Helium Planets

You float through space like a fish without fins. Cold and dark and weak. Are you sinking? No. No, that’s right. You’re like a finless fish, but you are not in the deep ocean. 

There is no up here, there is no down. No left. No right. In space, you cannot fall.

(Are you sure?)

It is sharp in your lungs. Like a comet forced down inside. How is it that you do not suffocate? But you are my child. Misery doesn’t mean an end, and there is no pain to feel in a body like this. Only drifting… and drifting… and drifting…

What is that in the distance? you wonder.

A star? A planet? A person?

Too dark to tell for your listless eyes. And it is too far. You are too far. It takes centuries of time you cannot track for it to finally appear before you. 

A planet. Big and bold red. Filling your vision, and searing its imprint into your retinas. Spots of yellow scatter and orange scars line its skin. From the bottom a thin string dangles. 

You avert your gaze; for it is so bright, your eyes burn. The afterimage follows, as does the string, drifting up past your nose. You blink, and hesitantly reach out and grasp it. When you tug, the planet shifts toward you. 

Oh!

Just like when you were a child. When I tied a string to the Milky Way's gas planets and let you skip along the Kuiper belt with them floating behind you. You used to giggle so loud you caused small asteroids to crash into each other.

Now, you stare at the big red planet. When you laugh it’s harsh, and space eats it away, leaving nothing but silence. The nothing is desolate, the silence is bare. You cry. The tears freeze before they can escape your tear ducts.

It’s cold, you think.

You pull at the string just a little, and the planet follows as you begin to drift further into the depths of space. You swipe at the imprisoned tears. They shatter into millions of glittering pieces.

I'm not sad.

(Yes, you are.)

You think back to the cluster of strings you used to tie into a bow around your hand; The planets that followed you like moons caught by gravity. 

The lone one that follows you now is still burned into your mind’s eye. Big, bright, red. In the infinity before you though, it’s small.

But it trails along behind you, and you tie the string around your wrist in the shape of a bow.

You feel less lonely now.

(You're only half lying.)

***

Time passes without so much as the chime of a bell or the wrinkle of skin. No grains of sand fall through glass, and no hands move around and around.

How long has it been now? A millennium? A century? For all you know it could have been only a moment. A nanosecond.

And yet…

You turn halfway. The planet fills your vision with red. How long has that been there? Has it been following you all this time? The string around your wrist is starting to fray from how much you've picked at it.

Why can't you remember?

The thought stretches and thins and breaks away into the void surrounding you. You shake your head to clear your mind.

How long has it been now? The question repeats. How long has it been since the Before?

You think it hasn't been more than five minutes. You know it’s been longer than an eon.

***

When something finally happens, it takes you many tries to focus on it. Your eyes squint, and frost crackles along the lids. They have been left open for so long they’ve glazed over, so it takes a few tries before your vision clears, and even then what you see in the distance is… intangible.

There is a change. Of a scope indistinct to your eyes. But you can feel it. Oh, how you can feel it. A heavy weight pressing inward on you, and a force so great the planet passes by. Trembling, you grip the bow-tied string tighter.

What is it? you wonder.

But the quickening of your heart betrays you. You already know.

Apprehension coalesces inside. Expectation. As you slowly get closer… and closer… and closer…

You’re filled with dread.

(You’re filled with relief.)

***

By the time you are able to see the scale of what is before you, you’re already surrounded. The Black Hole looms; over, under, and even behind. Embracing you even if you have yet to meet its heart. There is nothing else. When you close your eyes, it burns itself into your mind, dark and all-encompassing.

So different from the planet tugging at you, with its string biting into your hand. Are you bleeding? But no, you are not capable of that. You try to clutch tighter to the string, yet the Black Hole is absolute. No matter how unwilling you are, the bow unties itself.

It jerks away as the Black Hole swallows the planet in a single, greedy gulp.

You are next. You tremble; Nervous. It has been so long.

When you pass through, heat drowns you, and your body slackens. Inside, something thuds a rhythm you’ve forgotten. It takes a moment to place it.

Oh…

It’s been so long since you’ve heard the sound of your heart… The noise, the realization spreads through long deadened nerves, while warmth melts away at frozen blood.

That’s right. I do have blood.

How could you have forgotten?

It is bright in the Black Hole's heart, impossibly so. But you are not drifting aimlessly. You’re no longer a finless fish. This is an island. You may finally rest.

(Yes.)

Your skin begins to tingle, and you can sense the greeting before it is verbalized. Can sense my power; my capacity.

Hello, my child.

Tears come, and this time they don’t freeze. They fall free down, and wet your warm cheeks. It has been so long since you last spoke, and I wait patiently as you find yourself.

“H—Hello, My Parent.”

I smile. 

You cannot bring yourself to say anything more.

I missed you.

A sob spills from your mouth without acquiescence. Then another, and another. You cannot stop yourself. The relief is so great.

“I...I missed you,” you gasp out. Sobbing. 

(I know, child.)

“I'm sorry.”

I allow you to cling to me as you fall apart.  I know, I say aloud. 

You repeat the words, over and over and over. I shush you softly. 

Welcome home.

(My prodigal son finally returns.)