The White Rose

Smoke, white smoke, billowing into an uprising of air, and so… the vessel lifted itself from the earth and into the sky. An arc, an arrow shot from a bow, a swallowing up by the atmosphere above, and the tiny white speck vanished behind the deep blue drape of the mesosphere, present now in the gradient sum of the thermosphere, the blackening gray of the exosphere, and finally the singular night of space.

Set course for cruise control, said the commander, prepare to fold. Calculations, mathematics, the formulae of a thousand preceding repetitions of the cyclical universe, the subsequent experience gained from these thousand prior attempts, and so the crew initiated, flipped switches and toggled controls, jotted down their prearranged coordinates and unlocked the outer casing of an enormous red button. Check. Check. Check. We’re ready. And down the finger went upon the button, and oh my god, they all said, as the sight of the radiant blue globe overhead collapsed into a pinpoint and camouflaged itself in the unending sea of stars. Now a frightening lurch in the shell, and all piercings of light stretching out before them rushed forward simultaneously, contracting into a hailstorm of even smaller shards. Broken glass, refracted color, folding space. And in this gathered mass of a trillion distant stars the entire sky climaxed in a blinding white crescendo of solid sunlight. The crew covered their eyes. Prepa re to unfold, said the commander. Once more the fingers flew, the confirmation of their arrival at the desired destination. Check. Check. Check. Ready! And up the finger came. Wait! There’s a problem! someone shouted.

Just as suddenly as the stars had collided they now fell apart, and at the last moment the shuttle was rocked by a vicious impact. .005 degrees off, and the subtle trajectory had been thrown askew, now sending the craft shooting through a dense reef of hurtling rocks, from abstract debris to cracking mountains, each connected to the other by a silver translucence in which the ship was immersed, baptized.

We’re in the planet’s ring! the commander cried. Hard to port, turn us into the current! With one swift, silent motion, the vessel swung around, then dove among the choreography without a sound. Far below spun the spheroid of the blue abyss, Neptune, an icy gas ball of hydrogen and helium washing over itself and crashing upon shores of floating rock, ice, and nothing. Now there was a deafening smash as the ship scraped against the spears of a jagged tooth and spun on its axis against the tide. Headed straight for them was Everest, God, the melancholy soul of the elephant, and all other conquered things enacting revenge upon mankind. So torn apart was the nose of the craft, obliterated as the starboard wing was ripped away and sent sailing into the side of Annapurna.

A crack in the window, the lieutenant hyperventilating, and the commander unstrapped himself from his seat, floated in a most peculiar way, flew weightless back to check on him. It was then the window caved in and both of them were sucked out into the void, where they were promptly executed by the passing maw of the mountain gorilla. Dragon. The eyes of Lucifer. The snake.

With one hand he grabbed the oxygen mask, with another the thruster control. Inhale, inhale, inhale, fire! Sharp blasts immediately extinguished by the vacuum, still propeller enough for the sinking ship. Here the kraken, tentacles wide and strong, cataclysmic in its hatred, screaming for the annihilation of the world and attacking with its beaked jaw, missing by centimeters the evasive flight of the vessel, a penguin among sharks. From inside was ripped the entire communication module, torn from the port wall, antenna and all, pulled out the window by an invisible hand, and flung away into the distance. Behind him the meteorologist was weeping into her own oxygen mask and then she was dead.