Barely edited...an uncomfortable inspiration. I have never written Sci-Fi, and I have no idea how. Any suggestions will be much appreciated. By both of us.
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Where is infinity? They used to say it only existed in the Universe, but when the search brought no results, they realized their was no proof for infinity, so they laughed and dismissed it.
If the concept of the neverending is pushed away, denied, perhaps it ceases to exist. What the people are forced to wonder is, could the absence of forever yank the security of death out of their existence? Do they not get comfort out of believing that life is the last thing that they will have to endure coming to an end? Or do they prefer to believe that death just starts it all over again and infinity speeds away, leaving them alone to face the persistence of the fleeting? If we could escape the confines of our galaxy and find the sinister lack of an end, would that compel us to believe? No.
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“I see no reason for that kind of… action.”
Sprawled on the slippery, metal surface, staring languidly at the pricks of light through the glass, lay Svet. His position on the floor told nothing of his often up-tight and infuriating behavior; behavior that tended to drive others to insanity.
“Getting up off the floor could not possibly be defined as action,” said Svet; “at least in this particular case.”
“I will not argue with you because it is quite obvious that you are wrong.”
Much too often a person who speaks to themselves is perceived to be odd, dangerous, insane. This ridiculous perception tends to cause an unfortunate lack in the area of one-person conversations. In the end, only the odd, dangerous or insane dare to speak to themselves; a direct product of public perception and a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Svet was of the dangerous sort, although his reasons for speaking to himself were not connected in any way to his violent nature. He simply did not care for the incessant quiet of space, and thus only felt comfortable if he was filling it himself; music disturbed him. His journey had begun with three others and was, without any doubt, ending without them. He grew annoyed, which caused them to become annoyed. Sometimes he liked to claim self-defense, but only as a joke, for he didn’t have any need for justification; life meant absolutely nothing to him.
“Let us change the subject, shall we?” he asked carelessly.
“That’s fine with me.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Only yesterday I discovered that our dear companion Learhart was not dead at all, but had locked himself in the upstairs kitchen and had been living comfortably up there for an awfully extended period of time.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. I was so surprised I shot him on the spot,” laughed the repulsive man. “The fact that he was technically already dead still clears my good name, and his body is now safely shut up in space where, with any luck, it will remain.”
“You think he might find infinity out there?”
“I highly doubt it. Infinity, hypothetically, exists in only two places, the Universe and the afterlife. Since he resides in both, I give him less of a chance of finding anything at all.”
“But do we not all reside in the Universe after death?”
“Ah, you caught me in an imprecision. When I say ‘the Universe’, in that particular context, I mean outside of the confines of gravity/time. Assuming they are one in the same.”
“Thank you for clarifying that.”
“No trouble whatsoever.”
The ship trembled and the lithe man on the floor began to pull himself to is feet, boredom lighting in his dull eyes. Often he found boredom a more exciting emotion than the simple vacuum of feeling that usually slept in his consciousness. Tipsily, he stumbled to the controls and let himself fall into the seat, examining what he continued to be terribly bored by.
“We won’t be home for more then a month.”
“Could we possibly stop somewhere? Even if just a for a day or two?”
“Oh…I don’t know…Terracon is fairly near. That is such a worthless planet, though.”
“It’s better than being in here for another month straight.”
“What makes you say so?”
“Well, I’m sure there are other people on Terracon to speak to.”
“So you don’t appreciate me? You want other people do talk to? I highly doubt that anyone on that insipid planet would be even one eighth as amusing as me.”
“We’re still only one person, Svet, if you remember.”
“Well, thanks so much for bringing that to my attention. I had very nearly forgotten.’ Severely irritated, Svet leaned back in the springy seat and sighed loudly. “Okay, we’ll stop. But only for a few days.”
“I appreciate your diplomacy. Perhaps we will discover something we like.”
“Unlikely. Ridiculously unlikely.”
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An insignificant ship, resembling a particularly shiny penny, approached the thin atmosphere of Terracon. Whoever had named it such had been void of imagination, for it was nearly all forests and fields, and only managed two main cities across its circumference of thirty-four thousand miles.
Svet, with a bit of flourish, landed safely in a clearing not far out of Celerity; named after the fact that it had once built the fastest ship in the galaxy, now long out of date. In ordinary circumstances Svet would have abhorred leaving his ship unguarded, but on Terracon he felt no apprehension whatsoever, and marched theatrically out of the forest, dragging his worthless dirt-bike behind him.
“Don’t talk to me in the city, people will surely mistake your advice for my insanity and I will be shunned and laughed at.”
“You don’t have to tell me. We both know that the Conversations only exist in lonely space. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”
“I was only making sure--”
“Just shut up,” he snapped at himself.
A little annoyed again, Svet hopped onto his ridiculous bike and sped anonymously through a quiet residential neighborhood into downtown Celerity, his hair slowly slipping out of its ponytail and whipping him in the face. The city was non-descript, its high-rise buildings shining dully in the sunlight and its residents crowding the dirty sidewalks, being just as rude and hopeless as any other city-dwellers Svet had had the misfortune of observing.
There was nothing to separate these people from the other people Svet had met, nothing to make him imagine they were worth any more than the gum that was stuck to the wheel of his bike. He would have been annoyed if he had known that gum was holding tightly to his tire, but it would have been a ridiculous thing to be annoyed at, for his bike had not been washed since he bought it six years ago.
It was only out of pure, uptight apathy that he finally parked. The liquor store that he was standing in front of was much too shiny for its line of business; its pastel advertisements casting oddly colored shadows on the dull sidewalk. Its shininess did not detract from the pure filth that Svet noticed as he entered the pathetic store.
“Hello. I don’t mean to pry but…why do you look like my imagination?”
The girl at the counter stared.
“What I mean is, I have a filthy, disgusting imagination, and when I picture it, it always looks like you. Can you try to think of why that might be?’ She continued stare. “Ah, no matter. Some cigs will hold me for now.”
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