But What of Home

Always, the man traveled, first away from his home in the country, then away from the city, then away from Earth, the sun, the solar system. Ever onward, ever outward. At nearly the speed of light, which didn’t seem fast enough. He called himself an explorer, never a coward.  In the coldest, deepest depths of space between stars, he came upon a derelict spaceship floating silently. But not emptily. He went aboard. 

The other pilot in his seat was long dead. He wasn’t human but the man felt a kinship with him. This being, too, had been a traveler, an explorer. And somewhere along the way he’d despaired and opened his space suit to a vacuum he’d let into his own ship. He’d left a last recorded log. The button to play it rested under one thin tentacle. 

The man pressed the button. And he understood the message. These aliens must have had some kind of translator that connected directly to the man’s brain waves and turned strange gibberish into language. The words said:

I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. If you’re hearing this, go home. In the end, there’s nothing but home. 

The man began to weep. He thought of the family he’d left behind, the lovers he’d spurned, the children he’d never had. He went back to his own ship and turned it around. He blasted for Earth. He yearned for the blue marble; instead, he found a dirty brown cue ball. The traveler had forgotten one thing in his urge to flee his past—time dilation. He’d aged a few years in his journey; the earth had aged millions. There was no home to go to. 

Before opening his suit helmet to the air, and his ship to the vacuum, the man recorded a message for whoever might find it, though he knew it would be useless: “You can’t go home again. The only thing to do is never leave!” 

∼ Charles Gramlich

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