Author: Ernesto Sanchez
I never thought I would ever hear my father’s voice again. Pitying my aimless life, he handed me this job decades ago, a post so simple a witless robot could do with ease.
The monotony is the most difficult part; log every disturbed visitor entering my assigned black hole. The visitors are disintegrated in short order. It’s the farewell bridge for those patient enough to travel light years merely for a poetic end. Some believe they will be transported into another dimension, but most use these coordinates as a gateway to oblivion. Blue collar miners, trillionaires, diplomats, even a former president of the United Colonies of Sol took the plunge.
Few know I can tap into their spaceship radios as they approach from my monitoring station. “It’s beautiful,” many say, before the pain and anguish of disintegration alters their perspectives. Some even manage to quote the ancient classics; Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Kafka…far too much Kafka.
His raspy voice caught me by surprise, barely recognizable after decades apart. “I’m sorry Martha, Arina,” he said softly of my mother and sister moments before the spiral would swallow him. He didn’t even remember the son he abandoned in the depth of space, seconds from the point of no return.
This is completely against protocol. Dare I? I wipe decades of dust from the microphone abandoned on the floor. “Father? It’s me. Your son. I’m watching you from the nearby moon. I love you.” His small transport ship slowed down, silent. Yet it didn’t yet turn back, a period of indecision that sent a chill into my bones. “Remember when you sent me away? I did it willingly, for you. Perhaps you will return the favor, and let me see you one more time.” For an instant, I thought he was turning around.
“Goodbye son,” the black hole whispered back, emotionless.
I watched frozen as his ship convulsed into a helix, a daily yet ever-astonishing occurrence. Every inch closer to the singularity caused a convulsing shock in my veins, a metamorphosis of inexplicable proportions. My cells were rewriting themselves, quantum-entangled with his descent, becoming someone I’d never been.
It was over soon enough. I saw myself break open the emergency glass. I saw myself press the big red button, the one you are never supposed to press. Part of me wanted to return to civilization. But another part wanted to follow right behind him.