It Tolls For Thee

by Liss Webster

He didn't expect this. When he woke up this morning, he'd thought, hey, I wonder if today's gonna be the day the baby comes? He'd thought, I wonder if I'll have time to finish the gamma project. He'd thought, I hope that jackass Mitchell stays off my back.

He hadn't thought: I'm going to die.

He can hear Winona. He can hear her breathing and he can hear his son his son crying, and he thinks, I'm going to die now.

But time isn't rigid. It's not a stick, with hours and minutes ticked off. Time moves and changes, and he can see that black spidery behemoth coming closer and closer and he can hear - a slow, dull peal - the proximity alarms.

He thinks, I'm going to die now.

He hopes the others got away OK; he thinks mostly they did. He hopes he can take out the bastards on whatever the hell kind of ship this is. He thinks of his father, gruff and unsentimental and always be brave, kid. He thinks of that day in the cornfield, watching ships break atmosphere, high, high in the sky, when he thought, one day I'm gonna fly and ran home to tell his mom. He thinks of the Academy, and that stiff, stiff red uniform that rubbed against his neck and the way Admiral Archer peered at him. He thinks of Winona always Winona and how she smiles at him and how their son cries.

He thinks, relieved, I can't die.

Time telescopes in, fast and

violent and

flashing red and

sirens and

yellow and

crying and

I love you and

black.