“It was the year 2055 when my kind bridged the gap between cosmological solitude and contacting other sentient life.
I was in what we humans would refer to as a zygotic stage then, probably. Fast forward twenty three years, where science has made previously unthinkable bounds, which has brought me, inexorably, to this day and point in my short life.”
Doused in the half-light of a flickering light bulb, the boy fought to hold his pen as steady as he could.
“My name is Edgar. My loved ones call me…” he paused for a moment, and then scribbled over that last part with a touch of bitterness. “I do not expect whomever this letter reaches to understand or even be familiar with the concepts of life here on Earth. Nor do I wish them to. No such plague should ever befall your kind, truly. I have seen the advertisements on TV being incessantly forced down the throats of our daily schedule and there is a saying on my planet; no time like the present.”
As chance would have it, as he wrote those words one of the ads the boy was referring to had begun to play. A ubiquitous persona appeared on TV and started to vaguely throw around some science; about how space exploration was perfectly safe and how they were looking for more volunteers to join the CRP, or Cosmic Relations Program, that helped send people to other planets to begin life anew there, in the hopes of ensuring humanity’s survival outside Earth, should conditions ever dictate so.
“Dinner’s almost ready” a distant voice faintly echoed through the house, but Edgar did not respond. Instead, he continued to focus on the page before him.
“But the ads do not satisfy the why, that is a much tougher question to answer but I will try nonetheless. I want to be part of the Cosmic Relations Program because there is a perpetual black hole in my being. A gap so big it’s eating me from the inside out, scrounging at the leftovers of the life force I still preserve. I feel as though I am swimming against a maelstrom and slowly finding less and less reason to keep fighting the overwhelming current. The thought of letting it take me has crossed my mind more than a few times, but I digress. As I previously mentioned, I was not swayed by the many perks our government promises or the plethora of shameless promotion I was bombarded with, rather, my hand was forced.
It was forced the day my mother started to make a hobby of taking triple the prescribed dosage her doctor advised and the day my father started looking for answers in empty bottles of alcohol. I choose…. no, must leave my planet behind and never look back because I cannot live down another day of slurred insults, and a parent whose eyes are as hollow as the space between our planets and as cold twice over. I cannot bear another second of painful silence over a half-heart meal in a house that hasn’t changed one bit since the day I can remember, yet somehow feels like a stranger’s home. Photographs of previous family outings stare blankly into the space before them, simply gathering dust day in, day out with no one to pick them up, if only for a moment and try to remember how we let those memories slip through our fingers like sand.”
Unable to remain in one piece, the boy broke down as he saw the sum of the last three years of his life materialize on a piece of paper, knowing this letter was to reach a being of life that could not be more estranged to these concepts and feelings Edgar spoke of.
Then rain started to fall from the boy’s eyes and splatter softly onto the page below. He took a moment to compose himself, folded the page neatly and put it in an envelope which he tucked under his pillow.
And there the letter would remain, tucked away between Edgar’s pillow and the dozens of other unsent letters he had written.
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Copyright © 2015 by Miltiades Strouthos. Do not reproduce or use any contents by any means without prior written consent of Miltiades Strouthos. All rights reserved
WELCOME TO MY MIND 