The Traveller

I was a traveller once, deep space exploration. I journeyed far across the reaches of the galaxy, but then all of a sudden, it came to an end, the galaxy I mean. I just kept going off into the darkness, the milky way glow glistening away and slowly fading, until it seemed to be but another point of light amongst the many other millions, nothing special at all. Why would it be?

I continued on for a short while - a few thousand millennia or so - and was quite a distance from home. Turning around to see, I realised that the tiny spot of light I once called home was no longer discernable, its radiance lost and at that moment, I felt a sudden overwhelming fear come over me, but I could do nothing. I kept on travelling.

After a while, the decision to stop arose in my mind. I was to stop travelling and become stationary. This, as it happens, turns out to be a rather difficult proposition when travelling all alone, with no point of reference but yourself. I judged the best I could.

And then, sitting there, silent, floating, I guess I felt the slight pull of home, the smallest apprehension of gravity from so far away. I tried to concentrate some more in the darkness and to my surprise I felt, somewhere at the centre of my being, the ever so soft tug of earth, its molten core, its vast bodies of water, even the myriad animals and plants scattered on its surface. With all the more subtle concentration, I could feel the cells, the elements, the molecules, the atoms, until suddenly my head began to hurt and I stopped.

I looked around a little at the nothing surrounding me. Although there wasn't really much light, I could see, a short distance in front of me, there was an object, dark, small. It was floating slowly towards me or I was slowly floating towards it - I couldn't decide. And as it came closer, I watched as the familiar object took shape...