Heat Death

Author : William Tracy

Call me Sarah. That was my name, in one of my lives.

I have the memories of many lives in me, you know. Male and female, old and young, short and tall, light and dark, human and not human. Presidents and ditch diggers, starship captains and desk jockeys.

I know I don’t look the part. A glittering biocomputer smaller than your fist, studded with tiny vernier thrusters, suspended on a web of particle collectors stretching ten meters across, drifting through the void around a fading star.

Buissard ramjets used to ply this space, you know. Vast electromagnetic fields funneled the interstellar hydrogen into the gaping maw of the furnaces driving the fusion engines.

That was eons ago. The ramjets are gone now. So is the hydrogen. Now I’m alone.

The universe is dying. As the universe expanded, the stars drifted apart until the heavens were emptied of their glittering grains of light. Heat death is setting in as the stars run out of fuel, and everything settles to the same temperature. I now cling to a failing sun, scraping what energy I can from its death throes.

It is a depressing way for everything to end.

But I remember why I am here. I am here to remember. I remember what no one else is left to remember. I remember hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows. I remember failures and triumphs, love and hate.

Humanity will not have lived in vain as long as someone is left to remember. I will live as long as I can, so I can remember. This is my task.

I will remember you.