This Is How You Lose the Time War

by Amal El-Mohtar

It all seemed very romantic to me at the time. So I left my pod and wandered upthread and far away, far from the chatter and the mutual observation. I found a hilltop on a small world, breathable but barren, and I stood there like Socrates in the comic book, lost in thought, weight on one foot, and I did not move. The sun set. The stars rose. (They are a rose, right? Or something? Dante said that.) I realized that as my ears grew used to the silence, I could still hear the others: Our chatter swarmed the heavens; our voices echoed from the stars. This was not how Socrates stood, or Li Bai or Qu Yuan either. My isolation, my experiment, had caused a small sensation among those who cared for me, and for whom I cared, and that sensation spread. Lenses and eyes turned upon me.