Nano Bytes - A Collection of Short SciFi Stories

moondust, by lexgrayson

The observatory is black when he slips inside, the kind of darkness that seeps into your veins and blankets all it touches.

The kind of darkness that he once loved.

He hates it, now.

Flipping the light switch is an automatic action, and he fills the metallic dome with dim burgundy glow.

Each step is loud in the silence, echoing off the catwalk and bouncing from wall to wall. The canvas sack he carries digs into his bare shoulder, rubbing raw at the exposed skin.

It drops with a clank as he places it on the desk.

Seven more steps, and he pulls the lever that splits the the universe open.

The observatory peels open, the mechanisms noisy from disuse, and he flinches at the rust of it all.

And then it's over for a brief moment, before he rotates the structure into place, the floor shifting beneath his already unsteady feet.

Everything grinds to a halt, and sounds of the night fill his ears, a symphony of life.

He takes seven steps back to the desk, opens the upper cabinet to reach for a logbook, and they fall.

The pill bottle tumbles to the floor and cracks open, medicine clattering across the catwalk.

His ribcage collapses at the sight, lungs falling flat as he loses his breath to pain, and then his knees go, and he's down among the tiny blue capsules.

ground control to Major Tom

take your protein pills and put your helmet on

For a moment, he can see her there, curls frizzy in the humidity, haloed silver by the moon, and everything just

hurts.

He chokes on a sob, fingernails digging into palms hard enough to draw blood.

Tom hated those pills.

He staggers upright, capsules crushed by his weight, powdering his knees and fingers, and scrapes out a chair, drops bonelessly onto the icy metal.

He opens the sack, takes out the empty helmet with trembling hands, remembers

hearing the endless beep

hearing the life

her life

stop.

ground control to Major Tom

your circuit's dead, there's something wrong

can you hear me, Major Tom?

Warmth is streaming down his face, and he can't remember when it started. He wipes the salt from his eyes, clutches the helmet deep into his chest.

can you hear me, Major Tom?

Bending over the scope, he stares into the face of Luna, stares at Tom because she's out there now.

can you?

He'd made his plea without fanfare, without press, and it had been miraculously granted.

though I'm past one hundred thousand miles

I'm feeling very still

and I think my spaceship knows which way to go

His phone chimed softly, screen lighting up to show two simple words.

it's done.

And he stared at the moon, at the battered, cratered surface, at her ashes.

His Tomlin is moondust now.

here am I

floating 'round my tin can

far

above the moon

Planet Earth is blue

and there's nothing

I can

do