Picnics on the Rings of Saturn
By Alex East
The dark blanket wrapped around me, everywhere. Completely inescapable. But the dark blanket was pierced with tiny holes, exposing little white dots, contrasting the opaque surrounding. It was space. The Universe before me was as menacing as a childhood nightmare.
Sixty-three planetary satellites rotated around the behemoth of an astronomical body before me; and I had become the sixty-fourth addition to the illustrious band of moons along its fat belt. I was within the rings, between them and the planet. From the inside, it looked a giant rotating sawblade, capable of removing planets from existence and history.
The halcyon surface was a captivating marvel; the mesmeric storms on the poles and the xanthous colour of the body. I'd stopped spinning now and I could fully appreciate this God before. I could only assume the others were not seeing what I was seeing, but it didn't matter now; only twelve minutes of my life remained.
I don't remember what depressurised the ship, I only remember seeing the others become enveloped inside the dust and ice of the rings. I, was lucky in an ambiguous way. Lucky to be alive, but unlucky in the sense that I was now waiting for my oxygen supplies to become depleted. But I couldn't've been in a better place to spend my final minutes. It didn't matter that my wife and children would have to suffer hearing about the deaths of my crewmates and I. It didn't matter that I wouldn't return home and sip fine Mexican beer again. And it didn't matter that I never finished my novel. In the face of such an adversity, I had entered a sort of coma. A divine coma, in which I would never wake. I was all too willing to drop everything I was familiar with and join forever the rings of Saturn.
Everything in my body became brittle and soft, like a block of cheese left out in the summer heat. I was lightheaded and I was faced away from the Sun. I suddenly realised my insignificance amongst the Universal scheme of all, and in a way it was welcoming.
"Ah, I'm nearly home. I'm nearly home," My words echoed inside my helmet, no one or nothing was ever going to hear them. I closed my eyes: "I'm nearly home," I checked the oxygen gauge on my wrist and sighed neutrally. "Five minutes... five minutes."
I floated there, completely still, with every breath shortening my lifespan slowly. In the time I pondered several theories about life after death, a concept which scared me all too much when I was living life without the threat of death looming in front of me. I didn't want to be in heaven; I didn't belong there. If there was a heaven in fact, I would leave and go somewhere. In fact, ever since childhood I had dreamt, that after death, I would be left floating around the Final Frontier, in solace. Now, with the supposed threat of death near, I started to wonder what if I was already dead. Perhaps, when the ship I exploded, subconsciously I chose. I chose to reject the pearly gates and instead chose to float around space for eternity.
The zero mark hit, and it felt as if a thousand arms slowly curled around my body, and dragged me backwards into the gaping jaws of Saturn. I closed my eyes and felt a bitter frost encompass my body. It was like I was stepping in some galactic ocean and the cold water was setting off warnings at each sensitive zone. Then, I felt like I had transgressed some human barrier and felt completely at ease with my pain. I opened my eyes. I had not shifted location. I was still above Saturn. But I was free to move around, and breathe like I had once on Earth, all those years ago. I whispered to myself over and over:
"I am home."