Yes, that’s right. I did make a grave mistake. I hope not to repeat the pattern.
Incoming messages are less distress signals and more bitch sessions, somehow, just now, catching up with my preparations for departure. Looking back over my own ship’s log of the last 24 hours, I can see the helium leak went to my head. I lost my perspective. Like the Fellini scene where the actor is tethered to the ground and flying above the ocean, and his wife calling up at him, like a kite blowing in the sunny sky. Or was it his mistress?
The forecast calls for dense cloud cover for the next three days. We’ll have to go full instruments, but the cats have been training for this new adventure for nearly two years. They are fairly new to the crew, a brother and sister from the discarded. Rescues, they are called. Who rescued whom? Their support has been essential in the recovery and rehabilitation of both me and my ship. We’re a team. They do their own thing, mostly, but come in handy with crosschecks and pre-flight protocols.
A sighting on Friday night of a bright star has provided a new course. It’s not her I’m aiming for, it’s me. She can find me, come after me, court me. We have established a lifeline. She’s been dark for 29 hours. The matinee must just be ending. I love the potency of my desire. All of my fibers lit up, I was preparing her co-pilot seat, the cats were informed of … And it was all in my little head. I mean my big head, the overthinking one.
She’s lovely. She does not fit all of my essential elements. There’s an issue of … No, no need to really go further down that path. The director said today that my laugh was missed last night. I inquired about tickets for this afternoon. “Sold out.”
I guess my job of promotion has been successful. She will remain there each Thursday – Sunday for the next two weekends. I know where I can find her, even if I can’t get tickets.
Perhaps tonight the cats and I will watch Steve McQueen in The Getaway. I downloaded the torrent a few weeks ago. (You’re not still paying the billionaire and media conglomerates for video content, are you? I mean, porn is free, why not movies and shows?)
Do I want to make popcorn or buy popcorn? Next weekend I have a date for back-to-back Bogart movies at the Paramount Theater. The Maltese Falcon and then Casablanca. Now, you know where to find me in the near future. Are you in my timeline?
She keeps telling me about my writing. “All lies. Revenge writing.” She can’t see the other side of the story, only her own. She’s furious. Keeps saying, “Things are for the best.”
Yes, dear.
May she find peace in her human lifetime. Dark days are near for both of us and our fathers. Through the eye of the needle, like a portal of understanding. When you lose the most important person in the world, it resets your soul to a newer, deeper, more sensitive frequency. In *hyper-soul* we call them “The Listeners.” In that world-building project, autism (or spectrum) becomes a beneficial trait. Once they are connected with a cat (a transmitter) they are able to both decode and encode messages with the AI. God. Aka: whoever is running this shitshow.
Whatever the frequency is I am acquiring a new signal. Only listening at the moment. Peering into the night sky, the stars, the future… Prayer of sorts.
“She is here. She is here. She is nearly here. She is here.”
A mantra to put me to sleep. The cats can finish up tonight’s checklist. I’ve been burning the fuel from both ends; a nap would be restorative. “She is here.”
“Lights to sleep,” I say to the ship.
“17% brightness. Good night, Jason.”
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