The serenity of this quiet vast…
Quiet, but not silent. Static frequencies, aimlessly drifting from throughout the cosmos, crisscrossing paths and merging for millennia, have found and collided with his single, tiny vessel. They reverberate against the hull of his ship, creating a low hum just within range of his sensitive hearing. The sound is peaceful; like a soft, lulling tone that pulls at his wakefulness.
He stares out of the window, his eyes unfocused and taking in the scenery subconsciously; his awareness too relaxed to bother tugging his interest to any one thing. Distantly, a supernova detonates within a thick shroud of hydrogen clouds and clusters of space dust, spreading compounds and elements to the far stretches of the universe. The nebulas and stars, lit from within, paint the surrounding stillness of space with splashes of impossible color.
Nothing can be done but to surrender to the calm.
And to the anguish. She had had impossible colors.
He turns his head away from glass. He does not want to see beauty. Anything of beauty is a hollow, mocking echo of what was once the most beautiful.
She had even thought him beautiful, once. An unyielding, unforgiving representation of all she thought was perfect. She thought him strong and vital, passionate and unrelenting, furious and focused, predatory and insatiable. She had accepted his flaws with unbending yet soft resolve, as if they were cherished traits; vanity and obsessiveness, arrogance and possessiveness, coldly distant and patronizing, insecure and full of pride. She had wrapped herself around his resistant, wounded spirit, and pulled him from self-loathing, even while he had battled against her. While he had been at war with himself, somehow she had won the fight.
To the outside, they were twin souls – yet in truth, they had been such paradoxes in spirit. His was gripping and severe while hers was smooth and patient. While he was decisive and insistent, she was soothing and subtle. While he found the vulnerabilities in others and attacked, leaving devastation and emptiness in his wake, she found the empty spaces in others and fortified them with her own strength, healing those around her and giving hope. When others breathed a sigh of relief when he passed, she left others feeling flat and disappointed in her absence.
She had thought him a hero. He knew he was no hero; heroes move through life at super human speed towards a destiny of their own making, they didn't run at such speeds from their past. Heroes are never sad, never lonely, never break. Heroes never had time for regrets or insecurities. Heroes were exempt from the clutches of mortality.
A tear slid down his cheek. He missed her. The nuclear agony of her absence tormented every one of his senses. When he reached for her, she was no longer there to take him in her arms, to spread warm kisses over his face as her hair spilled over him to caress his cheeks. When he breathed, her scent was no longer lingering in the air. When he opened his mouth to taste her, she no longer traced his lower lip with her soft, sensuous tongue. When he turned his head, her husky voice no longer cried his name in his ear. The only time he could see her was when his eyes were closed. It wasn't enough. He had never had enough.
He had known he would outlive her. He had known her time was near. Yet the moment it happened, his entire soul had quaked, and the earth had shaken with him. He had shattered, and the whole planet had almost shattered with him. Had he the physical strength in that moment, he would have been successful – but a broken man has no strength.
There had been no decision to make. The moment she had gone, he knew that he was dying. He craved it. Needed it. When he turned to leave, no one had stopped or questioned him. They knew the moment he had turned from her bed – the bed that held her body but no longer her soul. Perhaps they had known, as he had known, the moment it was clear she would never recover.
He paused in the doorway of the hospital room, just in front of his daughter and his son, of their families. He didn't look at them, but he knew they understood. They said nothing as he allowed them to hug him one last time. Then he walked out of the room and kept going. Away from them, away from earth, away from life.
He hadn't the need to think; his body took him where it most wanted to go. The launch codes flew from his fingertips without his awareness. He was on his way to her. He hoped the wait would not be long.