Sunday, July 29, 2012

Nebula quickwrite

This is just a few words I wrote from the point of view of a deep-space explorer seeing a star system out the window of his ship. I've been playing around with sections of prose awash in decadent detail. I'm not sure I succeeded, but it's a start.


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Even a dead star can light up your sky. This one did so with vision; little white dwarf. The tendrils of purple gas clouds curled tenderly around their mother. From one angle they wrapped her remains in the folds of a burial shroud, thankful. From another angle, horrid tentacles gripped to drag her to an unmarked grave. And she hummed her nebulous children to sleep. What a song! The low rumble like an earthquake under lilting cries and warbles. It reminded me of whale song. Had I heard whale song? Perhaps in my childhood, but those creatures paled, anemic, in the face of this violet sepulcher in front of me. There were times in my journey when I was faced with such majesty that I thought of finally stopping. My eyes would flick to the airlock. It wouldn’t take much to just open the windows on my little ship. I could float out without regret and make this system my home. Space is funny like that. Nothing ever really dies. This system was both dying and just being born. From different angles, you could say. My own heart is just an engine made from the remnants of a dying star. I’d just be going home. Home...


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There you have it, post number fourteen. (approach with trepidation)