We sailed away many days ago. It’s strange because sometimes I forget what I did the day before, or sometimes I forget why I walked into a room. The everyday memories of our travels are fleeting. Our actions routinary, but I will never forget the day we left, no matter how far away that day is from my present.
I remember walking to our vessel. Thousands upon thousands of people watched us from afar, from a safe distance. It looked like a sea, and they roared like one too. The many voices of the people I belong to echoed through the valley as one, like the waves of an ocean hitting the shore at dawn. *It was dawn*. The dawn of a new era, and there we walked up to the shore, ready to venture out into the open black sea of space.
I remember the countdown. I was strapped to my seat staring at myriad controls, listening to the soft voice of an artificial woman
“Three.” She said, and I thought of the mountains. Always firm, always there, standing over us, telling us stories from ancient times. Their massive bodies guiding our people for millennia. That day they were relieved of their duty, they could finally rest, for we were going out, searching for other worlds, and the stars would fill their place.
“Two.” She said, and I thought of the oceans. At a point in time they seemed infinite. They awakened in us the sense of wonder, that craving to explore, to go beyond the place where the world ended, and risk falling into the infinite abyss.
“One.” I remember the last time I said ‘goodbye’. I had said to my mother, seconds after she passed away. She had said it too, seconds before she left. She embarked on a journey with no return, and on that day I did too.
“Ignition.”
We lost contact with Earth after four years, and that was the last time I heard a voice from my world. After that we were alone, sailing from our star to the next. We had many hopes. We endured the solitude and we endured our enclosed lives. We did it because we saw our destination, because when we got there we would start a colony, and from that colony we would thrive.
Last month the lights went out. The stars disappeared. The galaxy went dark and we stared dumbfounded at the empty panorama outside our vessel. The others couldn’t take it.
Now I am alone. Now I’ve fallen into the infinite black abyss. Now I wait for death.