1.0
The very same weightlessness that once seemed so liberating has now become utterly toxic. That there is gravity in nothing here—that all is in a constant and furious state of flux (hurried ‘how are you’s’ and awkward quiverings of the lips)—is the root cause of this unusual depression.
1.1
In the canteen Lt. S---- prepares frozen berries for a late night snack. She offers me some in a bowl at the end of one slender, feline limb. I gratefully accept a few and I sit there, talking and talking. Nothing lost, nothing gained.
Eventually, I take one encrusted raspberry from the bowl and its inky juice stains my thumb and index finger. I begin to chew and taste only a trickle of sweetness. I try to savor the little that is there.
My patience at an end, I take another, and mash the bloody blue-black currant between my freezing teeth. I look towards S----, who has her back turned, and I watch with shameful attention the way that she prepares the fruit. She turns now, and I let my guilty gaze wander over the comfortless furniture of the place. I glance back, and for a single moment it seems to me that there is more than a little of Mother Nature left to us still. It is like a sleeping lion, or a panther waiting to pounce, and for a short while I can feel something stir inside of me. My heart begins to beat to a faraway drum.
The ruins of life are there. Somewhere, buried in a heap at the bottom of some Marianas Trench, it lurks undetected. Only, time is of the essence. A spring is pressed between two great providential fingers, and when will they let go?
…TRANSMISSION ENDS.
"After the Gold Rush" (Neil Young Cover) - Thom Yorke
This is very good.
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