Red Sky: Chapter 4
When I woke up from the space-time jump I had a damn awful headache and there were two rows of blurred ovals in front of me. I blinked and the blurred ovals gained color and depth. I blinked again and the ovals became the heads of two-dozen prisoners. They had collars around their necks and chains around their wrists and ankles. Their heads were resting peacefully. I was the only one awake. I looked out the window hoping to see the blackness of space with a few golden stars floating in the distance. There was only a red moon.
I tried to remember how I ended up on this prison transport with these people but my mind was warped and my memories were still catching up from the other side of the universe. I stretched my neck and tilted my head against the back of the chair. My heartrate increased so I reached up to feel the beating of my heart. The chains stopped my hands from reaching my chest. I drew in a deep breath. And then another deep breath. My heartbeat slowed and I closed my eyes. Images swam.
My life flashed in my mind but made little sense to me. It was as if I was looking through the wrong end of a telescope watching moments from an unfamiliar history. I squinted into the lens trying to bring my life into focus. The images remained blurred.
It can be as difficult to see the past as it is the future. Experiences glide by with the ease of water on glass. Moments we swear we will never forget are forgotten or changed. Memories flatter or torture; that doesn’t mean they are true. They are fictions we tell ourselves. They are narratives we use to make sense of our lives. I constructed my life as I sat chained, orbiting the red moon; my eyes closed tight, the cabin bouncing, the transport tumbling, trying to find meaning in the swimming echoes from a distant planet.
The stream slowed and one single image stood still. Aya was staring back at me in the morning. We were at the breakfast table. It was like any other morning. Like every other morning. I locked eyes with her, transfixed in a waking dream, completely forgetting where I was, who I was, or why I was. I smiled at that image. My first smile in what seemed like a million years.
Next Chapter: Chapter 5
Previous Chapter: Chapter 3