body were no longer interpreted and patterned into pain. His
fluids formed long slender daggers stretched alongside pieces of hull.
The ship became a single long glowing beam. As the universe itself was
nearing its twilight, spaghettified remnants of a human and his ship
met up with other strands from a thousand worlds and screamed in
energetic glory.
The universe remained unconcerned.
posted by Frederick Smith @ 12:15 PM
2 comments
