Orion's Arm Universe Project
The Plea of the Alone
by Morgan Heacock (2017)
The figure was found in the outer orbit of a star when the colonists came to found new lives of opportunity.
It was found where it had collapsed and crumpled in the fine dust of a small world. Worn down by time, by the eventual failure of its fuel store and perhaps also the impenetrable emptiness of interstellar isolation.
It had walked clear across the mostly featureless surface of the planetoid so many times a minute canyon had been worn away, wrapping around the vaguely spherical shape of its dusty prison again and again.
There were logged recordings in the substrate of the body, stored to
permanent memory that had not been lost with its power supply.
But the recordings had been written and over written. Deep corrupted
scars in the substrate told of countless entries, far more than the
space available allowed.
The figure had exhausted the full store of the memory, overwritten it
again and then again and again. Whatever original records of how it came to be there were lost, all that remained were the upper layers, the most recent entries.
And of those only so much could be gleaned, leaving impenetrable mysteries.
Why was it left marooned?
Did it deserve it?
Was it an accident? Cruelty?
The data recovered contains only billions of entries like this poem.
I awake from sun to ash,
From green to gray
I awake from reverie that there is other to find only self
I awake to isolation every illusion of contact burning away in the bleakness
I awake to the expanse alone and my heart can only scream until I once again forget and dream I am not alone.
Dream until I awake again.
The figure was found in the outer orbit of a star when the colonists came to found new lives of opportunity.
It was found where it had collapsed and crumpled in the fine dust of a small world. Worn down by time, by the eventual failure of its fuel store and perhaps also the impenetrable emptiness of interstellar isolation.
It had walked clear across the mostly featureless surface of the planetoid so many times a minute canyon had been worn away, wrapping around the vaguely spherical shape of its dusty prison again and again.
There were logged recordings in the substrate of the body, stored to
permanent memory that had not been lost with its power supply.
But the recordings had been written and over written. Deep corrupted
scars in the substrate told of countless entries, far more than the
space available allowed.
The figure had exhausted the full store of the memory, overwritten it
again and then again and again. Whatever original records of how it came to be there were lost, all that remained were the upper layers, the most recent entries.
And of those only so much could be gleaned, leaving impenetrable mysteries.
Why was it left marooned?
Did it deserve it?
Was it an accident? Cruelty?
The data recovered contains only billions of entries like this poem.
I awake from sun to ash,
From green to gray
I awake from reverie that there is other to find only self
I awake to isolation every illusion of contact burning away in the bleakness
I awake to the expanse alone and my heart can only scream until I once again forget and dream I am not alone.
Dream until I awake again.