70 I Am In The Universe

Flash Meridian understood that he was traveling at great speed, yet he felt as though he were sitting perfectly still. His speed was nothing when set against the size of the objects and systems he could see from here. Because of this, he felt his real journey took place within. He traveled to the center of himself, examining, exploring and questioning all he knew, all he assumed, and all he had taken for granted.

He observed the heavenly view outside of his ship, and realized that while he was in the universe, the universe was in his body. He and the universe were one.

Quantum mechanics taught him that he, as the observer, played a huge role in how reality is understood. Yet if truth only worked according to how his brain perceived it, why should he be here at all, searching for newer and more accurate descriptions of reality?

Back on Earth, he had always assumed that life was about working to pay the bills. Now, his reality was the opposite of that.

There was no doubt that the view was awesome. Infinitely huge and indescribably beautiful. But he couldn’t touch it. He knew it was time to find an hospitable planet.

The ship’s sensors allowed the computer to feed Flash the choices, and in no time, data filled the screen. He looked for someplace warmer than the ice planet… with land, unlike the ocean planet, and less volatile than Olo.

He narrowed down the choices, and selected one based on all the criteria, including proximity. Still, it would take a while, but just having a destination brought Flash out of his introspection.

The ship adjusted its course, and he brought a visual to the screen. There, orbiting a distant star, he could barely make out the speck of a far away planet. There were other planets sharing this star, but only one was in the habitable zone, where water can exist in liquid form. This earth sized planet also had a watery moon. Both were wrapped in bubbles of oxygen rich atmosphere.

Weeks passed, and the distance between Flash Meridian and his destination closed. The star it encircled grew gradually brighter, and Flash watched the phases of the tiny blue sphere as it traversed its ancient journey through its solar system. The moon that danced in its pull seemed like a child clinging to its apron strings, a miniature version of the parent planet.

Already, Flash felt a strong connection to it, and felt that his choice had been somehow predetermined, and not just a random selection from billions upon billions of options. Factoring into this feeling, no doubt, was its appearance. Vast stretches of rich blue ocean were juxtaposed against continents of every shade of green and brown. The whole of it was wrapped in a lace of cloud, resembling Flash’s own dear home.

As the Mother Ship approached, Flash was able to make out great mountain ranges, vast deserts, sweeping forests and plains. Its poles appeared to be encased in ice.

Josh Rice (Krate Azimuth), Jeremy Chase (Ash Lander) and Tim Young (Flash Meridian) reunited on the happy occasion of Jeremy’s wedding to Plamena Zhivkova Staeva.

69 Cosmos

Looking out through light years of space to planets and stars visible in this particular corner of the universe, Flash realized as never before that he was not a visitor here. Not really. The atoms that formed his very body originated here. Animated stardust. He was bits of this, come back to look at the universe that helped him to become real.

On Earth, he had always thought of space as being “out there”. All of man’s history had unfolded within the fragile bubble of a tiny planet. As wonderful and intimate as Earth was, out here, his perspective on it had changed.

Everything was changing. Some things changed quicker than others. Galaxies spread out like lawns of summer grass. Earth floated like a soap bubble blown by a child. Floating beautifully in a sparkling dance until it can no longer sustain itself.

To Flash, this was not a sad thought, but made his home and his very life all the more precious. This would never happen again. This view and himself. Everything would change. It would be spectacular, but this moment Flash found himself in was unique.

He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know the source of the music. It didn’t matter.

He lived in this moment and saw it as the point of a pencil on a page. The story had not been completed, so he was content to ride the rising and falling, the curling graphite line that scratched his life onto the paper of the cosmos.

From early childhood, Flash had been taught that everything was still here. Everything that ever was, still was… Expanding out like ripples, further and further into the universe. Looking up from Earth to the glow of stars was to look back in time. The twinkle he saw had traveled so many light years that the light that reached him may have been from a star that had long since been extinguished. The further out you looked, the further back in time you saw.

He thought again of his life as a story written on the pages of time.

When you reach the end of a book, the first chapter still sits at the at the beginning where you left it. If you turn back enough pages, you can still see it there where you left it to follow the words, allowing the story to unfold.

Traveling in the direction of the expansion, you would go back through time. If he went against the flow, would he then see the future?

Flash Meridian’s mind raced as he gazed out at the immensity of the universe, contemplating its characteristics and their ramifications. It was too vast for him to comprehend, and he again felt like a grain of sand trying to comprehend the totality of all the beaches in the world. He moved with it, even as he moved through it. One thing he knew. It was beautiful.

Looking at the spray of heavenly bodies that shimmered like bubbles in a bottomless sea, it was impossible to choose one to visit. To pick one would mean rejecting all the others. And yet without the intimacy of a visit he would never truly know any of them. Not in a tangible way. Not in a human way. And so he was conflicted.

On the path of life, we constantly make choices. We choose one option over another, hoping we are doing the right or best thing. Big choices that decide a career, a life mate, a philosophy. And small things like what to eat or how to spend an afternoon. But the cumulative effect is us. Who we are. And so Flash felt he must make a decision.

That twisting path of life’s decisions over time certainly feels like a winding road! Unexpected events seem to throw us off track, and we are forced to regroup. Disappointments and opportunities lead us to major life changes. We seem to lose our way.

But then we look in our rear view mirror, and see a straight path. Those rejected scenarios were never really options at all. They were never meant to be. There was only one journey that would result in you or me.

68 Murmur

As always, the mother ship clicked and beeped.  Its various components calculated, circulated, navigated, and transmitted.  He had become familiar with all of the subtle sounds emanating from the equipment.  With no human companions sharing his journey, the ship itself provided a conversation of sorts. The clicking of the K. D. head was like a metronome which kept time for a symphony of tones that not only informed Flash about the operation of the ship, it entertained him as well. At times it sang him lullabies, and at other times it warned him of impending danger.

Gradually Flash became aware of something different. A new sound whispered within the familiar heartbeat of the ship. A murmur so subtle that to become aware of it was to realize that one had been hearing it for some time.

  Short bursts of static breathed within the mechanical song. When he focused his attention on it, it would disappear, but when he was concentrating on something else, he would become aware of it.  Like silent eyes staring from a blackened window or a star so faint you had to look to one side to see it at all, he knew it was there.  An echo of an echo, a dream within a dream.

  The tiny ship bulleted through frictionless space, and Flash Meridian was haunted by the ghostly sound within his metallic cocoon.

While reading, he would often find himself staring blankly at the wall listening for it. It always seemed to recede as though trying to taunt him.

He was less concerned than curious.

  He passed through several periods of sleeping and waking before there was a noticeable change.

  The sound had become more obvious, and it reminded Flash of something… But what?  It’s character was different than the other sounds he heard. It was mechanical and yet organic at the same time.  Almost like…  the sound was like…  bits of voices from an AM transistor radio that is not tuned to a station.

Time passed, though Flash’s perception of time changed dramatically when he was between planets. Out where there is no day and no night, it wasn’t dark. The blackness of the backdrop was illuminated like a Christmas display. Some of these twinkling lights were actually galaxies that were hundreds of thousands of light years across. Billions of them hung there in apparent nothingness. Billions upon billions more were clouded from his view by space dust.

He sped along at a relative snail’s pace, insignificant in comparison to the heavenly bodies surrounding him. He was significant for the life force that animated him and allowed him to see and feel small.

With this vague and obsolete passage of time, the new sound within his ship grew.

Flash enjoyed sailing the uncharted expanse of space. Everything he could ask for was his for the taking. He was never interrupted, never disturbed. This was both a blessing and a curse. He craved companionship.

He and the K.D. head played games of strategy and skill, and this helped to keep his mind sharp. He came to see the automaton as a living individual, and he came to love her ever-changing facial expressions and her heartbeat of mechanical clicks.

The more he interacted with the flashing, elongated sphere, the more of his own nuance was incorporated into the software. He was aware of this phenomenon, yet he found comfort in it none the less.

The system contained a vast amount of human history in the form of music, literature, science, art and culture.

What had once seemed an almost limitless inventory, he now saw as one shallow exhalation of a fragile, distant planet. It was beautiful, like one glint of sunlight off of a droplet of seawater in the history of a vast ocean. Here and gone again in the blink of an eye.

Sad? Perhaps. But precious and rare.

He now represented all Earthlings on his voyage into the unknown.

The sound grew more and more pronounced, and Flash was, at last, able to track it to a speaker above the control panel. It did not come from his ship at all, but was transmitted from elsewhere.

He fine tuned the receiver until the transmission was clear. It was music. Organized sound pulsed through the cockpit, and Flash smiled. He was not alone.

67 Tailored

Flash relaxed, knowing that he once again had everything that he needed. Beyond the scope of physical needs, he had encountered kindness at every stop along his journey.

Before leaving Earth, he had envisioned the universe as empty, cold and hostile.  He wasn’t sure whether he would encounter life anywhere, though he did find it unlikely that in all this space, only Earth would be inhabited. 

Not only was there life, there was kind, generous and protective life. And he had barely scratched the surface.

  His mind went back to conversations he had had with Ash Lander about the limitless possibilities of infinite space.

  As he gazed out at the star studded black curtain, he did not feel “out there” at all.  The universe was his home.  Sure, he was from Earth, but Earth was so far away.  He didn’t even know in what direction he would find it, if it were even visible from here.

He missed his friends, Ash and K.D.  He had not intended to make this journey alone.  But plans change. He had come to accept that.  This proved to be a valuable tool out here in uncharted space.

The table of elements offered him anything he wished for. It could assemble a gold ring, diamonds or designer clothing just as easily as it could prepare him supper. But what good were those things?  He had no one to impress. And so he asked for his favorite things. A latte and a biscotti, and he sat back once again and buried his toes in the soft black pelt on the floor.

The aroma of pure, rich coffee filled the cockpit, and Flash reached for the Ololian book.

Every time he opened it, it seemed different. He read details that he had not noticed before, and so he never grew tired of it.

The book, like the entire universe, held messages of hope and possibility. How could Buffy and Skip have misinterpreted it?  Or could the message somehow be tailored to the reader?

Flash Meridian bobbed along for a while at the surface of the ocean. He watched the antics of the whales while he gathered his thoughts.  Whales had become significant in his life lately, beginning with the ones that burst out of Olo’s crust, and then in the mysterious caves of the ice age planet. Now here he was again, surrounded by them.

There was something else here that Flash was enjoying. The sunlight was intense, and he longed to open the windows and breathe the warm fresh air.  The waves rolled over the ship in foaming crests and gentle swells, so he absorbed the rays through the glass. The rocking motion of the ship was relaxing, and his mind wandered off. 

His priority remained finding plant material that could be disassembled and used to replenish the table of elements.

His computer scanned the sea floor. He was looking for shallow water where photosynthesis could occur.

The pod of whales moved on and the sea became calm.

When an alarm beeped, he couldn’t be sure whether it had awakened him from sleep or not.  It alerted him to a smooth sea floor below, and Flash dove again beneath the water.

  A sand bar stretched as far as he could see, and he glided along above its barren expanse.

  The water refracted the light, projecting it in ribbons across the sand and through the cockpit.

Then something else came into view. It was the mer creature from the spires, though Flash did not recognize him at first. He looked like a green cloud. As he came closer, he resembled a submerged island, and finally, someone carrying a large quantity of foliage toward him.

He stopped in front of the TNI2, and held the swaying bundle of seaweed out before him like an offering.

Flash was grateful and remotely opened the deck of the rear storage compartment.  The creature placed the stalks into the compartment and swam up to Flash’s window. Flash and the sea person were only inches from each other, and once again looked into one others’ eyes.

How could Flash say thank you?  He longed to communicate, but all he could think to do was to place his palm against the glass. The creature did the same, placing his palm against Flash’s, separated by a pane of invisible glass.  His fingers were much longer than Flash’s, and the suction cups at his fingertips adhered to the window.

  “Thank you,” he said. The creature only stared back with huge, unblinking eyes.

That he understood the request at all was so amazing that Flash could only believe that he understood this message as well.

When the cups eventually released and the creature swam away again, Flash pointed the ship upward and accelerated.

The ship burst out of the sea and rose into the air, climbing higher and higher.

By the time he docked the pod onto the mother ship, most of the seaweed had been digested and incorporated into the life support system. The table of elements was replenished with pure separated molecules of every kind known to man. 

65 Spires

Waves of multi-colored light streamed through the windows of the ship.

Flash could make out something that looked like a peak of coral reef in the distance, so he dove deeper, heading toward it.

The purple spires loomed and Flash searched for seaweed. The submerged mountain peak was littered with sea stars.

The forms were reminiscent of Olo’s towering features. They were beautiful, but he could see no signs of plant life.

As Flash scrutinized the watery terrain, something impacted his ship, violently jostling it. A long appendage reached across the window, attaching itself with suction cups. He glanced around and surmised that a huge cephalopod had the TNI2 in its grasp.

He could not propel the ship out of its grip.

How long might it hold him before it realized the ship was inedible? Then it occurred to Flash that octopi feed on crabs, clams and snails. In other words, they are adept at breaking through hard shells to get at the meat inside. A creature of this size might be able to breach the fuselage of the ship with its enormous beak, so he decided to take action. He simply activated the force field, stunning the animal. It recoiled, releasing the ship, and slunk away, camouflaging itself within the reef to recover.

“Sorry about that,” Flash said softly, mindful of the fact that he was a guest here.

He continued on his quest for large seaweeds, but kept watch on the area for other predators that could pose a threat.

Something was moving among the tall formations, not wanting to be seen. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was. It was about the size of a porpoise or other small whale, but more fishlike.

He rounded a pillar, following it.

The creature he saw there was humanoid from mid-torso up, with a few obvious differences. Its skin was green, and there was definitely something fishy about his face… his large unblinking eyes, ear flaps on the sides of his head and gills on his neck. His fingertips widened into suction cups like a tree frog. From the waist down, it looked like a fish.

Its huge round eyes gave it an expression of perpetual surprise. Flash and the creature locked eyes, and Flash wished he could communicate with it.

It seemed as curious about Flash as he was about it, and he was glad it did not swim away.

He turned his computer screen toward it, displaying images of seaweed.

The creature looked wide eyed at the monitor and then turned and swam away. Flash watched as it disappeared into the distance, and then ascended from the sea floor. He rose from deep blue into lighter water when his sonar picked up something approaching his ship. It was actually a signal he had seen not too long before. Soon, he was surrounded by a pod of whales that rose with him to the surface.

64 Rainbow

Flash examined the earthenware vessel. It was simple, functional and beautiful.  It was glazed with natural minerals and appeared to be fired at an extremely high temperature.  This was a perfectly functional container. Part of it’s beauty came from imperfections in the glaze. Solidified drips were captured permanently by fire, and in one spot, sharp edges were left by a bubble that exploded in the intense heat. 

The object raised more questions than answers for Flash.

Who had made this?  And when?  How long had it been encapsulated in the ancient ice, and how did it get there?  Was anyone left from the race that created it?

It was hard for Flash to picture a kiln, burning red hot on that frozen planet. There were trees for fuel. He held the evidence in his hand, and reveled in the mystery. 

The depletion of elements due to the gift of lettuce was a serious issue, and needed to be dealt with as soon as possible.  Flash no longer had the luxury of a joyride through space, but desperately needed to find a planet with plant life. 

The table of elements had been designed as a closed system, where nothing left, but was continuously complete and rearranged. Restoring balance was critical for his survival. 

He set a course for another blue sphere orbiting a star ahead of him, and began scanning it for signs of life. It was surrounded by a delicate bubble of atmosphere, and below that, a planet-wide ocean of salt water. 

No continents interrupted the expanse of turquoise blue, but Flash was undaunted in his planetary selection. He knew that Earth’s oceans contained great forests of kelp, and his ship was airtight and durable.

He sat back in his chair with his cup and the Ololian book and nestled his toes into the deep wooly rug he had brought back from the ice age forest of his latest excursion. 

Soon, gravity held the mother ship  in orbit. The heavily clouded sky suggested evaporation and warmth, so Flash once again boarded the TNI2 and released it from its mooring. 

The pod fell away from the gleaming ship, and Flash skimmed the invisible border of the bubble before penetrating it and entering the thin air. He dropped through cloud layers into denser and denser gas.

Finally, his spacecraft plunged into the sea. A great splash of shining water burst in the air, and the TNI2 was immersed in the bubbling brine. 

The bubbles quickly rose back to the surface and the view cleared. Shafts of dancing light pierced the water, and Flash found himself floating through a liquid rainbow. 

63 Cup

As the hatch opened, the sound of the clicking K. D. head welcomed Flash back to the mother ship.  He gathered his cold weather gear from the TNI2, and grasped the handle of the bucket which he had almost forgotten about since he left the cave.

Emblazoned across the screen, Flash could see the brilliant blue and white planet he had just left.

This seemingly hostile place had held surprises and insights that Flash could scarcely have imagined.  While he had felt that he had chosen this place, he was now convinced that it had chosen him. 

He dropped his outerwear to the cockpit deck and turned his attention to the bucket.  Only a small amount of water remained, and Flash lifted the stone into the light.  This was no ordinary rock. It had been hollowed out to form a cup or deep bowl. Looking at it, Flash could see that this had been intentionally formed.

What unexplored mysteries had that planet held?  Intelligent life. Kindness. Compassion.  Mystery.

Flash looked out at the vast expanse of space.  If this tiny blue speck could contain so much significance, then an infinite universe was too much to bear. 

He was faced, as never before, with the reality that he was nothing more than a grain of sand on an unending beach.  Rather than making him feel insignificant, Flash celebrated being a part of something so beautiful.

He was the lucky one, having been given the opportunity to travel outside of his own solar system to see what lay beyond.

The infinite blackness felt both unfathomable and intimate at the same time, and Flash realized that wherever he went, he would be home.

The cup he held in his hand was symmetrical and smooth. Scratched into the bottom of it were marks that he could not read, an anonymous signature.  It might as well have been Flash’s own name because of the connection he felt with it.

He clasped the cup to his chest, and gazed upon the blue planet’s ice floes and seas from his refuge above.  He loved this place. 

He could not watch as the mother ship broke from it’s gravitational pull, but turned away from the screen still clutching the cup to his heart. 

62 Warm PlanetFlash was relieved to be alive, and thrilled to be able to interact with these ice age mammals.  The bitter wind picked up and his hands and feet were going numb. He knew he could not survive much longer out here. Still, he found it difficult to pull himself away. 

He had always envisioned Earth’s prehistoric ages as violent and barbaric. But perhaps there was more to the story. Of course prey had to be killed for the survival of predators. That was still true, and man had become the most ruthless killer of all.  But Flash had also seen friendship between species.  Cats and dogs curled up in a ball together on couches, and even kindness between cats and birds.  Perhaps those relationships had their roots in a history like this one.  He walked back toward his ship with one hand on the withers of a saber toothed tiger, and the other grasped by the prehensile trunk of a wooly mammoth. 

Upon reaching the TNI2, Flash stooped to say goodbye to his other-worldly companions. He opened the hatch and boarded the ship. The beasts looked on as the door closed. 

The interior of the ship was warm, and Flash leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. He pulled off his boots and gloves, and his hands and feet burned. The pain was excruciating, and all Flash could do was to wait it out. 

Flash awoke to darkness. The control panel glowed softly, filling the cockpit with green light.  The pain had all but subsided.  The entire landscape was enveloped in blackness, so Flash turned on the exterior lights. 

There in the yellow glow, he saw a ring of mammoths forming a circle around him, protecting him as he slept. 

For all the bitter cold, this had proved to be a very warm planet.

 He had slept soundly, shielded from unknown danger by a ring of mammoth hearts.  

The ship lifted off, and Flash gazed down on them, wanting to repay their kindness. 

He called upon the table of elements and ordered a large shipment of lettuce, which dropped from the hatch on the underside of the ship. He would just have to find a green planet where he could replenish the molecules. 

With that, Flash Meridian headed up, up, up until the stars burned brightly, unencumbered by atmosphere.

The homing device drew him directly to the mother ship, and Flash was home. 

During his time away, the ship’s computer had mapped the entire planet and stored the information for eventual transmission back to Earth. 

For Flash, returning home was always the best part of any trip. He had everything he needed right here, but he had begun to feel that even the most inhospitable place could feel like home.