Dating : The Drifter Who Saw the Universe Die

I’m drifting amid an ancient vacuum, untethered from the safety of my ship, and falling fast into the center of an astrophysical anomaly.

All I know about the creature is that it catches light in its gravitational maw, but beyond its tenebrous teeth, laws begin to break.

I’m guided into this darkness with a dim candle of theory.

The thermal shield of the cockpit window glints with the reddish glow of a nearby galaxy. It’s a warped reflection of star clusters, and it’s getting further and further as I fall — fall into uncertainty.

The ship at first grew further — and fast. But it’s size is no longer changing.

The quietude of empty space, until now, I hadn’t quite appreciated. My hard breathing, which hissed inside my helmet, and the thuds of my heart against the suit are audible — but something is happening. As if the vacuum of space seeps through my visor, these sounds are being slowly silenced.

All senses but my mind, and my vision through my visor, are muted. Still the ship drifts with me, and still the thermal shield, like an all-seeing eye, twinkles with distant stars and galaxies and nebulae.

The cosmic vista is captivating; gases and lights of every color on my lamentably limited retina relay a pleasing display to my visual cortex, rendering endless blends of the visible light spectrum.

In this mysterious, local multiplanetary solar system — wherever it may be — blue, green, purplish, and brown planets abound. The system’s star glows with a yellow-green, far off in the middle plane. Pink, orange, and red stars sprinkle the space behind spiraling galaxies.

The lovely, life-changing image is static — only for a few more moments. Something is changing.

The planets, revolving around their sun perceptibly, are gaining speed. The stars of lightyear distances sparkle, those of galactic systems spin — the galaxies themselves undulate slightly while star systems in those less ordered rearrange randomly.

I see a cloud of elemental particles condense, the star stuff of a scintillating nebula, compaction on a cosmic scale — the birth of new stars, systems, and maybe, in a long, long time, life. Would they be lucky?

I notice that this very nebula is lost, now; the contents of the space-scape appear to be blurring, and become like colorful dots smeared on a black canvas.

The distant darkness continues to swallow the stars. The planets of my host system seem steaked in elliptical lines around a larger, greener sun than the one just minutes ago. It’s growing.

I’m suspended in my own time.

I’m in the monster’s mouth. I’m being licked alongside the constant of light — and my ship.

The aging universe died before my eyes, billions of years ago, and I haven’t so much as a grey hair.

But I’ll be soon to go.

I see the grand glow of the green sun, a swelling sphere of plasma. Heat fills my suit.

Planets enter their green graves; their mother wants them back. She wants me, too.

My visor melts and my mind meets madness, and I say,

“Adopt me, good green mother. The universe has ended. Take me from my sad and timeless suspension. I’m ready for your hot hug. I’m coming home for supper.”

Another single system, separated in space and time from most matter, and an explorer of a singular and curious species, is lost to the cosmic lifecycle.