Pilot, have you fallen well? fallen far? I see a blinking in the sky near the moon, Is it you?

I see scenery of lost worlds, lush forests, foreign life, and you alone, burning through atmospheres.

I see you greeted by alien emissaries with short trunk noses who gargle aloud to say hello. I see you falling in lust in the chambers of a woman with green skin and three eyes. I see you falling through void, contemplative in your cockpit amidst pinprick stars, waymarkers of the distance from home. Do you think of me then?

My parting gifts, have they helped you? I had no money, weapons, or provisions to give, only my arm that you held in your own, the veins beneath pulsing into yours, the blood within spinning with the earth, falling as the earth falls through absence, falling into you, the music in veins–– Does it vibrate you still? Do you fall with it?

You, our pride. We do not ask to live in your memory, we only hope. May you find what you seek.

Inspired by my favorite sci-fi series, A Requiem for Homo Sapiens by David Zindell