Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Closure

Admiral Vir stood at the gravestone wind whipping past his hare as he stared down at the cold white rock sticking up from the ground. It was early autumn, and the leaves were already beginning to change: their gradients morphing from vibrant green to orange red and yellow. Even so, the wind was slightly chilled cutting through him and out across the graveyard where other gravestones pocked pale white from the ground like sun dried bones.

Dr. Krill was forced to hold onto his jacket in order not to blow away, and he was not having it.

"Why are we here."

A leaf blew past in the wind, catching and updraft before spiraling down to the ground to land against the front of the headstone where a name was inscribed.

Captain Everett Malaney

3975-4020

Don't block the path, but clear the trail

So others may walk where you have – Bernthal

Under their feet lay the body of a man who had died under horrific circumstances, and to his own hand. He stared down at his fingers now remembering the feeling of bone breaking under his hands, the smell of blood.

He took a deep breath.

At his side Waffles, whined and pawed at his leg. He reached down to pat her on the head, "It's ok girl, its ok.

She whimpered again and rested her head back down on his foot.

"You still haven't answered my question." The wind was kicking up and Krill was getting crankier by the second. He tended to do that when adverse weather condition appeared, and anything outside of a balm 68-82 degrees, sunny and windless was generally considered adverse weather.

"We are here to pay our respects." He said softly, kneeling before the grave and brushing dust from the smooth white stone.

The bodies, as in all the bodies they could identify, had been individually wrapped in body bags, frozen and transported back to earth. There had been some talk about refurbishing and then recommissioning the ship, but that talk had slowly died away. No one wanted to fly it after knowing what had happened there so it had been deconstructed, melted and used for spare parts in mining equipment on some off world planet.

The only memory of the people who died on that ship remained in small grassy meadows like this one, surrounded by fences and watched over by stone angels with sightless eyes. He stood up slowly his legs stiff and achy with the cold. The grass below his feet had already started to turn brown, and the graveyard looked more like a set dressing for some gaudy Halloween movie than it did a place of reverence.

A church bell clattered in the distance, and he turned his head to look at the little stone building . The ground were mostly empty accept for a distant groundskeeper ranking leaves on the front lawn. Adam, finished with Krill's wining urged him into the containment tube where the heat would be more to his liking and set off on foot down the sidewalk. Due to the closing of Captain Everett's records, he was unable to find his exact street address, though he knew it was in the neighborhood around which he was buried.

In an old photo of him from an obituary, he did recognize a house, and a very identifiable tree.

He had all day and nothing else to do.

His ship was being serviced on the Lunar station. Of course he could have taken a shuttle and spent a few days at his townhouse on the moon, but after visiting his siter, he felt this was something he needed to do.

He found himself walking for a few hours, searching for the house, but tending to drift absentmindedly as he walked sometimes looking up to realize he had walked the last few blocks without noticing forced to double back and start over.