Space Tales

Pandora's Box

— Blake, how high is the radiation level?

— Still the same, sir. Between 17,000 and 18,000 mSv.

— This city and this fucking planet are a complete waste of time. Didn't I tell you a week ago that we should have already left and taken the Orion X spaceway?

— Yes sir, I know that, but the Oracle indicated that Pandora's Box was around here somewhere, and you know the Oracle is never wrong...

— Blake, spare me, the Oracle is just a computer like all the others, and he's prone to failure like all the others. If there really was something here, you would have found it by now. Go straight to the Transporter and then up here to the spaceship. I want to leave as soon as possible.

— Sir, please, I only ask for 4 more hours. That's all I need. I promise that I will return after that.

—Oh my God...ok. Just 4 more hours and not another second. And should you not come back or come up with another excuse, I'm going to have you thrown in jail for disobeying a superior. Did I make myself clear?

— Of course, sir. Understood. I promise this won't take long.

Blake resumed his search for the Box in the lost city of New York. It was said that all the misfortunes that had affected humanity happened because someone, someday opened Pandora's Box, and released all the misfortunes into the Universe: hunger, disease, wars and dictatorships. But they too said that the key to destruction was also the key to restoration, and that was why Blake was there. He had been looking for days for a new signal that would indicate the location of the precious object that could save us from extinction. Ever-watchful eyes on the relay that would flash the moment the Box was detected, but time was passing, now he only had two more hours to search, and nothing had happened yet. 

But as he passed in front of an establishment whose sign, almost erased, indicated that it had been a Cafeteria, his equipment finally detected the Box. Excitement swept over Blake, success was now palpable. He walked up the stairs of the destroyed building: a shadow of its former self, and also a reminder that testified humanity's ability to erect lasting monuments. And so finally, Blake found her inside a small room on the top floor of the building. A small wooden box resting on the headboard of the bed with engravings that indicated the cycle of beginning, middle and end. 

He had been searching Pandora's Box to take out the only thing left in it: Hope. Blake opened it. There was nothing left now, no box, no building, no Blake, no New York, no Universe, no time itself. Complete nothingness. But it was only for a moment, which lasted an amount of time that doesn't exist. And then there was light, and now everything existed.