They launched from this very shore, in the future long after our time.
Just a spaceboat joyride, Lio and a few friends, riding through the stars.
Vela didn’t go.
Not after the argument.
They made her stay behind.
Lio left anyway, it was just a silly fight!
The boat lifted off like nothing had happened.
The joyriders danced and danced. Laughing, exuberant, leaving trails in the clouds.
But even joy has sharp edges.
You’ve experienced it cutting you.
It’s that feeling when someone you love is at once with you and not.
Lio missed Vela terribly and whispered Vela’s name into the glitterstorm.
Then a month and a day in…
The spaceboat got caught like a fly in amber, trapped within a fold of space.
It couldn’t move.
They watched as the stars folded like mirrors in water.
Some screamed. Some went silent.
Time bent with their sadness, the
weight of separation.
Outside of the rules, space ripped.
Lio and the others stayed in their time, while Vela split backwards to stay here with us.
Lio tried transmitting from their iThing to reach Vela.
Nothing worked.
The joyriders, distraught at their position in both geography and loss,
tried sending back moments, regrets, dreams.
The kinds of things you can’t risk saying out loud.
They didn’t know if Vela would ever hear them.
Still, they kept sending back tiny memory-packets wrapped in grief.
And somehow, some of these signals found a way through.
The orbs you see are receivers, do you see transmissions?
Try to connect back.
Think of someone you didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to.
Maybe they’re listening too.