The voices had stopped.
There was a strange ringing sound now where previously
there had been a busy chatter in his head, something akin to the noise on a
stock exchange floor. Sometimes it had been louder, sometimes softer, and often
one voice amongst the thousands would come to the fore as clear as a bell, but
they had been there since his birth. Now there was only silence. For the first
time in his life Righteous Alchemy felt truly blind.
He no longer knew instinctively who was near him and what
their intentions and thoughts were, or what their mood was. His world for once
was dark, silent and empty. There was no inner landscape to navigate by: he was
floating around in nothingness. It was like the Doom had enveloped him.
He reached out around him in a sudden panic, trying to
ascertain where he was. His large grasping hands found an arm and he held on to
it like a baby would its mother. There, in the centre of all this terrifying,
silent, cold nothingness was the most exquisite sensation he’d ever felt. Her
flesh was soft and yielding, and warm to the touch.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” said Sweet Mary, putting her hand on
top of his.
“I can’t see,” he said and realised
how silly that must sound to her. But she seemed to understand what he meant
and squeezed his hand gently. For him, the touch of her was like an island in a vast dark sea.
His entire world was held together by that tiny little hand on his. He never
realised how powerful a human touch was. He felt that if she let him go he
would never be found again: lost forever in a no man’s land. They stayed
quietly like that for many long minutes.
“Where are we?” he
asked, and heard his voice echo hollowly amongst the stars. Where the voices
had always been; there was now nothing. And in that nothingness was a strange
new kind of feeling, a feeling full of dark potential; irrational fears that he
instinctively felt he had to keep under control…..or else. He felt something
almost akin to evil lurking in the darkness of his mind and strengthened his
grip on Sweet Mary’s arm. He breathed in deeply to try and dispel the fear and
her perfume filled his lungs. Fleetingly a faint picture of her began to form in
his mind; beautiful, wraithlike, but soon it disappeared into the
soul-despairing darkness again. He hugged her tight to try and recall the image
but it was gone. Sensing his desperation she said softly, “It’s alright. I’m
here. I’m not going to leave you.”
How many times had she said that to a man. How many times
did she have to console a man who had just used her and then broken down in
tears because she was the only one to whom they could show their
vulnerable, sensitive selves. And when they had done their crying they smiled
and thanked her and went home to their wives, revived and refreshed. She was never the one whom they came home to. They never wanted her....only her body.
But Righteous needed the touch of her body in a different
sort of way, a way of holding onto his sanity. She felt he was at some sort of crossroads and
instinctively she kept talking, chatting about anything that came to mind as
long as she could keep his attention. Her voice came and went like a line of
tinkling bells that sometimes broke and scattered across the universe; but he
somehow held on and after many eons he seemed to be surfacing and managed to
catch the end of her sentence.
“….but you’ve been asleep for days. Everyone else is
awake. We were getting worried.”
Dutch had been the first to wake in the subdued lighting
of the flight deck. Everything was still and quiet. A few stars twinkled in the
darkness outside and she let herself drift in and out of sleep for a while
until she felt ready to wake up. Then she undid her G-belt and looked around
at the crew. Her eyes went straight to Sweet Mary and her heart lurched when
she couldn’t perceive any signs of breathing. But Sweet Mary’s ample bosoms soon
rose proudly up and subsided with an audible sigh and she too began to come
around. The others followed swiftly – except for Righteous Alchemy.
Unaccustomed to the high G-force of acceleration his body had taken a beating.
His heart beat was faint and his breathing ragged and forced. They needed to
get him some medical help but there was no way they were going to carry such a
big man; so once everyone else was awake and functioning, Dutch cut the internal gravity and floated him off to a cabin
bed and plugged him into a Medi-Pack. Sweet Mary, not really interested in this
new solar system they were in, and truthfully not so keen on being in the same
room as Dutch, stayed by Righteous’ side and mopped his fevered brow. Hour
after hour she sat by him and told him her life story, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. She
had never told her story before and was quite shocked and pained at the long list of
awful things that had happened to her and just how lonely she had been until
she had met Dutch.
“How are you feeling?” she asked him, watching him as he
struggled to the surface and rubbing the back of his hand.
“I…” He had no way of describing the desolation he felt.
But he did know that if he didn’t try to get up now he was going to sink into
oblivion again, this time perhaps forever. Painfully he sat up and swung his
legs over the side of the bed.
“I will live,” he said and gave her hand a squeeze.
“Thanks. Thank you for staying with me. I appreciate that.” He had turned his
face towards her even though he couldn’t see anything. They both had led such lonely lives, always surrounded by people, but always alone. They felt a definite affinity for one another, almost like soul mates, where they could communicate without actually speaking.
“That’s okay,” said Sweet Mary and gave him a peck on the
cheek and rubbed his hand again. She didn't really want to let it go, and she could feel he felt the same.
Then the door opened with a pneumatic ‘thump’ and ‘hiss’
that made them both jump guiltily.
“You have to come and look,” said Rose. “It’s a planet.”
IS THIS A RAY OF HOPE FOR OUR INTREPID LITTLE BAND OF TRAVELLERS? AND IS THERE ROMANCE IN THE AIR FOR SWEET MARY AND RIGHTEOUS ALCHEMY?
