i'm not sure how long it's been my only
reference points now are distant stars
and planets that basically all look the
same
and don't appear to be moving much from
here the radio and gps cut out some time
ago
and the manual propulsion system engines
were damaged in the initial collision
i've since been drifting alone and
disconnected in some unknown direction
towards something or nothing i suppose
both are sort of the same to me at this
point
i can only assume i'm moving rather fast
considering the speed at which we were
hit
but it honestly feels more like i'm just
floating in place like i'm submerged in
a literal infinity pool
with no edge or surface my only hope
left is that this is some strange dream
or hallucination
and i'm still on the ground somewhere
soon to come back to reality at any
moment
admittedly early on when the reality of
this whole situation really first
started to set in
i seriously considered that as a
possibility i guess hoped might be more
accurate
my brain's imaginative wishful nature
trying to conjure up and sustain its
last bit of artificial hopefulness
almost convincing me that what is real
isn't and vice versa
i've since given up such hope at least
of that form
i realized around the same time that i
had a decision to make
to either continue on in terror and
paranoia
fueled by the hope that there was
something to be done something i could
do
some other way this whole thing could go
or
i could sit back and enjoy the stars the
decision was pretty obvious
i'm going to die and no one can save me
and i only have so much time left
and i'm going to enjoy it i float
through the void now
free perhaps more than i have ever felt
or imagined before
totally and completely free i feel
infinity play with my limbs
as its laws of motion carry me like a
child's plush toy
i just let it i do not flail i do not
fight it
i just float i think about where it
might be taking me
where i will end up what distant space i
will float onto
what my final view of everything will be
you know i have seen the same night sky
nearly every night of my life
and i've had the great fortune of being
in a profession that has given me the
opportunity to see it from all sorts of
different angles
close and afar but right now swallowed
up by it totally
with no sight of home further out than
perhaps anyone has ever been
it looks completely different or perhaps
it feels completely different
either way in this i realize now more
than ever
just how used to the insanity of
everything we so easily become
to the grave imminent dangers of living
and moving through an unending and
unknown space
the unfathomable depth of potential and
mystery
that is just a short float above our
heads at all times
i can't help but laugh to myself at how
bored we so easily become
how much we struggle to be dazzled by
awe and silenced by humility
we must be the only thing cursed with
the tendency to reduce the magnificent
to tedium to analyze beauty into
ugliness
to reduce our incredible position to
misery
we are so small it took no more than one
cycle of oxygen for essentially all
clear traces of home to disappear from
my vision forever
all the greatest heroes and sages and
leaders and so on
from here i don't see any of them
we forget that we are a life still in
its adolescent years at best
yet to even really leave home our
species still filled with the angst and
juvenile rebellion of a teenager
the universe must laugh at our arrogant
ignorance our smug righteousness
our poutiness we still think we know
everything but we know damn near nothing
about anything
like our pioneering ancestors of every
form discovered lands and worlds and
ways of being that we take for granted
now
as the status quo great unknown lands of
the future await us
great unknown manners and knowledge of
how to live and be
unknown turmoil ii casualties of this
kind and far
far worse of course to grow up
to age to toy with the universe and
venture out into the unknown
always carries its great uncertainty and
risk but it is perhaps one of the most
beautiful imperatives of our kind to do
so
to live is to be afraid but perhaps to
center that fear on something that
unites and grows
and reveals wonder is to be afraid with
some purpose
i don't know what else could life
possibly be but a series of new horizons
new views a constant rediscovery of
beauty and wonder
i'm going to die a casualty of this
cause and i wouldn't want it any other
way
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if i have any remaining wish it's that
this was not all in vain
this fatal mission and every pair of
shoulders that it stood on
every prior fatal mission every prior
successful mission
i hope that more and more of my kind
will see and feel what i do right now
with less finality and more intention to
continue on into the darkness
bringing the lights of their own
creation illuminating the heavens and
revealing them as new homes
today the great frontiers are above us
into the once believed heavens that we
need not be dead to touch
we can touch them now we will we will
if we can survive our teenage
carelessness and anguish and avoid the
irreversible self-harm
that so many adolescences fall victim to
if we continue to grow and learn and
survive together
we will live together up here somewhere
into forever
we either live together or die together
i don't know how long my suit will
survive after me i don't know if these
words will ever be heard by anyone else
no matter the case i'll be okay i'll be
dead
but if anyone does find me or rather
what was once me
if anyone finds this recording please
know that i was happy while speaking
these words
i have lived a good life an aesthetic
voyager who lived and died by the space
that enthralled him
if you have not already i hope even if
just for a moment
you see and feel what i do right now i
hope you see past me
i hope you find reason to continue as a
string of life
extending further and further out
reaching with excitement and wonder into
the infinite yet continually
insufficient frontier
don't cut the string short for trivial
absurd reasons
if it's absurd to continue then it's
absurd to cut it all
short and if you can't find the reasons
to continue
my friendly suggestion is make them up
a group of scientists spacesuit
engineers language experts
historians and technologists all working
with the international orbital debris
monitoring and recovery program
look down at a strange audio playback
speaker device
as it concludes the last recording
contained on it it is attached to what
can only be surmised as a half-burnt
spacesuit helmet
some strip parts of the neck and upper
torso portion of the suit
still attached it appears somehow
futuristic and otherworldly
yet entirely human and familiar almost
blending science fiction with basic
simple human engineering all the
materials are known and traceable to
earth
and the suggested body shape is mostly
anatomically consistent with a human
the logos and symbols on the spacesuit
however after having been extensively
analyzed appear to not match anything
known by any space program
private or federal additionally the
surviving technology components appear
fairly advanced
alluding to some sort of high-capacity
oxygen sustainment system
and advanced temperature regulation and
damage resistance
some of the mechanics even still
functioning none of which quite match
any known current technologies
but all of which seem to be
understandable through some reverse
engineering
the audio recording after sufficient
cross-analysis and expert translation
appears to have been spoken in a strange
blend of different but still mostly
known
ancient languages and it is essentially
fully able
to be translated the group of scientists
and experts
completely perplexed consider and
discuss what can only be described
as a letter in a bottle that happened to
float ashore
after years and years of aimless
floating from some distant time
past our future distant land near or far
or some mix of both an artifact of
[Music]
possibility
[Music]
you