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Caleb Strange Special user Manchester UK 676 Posts |
This is a story from our future. I have written it in response to recent events.
Per ardua ad astra. Under glistening skies, the people climbed out of the trees, and bent their backs looking up at the stars. Sometimes, a point of fiery light would seem to slide across the sky, and leave a shining furrow. And the people would wonder. Countless centuries past, and kingdoms rose and fell. And the statues of mighty princes lay broken and forgotten. New buildings towered over the land, and people rushed heedless and driven, liked ants under a cup. Yet still, on a quiet night, with the universe unfolded like a book, the people would lean back and read its flickering secrets. And they wondered. In time, rocket ships thundered into the sky, like great gods, illuminating the night with their lemon dawn. And from the ground, or in their long ships sailing to the stars, people would still look out at the sky, and wonder. Now, there came a time, many years from this day, when every star visible from a mountain top on the clearest night, every speck of light observed in the trackless dark, had been visited and studied by these brave sailors in their ships. Yet still the people wondered. Then, quietly, unexpectedly, there came an answer. On the edge of the known systems, years from his people, a lone sailor found a probe. He saw it tumbling against the stars, pirouetting like a skinny dancer. It was cold and dead. But he knew, from its markings, that it was from another world. Come from ANOTHER people. And the sailor wondered strangely. And, when the probe was carried home, in the marble halls of the University, the scholars measured, and they copied, and they thought. Year on year they strained their minds to reach out across the void, and touch the face of this alien people. But the probe was ancient, and crumbling. Badly, desperately damaged. The priceless crystal data rods, forged so carefully in dustless rooms, were now shattered and crushed. The wisdom of another world, it's poetry and messiahs, now little more than dirt rattling on a tray. And this too made the people wonder. Now after many fruitless years, one woman, a professor, and her student, sifted through the debris, and piece on twisted piece they reconstructed a fragment of a crystal. And, using the fading diagrams on the outside of the battered probe, the professor and the student were able to construct an unknown machine to play this precious fragment. The one last heart beat, if you will, of this forgotten people, that had pulsed so remarkably across the endless sea. And, with the two of them alone in her study, the time came to play it. 'You realise', she said, 'that we will be completely unable to experience what's encoded on this crystal. This machine emits subtle vibrations, beyond the range of our senses, and although we can transcribe this data, so that we can see it, I doubt, very much, if we will understand it as it was meant'. 'I know', said the student. 'It is very sad. This probe is over three million years old, and we know their home world has been swallowed by a nova star. Perhaps we will never know anything of any great importance about them'. And the photo-flanges of his cheeks grew brown and sad. 'We know enough', said the professor, placing the crystal into the alien machine with exceeding tenderness. 'We know that they too walked out under the heavens on clear nights, bending their backs to look at the sky', and she depressed the crystal. Then faintly, reverently, the soft lights of her voice said, 'Like us, my friend, they looked up at the stars, and they wondered'. And unheard across the purpling planet, lost under the two suns, rose the still ever glorious sound of the 2nd movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, K. 466. I'm not sure whether now is a good time or a bad time for doing this. Art can be cathartic, and also therapeutic. But the story is designed to house a Q and A routine around the question, 'What, from our little planet, and its various beautiful peoples, would you want to save, and put in a bottle to send across the stars?' The Q & A comes after the phrase 'that had pulsed so remarkably across the endless sea'. During the Q & A, a myriad of images, taken of our planet and its people, is projected on every wall of the room. The deep empyrean glory of oceans from space. A laughing child's face. The dazzling pattern of carpets seen from above sold in an Eastern bazaar. Everything beautiful, and precious, and uniquely human. During the final piece of Mozart, which would be my personal choice for the bottle, an image of the earth is projected on the big wall. It flashes abundantly like a blue jewel against the inky vastness of space. Yet, slowly, we see this beautiful planet recede. It gets smaller and smaller. Until, eventually, it is only another point of light, in the scattered glory of the sky. And then we too, my fellow humans, we wonder. Sleep well my gentle friends, Caleb Strange.
-- QCiC --
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Graham_Salisbury New user UK 68 Posts |
Wow!
As usual Caleb, wonderful. Very beautifully written and a thought provoking reminder of our fragility and uniqueness. |
David de Leon Elite user Sweden 418 Posts |
Thanks again you spinner of tales.
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Doug Byrd Veteran user VA 361 Posts |
Another finely crafted tale with a hint of a Hitchcock twist ending.
Well done my friend. Doug
"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc"
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WR Special user Utah 945 Posts |
Love It! May I use it for an effect?
Most Magically yours, WR
"Tell Em WR sent Ya."
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Caleb Strange Special user Manchester UK 676 Posts |
Everybody, thanks for the compliments. They're much appreciated. WR, thanks for asking for permission. Please, anybody, feel free to use anything I post at the Café. Just out of curiosity, WR, what do you plan doing with it? Best of luck.
Regards, Caleb Strange.
-- QCiC --
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