Thrum

by Meg Smitherman

“Remember what I taught you,” she’d say. “We, as humans, too often forget what grounds us to the physical world, to our own bodies. When you think about breathing, you forge a connection with yourself. When you control that breathing, the connection grows stronger. And you begin to find peace.”

And I don’t want to go outside. But I’m all that’s left. I have to do it, or accept that I’ll die out here. So I step into the black.

I’m drifting half out of the ship, half in, but even then it feels as if the infinite universe is reaching for me with inexorable fingers, with hands made of whorls of starlight, of depthless lightless chasms that hum like monsters of the cosmos. The air in my lungs feels like a dare. I’m challenging the firmament in its horrible power, and it is gazing right back at me, unimpressed.

Our knowledge is so minute, a tiny droplet in a vast sea that never ends, and we had the audacity to think we knew what we were getting into.

A surge of relief fills me when I stare out the panoramic-viewscreen of the cockpit and see nothing but an infinity of stars. Maybe our sensors are malfunctioning; maybe it’s a mistake. I’m about to say so to Pioneer, and then I see it: An absence. A space where the stars aren’t, a shape of blackness. A shadow.

I see nothing, just the absence of something, like a cloud blocking the stars, a shape that moves slowly, swallowing up the distant pricks of light as it drifts blackly.

“Is your ship shielded?” I ask. “It is not shielded.” “Why can’t I see it?” “Your ship’s computer does not understand it. You would not understand it.” “That’s a big assumption.” “I read your welcome packet,” says Dorian. “It’s not an insult.”

Centering myself, I focus my gaze on the floor. It’s textured metal. And on my boots, scuffed leather. Their laces, thick and brown. I slowly inhale, filling my lungs. As I exhale through my nose,

“My kind don’t keep track of age like yours does. We live far too long for that.” “Oh. So… you’re saying you’re old.” He chuckles. “Very.” “Are we talking centuries or millennia here? In Earth years.” I can’t help myself, the questions keep coming, like I’m a human toddler meeting a real-life fireman for the first time. He pauses, and I nearly walk into him, stopping short, my nose inches from one of his shoulder blades. Then, in a low tone, he says, “Millennia.”

“Your fingers touched it,” he says, black eyes shining. “You smelled it. The touch and smell pathways in your brain recognized it as a living thing. Does that not make it real?”

“The last of my kind.”

“I’m whatever you want me to be, Ami.”

“Why did you pick Dorian Gray?” “It was an interesting book.” I raise a brow. “You read it?” His mouth twitches as if he’s trying not to laugh. “It’s not that long.”

“No, all the books. Every book in your welcome package. Earth’s literary canon.” I splutter, momentarily lost for words. That’s over half a million books. “Why?” he asks, lips curling in a slow smile. “Do you find that impressive?”

How strange. I wish he’d open up and tell me everything, everything. I want to know more. I want him to lay himself bare to me. I want to chart his nervous system, count his lungfuls of air, unfurl his DNA one strand at a time. “Do you identify with Dorian Gray?” He blinks, visibly surprised at the question. “Do you think I should?” “I asked you.” “No,” he answers. “I’ve never had a portrait done.”

I remember the way he held me before, let me cry on him, let me break like a wave against him. I have felt this way before, in dreams. Where fear mixes with anticipation, and though the trees may bend in a gorgeous wind, the clouds may scud across a cerulean sky, a darkness lurks behind it all. A nightmare at the edges, its claws curving around the doorframe.

It’s easy to let him do these things. To let him direct me. I’m exhausted, my emotional state hanging by a fraying thread. I don’t want to take the lead. I want to let go.