Saturday, December 13, 2008

After watching the ends of the world, my friend and I ventured out into space. The moon was becoming boring. It was just much too drab, too gray for me. I needed something black or white. One or the other, maybe even a little red.

My friend agreed, and the only thing he said was "Bring the Hot Pockets".

And before I knew it, we were strapped into the shuttle, our new spacesuits ready and upgraded, making us look like robots. Or maybe space plants. Who's to say that plants don't look like metal in space? I've never seen one so maybe I'm right about that observation. Binoculars would have helped.

My friend was silent and stolid. I had no clue where we could be headed, but he had his course set and things were smooth. Everything was smooth. The shuttle, our plantspacesuits, the space outside, or maybe the stars we saw were the inside and we were on the outside. I can't recall. These things get turned up and over and all around.

We arrived in hours or minutes or months. A blackhole. From something so bulky and absolute in its grayness, we came to something so amorphous and dark black. A collapsed star. No light escapes from it. There are other facts that get lost along the way but I was never much of an astronomist or physicist or scientist or any other ist. I thought we would stop, but we went right on through, right into the blackhole.

No one knows what happens in a blackhole but that's because nothing happens. Or everything happens. There was all manner of sound and music but complete deafening silence. I smelled daisies and lilacs and violets and flowers of all kinds that I didn't even know about, but I smelled clean, sterile hospital rooms. True, light doesn't escape blackholes but neither does darkness. Things were but they weren't.

And before knew it, we were spit back out into space again, or maybe we were swallowed again by space.

And here we are, just floating about. My friend hasn't said a word in years or months or days, but I know he's alive because he is always searching longingly for Hot Pockets, which I forgot to bring. I don't like what his eyes have to tell me. There is a nonchalance in the corneas. The corners show some disappointment. And if I stare deep into his pupils, I see cannabilism. I wish I had brought those Hot Pockets.

I'd like to say that this is science fiction, but, again, I'm not much of a scientist.

Besides, who's to say that any of this is fiction?

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