Home - A Short Story

I view as the stars pull by the perfectly polished cockpit of my ship. Mostly white dots that quickly fade into lines and thin out to darkness. Only very few of them have a color other than white. They shine like tiny LED lamps in the midst of a snowy day and are breathtakingly beautiful. I remember seeing this for the first time. A truly unforgettable moment in the lifespan of every intelligent creature of the galaxy. The white lines outside the cockpit now grow thicker and slower. Suddenly they vanish and I see in front of me my destination. A planet know to every human inhabitant of the galaxy, our home world: The Earth.

My ship accelerates towards the atmosphere. I feel a tingling sensation in my stomach, not because of the freefall but out of anxiousness. The ship starts to shake vividly as I enter the atmosphere and I close my eyes to think. To think back on a journey, I could not have dreamed of as a boy.

It was somewhere between the second and third millennia on Earth as an immense Explosion could be heard all over the european continent. A ship of unthinkable size had crash-landed near Prague. The world freaked out, obviously. The military was there in the brink of a second ready to blow the entire thing up. But they didn't. The alien lifeforms weren't hostile and neither were we. They showed us their technology and we helped them rebuild their craft. It took only few years until we had broken the final barrier and entered the endless depths of space. I myself was one of the pioneers to enter space first in the name of the human race. Scared and curious of what would come I left my home to explore infinity.

I travelled years until I hit a sign of another lifeform. The loneliness had crept into my soul so deep that I was nothing more than an empty carcass of living flesh. I had forgotten how to speak and when I tried it, only air emerged my dry lips. The planet I landed on to end my suffering was red. When I got out of my ship I immediatly collapsed on the ground. The gravitation was killing me, for I had not felt it for decades. I passed out on the endless plains of red sand. There were no hills for miles, no water for miles, no life for miles. But my body kept on fighting even though my soul had given up for years. I had no intention of surviving this ugly dead planet. But I did. A lifeform found me crippled next to my ship and kept me alive. On that planet I stayed a long time, but I felt the need to see another human being, to speak, to laugh, to love. And so I left.

Space is a beautiful place. Infinite darkness and the shimmering of stars. Thousands upon thousands of stars. You fly through nebulas and galaxies of all sizes and colors. It is the most beautiful place but with that the loneliest. On the journey back to Earth it slowly consumed me, I feared I would go crazy just before I reach my goal of getting back home. I flew for over two centuries in complete and utter solitude. Time passes differently in the depths of the Universe. But two centuries are still a very long time. And as I saw my home planet come up in front of me I couldn't contain my happiness. A feeling I hadn't felt for ages. I screamed of joy but nothing came out. Then a fear so great struck me that it almost crushed me. What if Earth was empty?

Only few miles are left now. I can see the surface coming closer. I can see the towers of the cities rising to the sky. I can see the lights of crowded streets. The Earth lives. A feeling of joy overcomes me and this time I shout and I can hear my voice. After all this time I am home. I hit the brakes on the spaceship but they do not react. As I pellet towards certain death a smile creeps its way across my face, my eyes fill with tears, my heart starts beating faster and I whisper: "Finally home."