Fiction
Look Beyond
Look Beyond…
I wake up under the rays of the orange sun, burning the marks on my skin. There is a dullness in my ears, akin to that of the pressure of an airplane; I did not fly. The surface’s grains crumble under the weight of my hands helping me up, afflicted by the dryness of the heat. I look around the plain – I can smell the isolation from the empty terrains.
What is this place?
And, as an answer, the memories flood back. One fatal step into the darkness below is all it took.
Set aback by their pure strength, I find myself greeting the uneven surface again.
Gaining the composure to step again proves to be as difficult as I could imagine. The ground is firm against my feet, devilishly supporting my downfalls. Getting a standing view of the surroundings, I stare, aghast at how widely the plain stretches across the dimensions all around. And above – a shining light. Familiar heat, akin to that of the beloved Sun, but with a hint of a subtle difference.
I begin walking. Step one: I am Xion. Step two: I grew up in Minnesota. Step three: I can never physically hit or harm a soul. Step four: I am an ordinary tech employee. Step five: I am a Father.
This is where I stop. The loss of air hits suddenly, and soon, I am gasping, tears falling across my face. What kind of Father can commit such a crime? I crumble back on the ground, lost. Basking in the orange for longer than appropriate, the silence gears my thoughts back in motion.
Where on Earth am I? I wonder for a fleeting moment before I realize that, perhaps, I am not on Earth at all.
Daddy and I liked running around the green field and throwing airplanes.
“You fold it like this, you turn it upside down, repeat for the other side, and there you go!” I trusted his instructions and folded my piece of paper.
The first flight was an epic fail. “Oh no, crash landing nose first!” he said as a silent tear slid down my cheek. “It’s okay, buddy! This is just your first try. C’mon, let’s go make another one.”
And so I did. And many others. Some that flew higher than I thought was possible, and others that did not — until a crazy plane showed up. I ran in its trace, but the wind was faster than me. The light paper waved goodbye as it disappeared and landed into the lake. “Dad! Daaaaad!” I cried. “It’s a crazy plane! It went off on its own!”
“Oh buddy, don’t worry! Here, let’s go and find it,” Dad reassuringly said as he started walking down the hill.
“It’s gone, Daddy, there’s no way to get it back!”
“What do you mean, buddy? It’s a superhero plane. And what do superheroes do best?”
“They save the world?” I said, unsure.
“Ah, well, that, too. But they also know more than everyone, and see wider than anyone. Look.”
“Where, Dad?”
“Look beyond…”
“Beyond where?”
“Beyond the ordinary.”
And there it was, hidden from the view of everyone else, behind the trees: the Superhero airplane.
“I see it! I will look beyond, Daddy,” I promised.
This planet has the best sunrises and sunsets I have ever seen. But the beauty is overshadowed by the fact that I must witness them alone.
That should have been my first sign. The sky on Earth turns all shades of orange, pink, and purple, but never the majestic combination of shades of green and red.
Well, and then there’s also the fact that there are two.
Two Suns.
Two stars.
Amidst the eeriness of the day past, I did not notice it was still light even after “sunset”.
And the endless reddened terrains, colored in the shade of red wine under a certain angle. Or maybe it resembles something like the color of a heart, its insides beating in a faint attempt to continue living. Something otherworldly. I laugh. I guess it is.
Look beyond.
I mean, yes, I already know I am not anywhere near home. The nearest exoplanet is hundreds of thousands of lightyears away.
Look beyond.
Insignificant difference in atmospheric pressure, slight more gravitational pull towards the surface – this could explain why getting up felt so wrong… or maybe that’s just me –
Look beyond.
I don’t have any possessions, I barely got my memory back…
Well, shit.
“Listen, Ray, we’ve got reports to fill, questions to answer. There are eight figure-numbers involved. EIGHT! Ray, if we don’t find something now, we might as well turn the crew on Absolution back. Four fucking years gone to waste,” rattled the radio connection console as the communication from Earth reached the craft. All crew members were taken aback, but especially the Captain. The space mission to locate an extraterrestrial signal has been a beaming failure.
“Chief, we are doing the best we can. Maybe there is nothing to find, after all,” said Ray, defeated.
“You don’t believe that. You can’t. Ray Ergeben, you damn well know yourself what is at stake. Humanity needs this. You didn’t just go to space for fun. This was not a little joy-ride on a rollercoaster for your birthday. These are serious implications you are calling out for, young man.”
There was brief static, then another demanding voice: “Captain Ergeben, you are finding me that signal. Look in every little hole, every tiny possibility, beyond all that you know and all that you think you know. Something. Anything. You have one month.”
The painful minutes turned into hours, days, and, finally, weeks. Staring into the beautiful, endless sunsets, the beautiful, isolated terrain, it did not feel like any time had passed.
It was one of those prolonged moments, where there are no words to describe the hurricane within. Faced with the consequences of my actions, the dullness is a constant reminder of the pain I must have inflicted.
My poor, dear boy.
I think about his bright smile that shone in the darkest of nights, his bitter tears when something would not go his way.
I hate myself for it. I may hate even more knowing that I will never reach him. In stupid moments like these, I wish that I could have him look into a different sky, to see me sending him love.
That’s when it hits me.
I start piling up the broken pieces of the Heart – the red rocks start filling the terrain in an organized pattern.
And now, I can only hope. Hope that my boy looks.
“Rufus, do you know where Daddy went?”
Rufus the dog was my new best friend that I got for my birthday. “You are great at knowing where people go. You have a good nose.” I like to tickle it.
“I think Daddy is far far away, deep into the sky. I think he is building campfires, making paper airplanes, and dancing. Lots of dancing.” I imagine his dance moves and repeat after him.
“I think I’ll go to a different sky when I die. I will run on endless fields, see seven-in-a-row rainbows, and have HUGE dogs! And you, Rufus!”
“Ray, darling, dinner is ready,” somebody calls from the kitchen.
I stand up. “Well, Rufus, I need to go. I want to tell you something: one day, I will look into the sky. Not this sky — I will look beyond. Will you look with me?”
Through wiring static, one can just barely make out the words.
“Planet Earth, this is Captain Ergeben on board Absolution. We are receiving a repeated message from Planet NZ-4289’s surface, also known as Hertz2.”
Static.
“Do you read me…?”
“Do you read me?”
2 Hertz - german “heart”.
I wake up under the rays of the orange sun, burning the marks on my skin. There is a dullness in my ears, akin to that of the pressure of an airplane; I did not fly. The surface’s grains crumble under the weight of my hands helping me up, afflicted by the dryness of the heat. I look around the plain – I can smell the isolation from the empty terrains.
What is this place?
And, as an answer, the memories flood back. One fatal step into the darkness below is all it took.
Set aback by their pure strength, I find myself greeting the uneven surface again.
Gaining the composure to step again proves to be as difficult as I could imagine. The ground is firm against my feet, devilishly supporting my downfalls. Getting a standing view of the surroundings, I stare, aghast at how widely the plain stretches across the dimensions all around. And above – a shining light. Familiar heat, akin to that of the beloved Sun, but with a hint of a subtle difference.
I begin walking. Step one: I am Xion. Step two: I grew up in Minnesota. Step three: I can never physically hit or harm a soul. Step four: I am an ordinary tech employee. Step five: I am a Father.
This is where I stop. The loss of air hits suddenly, and soon, I am gasping, tears falling across my face. What kind of Father can commit such a crime? I crumble back on the ground, lost. Basking in the orange for longer than appropriate, the silence gears my thoughts back in motion.
Where on Earth am I? I wonder for a fleeting moment before I realize that, perhaps, I am not on Earth at all.
Daddy and I liked running around the green field and throwing airplanes.
“You fold it like this, you turn it upside down, repeat for the other side, and there you go!” I trusted his instructions and folded my piece of paper.
The first flight was an epic fail. “Oh no, crash landing nose first!” he said as a silent tear slid down my cheek. “It’s okay, buddy! This is just your first try. C’mon, let’s go make another one.”
And so I did. And many others. Some that flew higher than I thought was possible, and others that did not — until a crazy plane showed up. I ran in its trace, but the wind was faster than me. The light paper waved goodbye as it disappeared and landed into the lake. “Dad! Daaaaad!” I cried. “It’s a crazy plane! It went off on its own!”
“Oh buddy, don’t worry! Here, let’s go and find it,” Dad reassuringly said as he started walking down the hill.
“It’s gone, Daddy, there’s no way to get it back!”
“What do you mean, buddy? It’s a superhero plane. And what do superheroes do best?”
“They save the world?” I said, unsure.
“Ah, well, that, too. But they also know more than everyone, and see wider than anyone. Look.”
“Where, Dad?”
“Look beyond…”
“Beyond where?”
“Beyond the ordinary.”
And there it was, hidden from the view of everyone else, behind the trees: the Superhero airplane.
“I see it! I will look beyond, Daddy,” I promised.
This planet has the best sunrises and sunsets I have ever seen. But the beauty is overshadowed by the fact that I must witness them alone.
That should have been my first sign. The sky on Earth turns all shades of orange, pink, and purple, but never the majestic combination of shades of green and red.
Well, and then there’s also the fact that there are two.
Two Suns.
Two stars.
Amidst the eeriness of the day past, I did not notice it was still light even after “sunset”.
And the endless reddened terrains, colored in the shade of red wine under a certain angle. Or maybe it resembles something like the color of a heart, its insides beating in a faint attempt to continue living. Something otherworldly. I laugh. I guess it is.
Look beyond.
I mean, yes, I already know I am not anywhere near home. The nearest exoplanet is hundreds of thousands of lightyears away.
Look beyond.
Insignificant difference in atmospheric pressure, slight more gravitational pull towards the surface – this could explain why getting up felt so wrong… or maybe that’s just me –
Look beyond.
I don’t have any possessions, I barely got my memory back…
Well, shit.
“Listen, Ray, we’ve got reports to fill, questions to answer. There are eight figure-numbers involved. EIGHT! Ray, if we don’t find something now, we might as well turn the crew on Absolution back. Four fucking years gone to waste,” rattled the radio connection console as the communication from Earth reached the craft. All crew members were taken aback, but especially the Captain. The space mission to locate an extraterrestrial signal has been a beaming failure.
“Chief, we are doing the best we can. Maybe there is nothing to find, after all,” said Ray, defeated.
“You don’t believe that. You can’t. Ray Ergeben, you damn well know yourself what is at stake. Humanity needs this. You didn’t just go to space for fun. This was not a little joy-ride on a rollercoaster for your birthday. These are serious implications you are calling out for, young man.”
There was brief static, then another demanding voice: “Captain Ergeben, you are finding me that signal. Look in every little hole, every tiny possibility, beyond all that you know and all that you think you know. Something. Anything. You have one month.”
The painful minutes turned into hours, days, and, finally, weeks. Staring into the beautiful, endless sunsets, the beautiful, isolated terrain, it did not feel like any time had passed.
It was one of those prolonged moments, where there are no words to describe the hurricane within. Faced with the consequences of my actions, the dullness is a constant reminder of the pain I must have inflicted.
My poor, dear boy.
I think about his bright smile that shone in the darkest of nights, his bitter tears when something would not go his way.
I hate myself for it. I may hate even more knowing that I will never reach him. In stupid moments like these, I wish that I could have him look into a different sky, to see me sending him love.
That’s when it hits me.
I start piling up the broken pieces of the Heart – the red rocks start filling the terrain in an organized pattern.
And now, I can only hope. Hope that my boy looks.
“Rufus, do you know where Daddy went?”
Rufus the dog was my new best friend that I got for my birthday. “You are great at knowing where people go. You have a good nose.” I like to tickle it.
“I think Daddy is far far away, deep into the sky. I think he is building campfires, making paper airplanes, and dancing. Lots of dancing.” I imagine his dance moves and repeat after him.
“I think I’ll go to a different sky when I die. I will run on endless fields, see seven-in-a-row rainbows, and have HUGE dogs! And you, Rufus!”
“Ray, darling, dinner is ready,” somebody calls from the kitchen.
I stand up. “Well, Rufus, I need to go. I want to tell you something: one day, I will look into the sky. Not this sky — I will look beyond. Will you look with me?”
Through wiring static, one can just barely make out the words.
“Planet Earth, this is Captain Ergeben on board Absolution. We are receiving a repeated message from Planet NZ-4289’s surface, also known as Hertz2.”
Static.
“Do you read me…?”
“Do you read me?”
2 Hertz - german “heart”.