Collision

The tragic story of humanity thwarting what was meant to be and reaping the consequences.

Every thought, every color, every sensation, every sound... all are derived from a complex chain of electrical impulses firing off from our brain. Our continual existence on this planet is established by electromagnetic sparks firing on a membrane, dazzlingly complex in their arrangement, eternally elusive in their connection with the consciousness that forms our very soul. Sparks abound everywhere in the world, yet for some reason, the sparks on a brain are connected to a soul. 

If were were a completely different type of being, would we ever guess that electromagnetism would have such an effect? 

In space, stars collect from the residue of nebulae and burn brilliantly until their fuel depletes and they blink out and explode or collapse in celestial demise. Our brain is a network of neurons firing off every moment, and our galaxy is a network of stars collapsing and forming over millions of years. The scale of time and size is completely different, but for all we know, the purposes could be quite similar.

I had that thought as the final day began--the final day of us. I shrugged it off as folly. I now regret that decision.

Over the eons, our Milky Way galaxy came closer and closer to the Andromeda galaxy. Since the twenty-first century, we knew we were on a collision course, and when our technology became dependent on the galaxy's architecture, we knew we could no longer let the collision happen if we wished to sustain our current state of living. We would use a device centuries in the making to send Andromeda back across the known universe and save our civilization. In doing something so gargantuan and so monumental, we would forever place our blueprint on the universe in the largest scale, and there was never any question in our minds as to whether or not it was the right thing to do.

On that day,  the device was ready to operate. The only thing left to do was go to the edge of the Milky Way and perform the operation, even as the great belts and star-clusters of Andromeda already covered our night sky.

Both of us left together on that vessel in the cold morning. The power-lines in the atmosphere couldn't distract us from the beautiful clouds of the natural world for one second. I still remember how you looked on that day: your blue jumpsuit shimmering under the light of your solar wings, your silver headset surrounded by bangs of dark hair. I reflect on it often, and it brings me to tears.

"So..." you said, smiling. "You've got nothing to say to me?"

"Um, I'm not quite sure why I'd need to say anything. We are going to send a galaxy across the universe so it's out of our back yard permanently, Clarissa. How exactly could I put words to that?"

You grabbed the tips of my hands. "You can come up with something.."

"Really, I don't talk much on missions."

"You're not leading 20 men to go re-ignite a star today," you said. "You're just here with me."

I had a wedding ring in my pocket. I don't know if you noticed it, but you gave no indications of doing so.

We sat for a while and talked in the window-room, watching the stars trail past like long streams of light as we sped toward our goal. Eventually, our conversation hit a silent spot.

I sat back and had my second vague and inexplicable thought for the day: every macroscopic creature on earth lived a meager life and then died, their entire lives seeming to center around reproduction with another being. If you take a step back and cast aside all our thoughts and preconceptions about it, sexual reproduction is such a strange thing. Two beings coming together to form one. Who would think up that idea? Why was it so common in nature? Why did it seem such a strong candidate for the meaning of life, at the very least for all those creatures whose lives revolved around it? My attraction for you was far than just sexual, but the mere fact that I had any type of romantic connection with you was a testament to that same rule, that two beings would be drawn together and then their lives would have a sort of fulfilment they would never feel otherwise.

I simply thought only organic life had this purpose. I did not realize even in the slightest that it could apply to other things.

Just as bacteria looking up at us would see something completely alien, we look at a galaxy and see nothing more than a collection of stars. It was my arrogance as a human being to shun the idea that there were things too great for me to comprehend, that Andromeda and the Milky Way may have been drawn together for more reasons than simple gravity.

The purpose of life... love. That is what we destroyed forever on that day, a love far greater than anything we could imagine. I'm sure of it; there is no other reason for a vengeance so harsh and so great to be inflicted on both of us.

The machine was calibrated to send Andromeda to a place far beyond the edge of the observable universe. As we both began the countdown, that was exactly what it was poised to do. I took the ring from my pocket and prepared to show it to you the moment the light-show began... but when the machine finally activated, the galaxy was gone, and so were you.

How could I have not noticed? Your entire half of the ship was beyond the boundary-line, and it was swept up along with the galaxy. I survived the trip back to earth... but I had to live from that moment on knowing that you were now farther away from me, from all of us, than I could possibly imagine.

Maybe you're out there somewhere. That's what I think as I cry in my bed at night. Yet the intangible and truly twisted thing is I have done the same thing to a thing... a being... that is so far beyond our comprehension. The collision which was forever meant to be, and our love that was forever meant to be, was broken by the hands of human beings who knew not what they unleashed.

I send this message out to you. Maybe it will reach you some day, millions of years from now, like the millions of years it took for Andromeda to spiral toward her bridegroom to be.

Reviews

[snaprabbit]

2nd paragraph, typo - "were were", should be "we were"?

"Final day of us" - good hook for the reader. I like the opening. :)

The dialogue is a little rocky, when the main character talks about moving the galaxy. You need to bring across the enormity of this undertaking and right now it sounds quite matter-of-fact. I think contracting it a little and using body language would help, i.e. "Clarissa, we're about to try and fling a galaxy twelve million light years across the cosmos." I looked at you. "What am I supposed to say?"

Another typo (or maybe copy/paste issue) - "was far than just sexual" -> [was far more than]

The end twist needs a little bit of explanation. I have hard time swallowing that the main character could make that big a mistake with something this important. Maybe have some kind of reason that isn't just him being careless. The awesome scale of this makes that segment, at least to me, not fit very well.

Last two paragraphs are really nice though, and I like the parallels drawn between love and colliding galaxy. I'm a sucker for big scale Science Fiction and overall, really enjoyed this.

See you around!

Jamie.

[Michael Moss]

Hey Jamie, thank you very much for the constructive review. I think the main thing I've learned from what you pointed out, which is actually rather glaring now that I look at it from the right perspective, is that I need to put myself in my characters' shoes more.

It's a pretty big, heart-pounding deal if you do something like demolishing an old building. How utterly heart-pounding would it be to transfer the position of a galaxy to the opposite side of the known Universe, which no human feat has remotely come close to? For some reason, in focusing on casual dialogue, I overlooked that fact. A good deal of narrative strength could be gained by the reader focusing more on the impending gravity of what is going to happen in a positive sense, so they are caught more by surprise when the tragedy occurs.

For a bit of explanation, my idea was that the galaxy itself interfered with the ship's bearings, unable to destroy it but able at least to screw with its autopilot and position the two lovers to be severed permanently. I included an explanation originally, but with the last few paragraphs flowing directly into each other, I found that it broke the flow for me to inject one.

I don't see what's stopping me from going back and trying to improve the story, now that you've pointed these things out. In the meantime, you were a big help, and I appreciate the fact that someone was considerate enough to read my story and comment on it.

Thank you! :D