science fiction pt. 2: The Black Hole

After watching the end of the world, my friend and I ventured into space. The moon was boring. It was too gray for me. I needed black and white. Maybe some red.

My friend agreed. “Bring the Hot Pockets,” he said.

We were strapped into the shuttle. Our spacesuits were upgraded and ready. We looked like robots or space plants. Plants look like metal in space. At least that’s how I imagine it.

My friend was silent. I didn’t know where we were headed. He had his course set. Things were smooth.

Everything was smooth. The shuttle, our space suits, the space outside.

I looked out the lone window. I wondered if the stars were the inside and we were the outside. In space, things tend to get turned up and over and all around.

In some amount of time, we arrived. It was a black hole. From a gray moon to a dark black. A collapsed star where no light escapes.

I thought we would stop, but we headed straight into the black hole.

“No one knows what happens in a black hole.” I read that in a book once.

The truth is nothing happens, and everything happens.

I heard sounds. Clattering, pops, footsteps, dust drops, and everything else. I heard the most beautiful music. But I was deafened by silence.

I smelled daisies, lilacs, violets, flowers I didn’t even know. But my nose was flooded with the clean, sterile white of hospital rooms.

True, light doesn’t escape black holes but neither does darkness.

After some time, we were spit back into space. Or maybe we were swallowed by space.

Here we are now. The shuttle floats. We float in its guts.

My friend hasn’t said a word in days, months, maybe years. I know he’s alive. He always searches for those Hot Pockets. “Where are they?” he’d ask. “Just keep looking,” I tell him. I forgot to pack them.

I don’t like what his eyes tell me. Inside his corneas is a nonchalance. The corners show disappointment. If I look into his pupils, I see myself, wrapped in dough and drowning in tomato sauce. My arm is wrapped in teeth.

I want to say, “This is just science fiction.” I want to tell him.

But I’m not much of a scientist.

And who’s to say this is fiction?