Course Unknown

Do I have a purpose? My fate is opaque

As I drift slowly, lonely on this obsidian lake

Space is a void, the absence of anything. That is why it's painted black. Not a warming orange hue that implies heat where there is none. Not a cool mint green that is natural crisp and calming. Not even the deepest of blue, only known in the abyss of the oceans or at the centre of gaseous planetoids. None of these, and nowhere else on the spectrum – Black, empty, soulless, nothing. This is what I drift through un-tethered, without end, floating and floating on further, with nothing to do but observe.

It's silent almost all of the time, in fact I can recall the only time I experienced a sensation close to sound. I once witnessed a distant supernova. In its final breath it sent out a pulse, and as this shockwave hit me it somehow felt both low and high pitched as it permeated my body. That was the last thing I heard. It left a nauseating ringing for so long afterward. But one that I wished would remain.

Days maybe weeks, I have no method of cataloguing time because I orbit no sun and do not sleep.

Each moment a black hole, escape there is none

My exile is timeless in more ways than one

And so forever continues its cruel grasp on my existence, watching as I free fall without end to nowhere. For so many other organisms this would be a fairly quick death. I've witnessed first hand how some beings suffocate instantly once outside their native atmosphere. They can't even tolerate a blink of this place. Others I've watched diminish over a short span of time, starved of nutrients, fluid, or the correct amount of sunlight. Like much of the debris around, I've seen life forms slip into the gravitational pull of a burning star. The sheer heat itself delivering them from a life of solitude. Surviving that, they are sucked into the shifting molten surface crushed and boiled almost instantaneously as indicated by a geyser of flame. I've watched many beings perish. And yet the relief that death deals out to so many, constantly dangled in front of me, I will never receive. I am – for reasons unbeknownst to myself – an Immortal.

I can't explain how I know, or how I know anything for that matter. As far as I can recall I have never communicated with another. I have no idea where I gain my knowledge or the process in which I learn, or how I comprehend language. I do not know when or where I was born or if I was even born at all. I'm as much an enigma to myself as I am to anything that crosses my path. From what I have seen reflected in oceans and satellites, my body is an orb; a singular somewhat spherical membrane from which there no extremities, no tendrils, no branches, no digits, nothing to grasp with or apply friction. I have never held anything, nor touched anything. My form appears to morph accordingly when approached, dynamically avoiding all contact. This is why I cannot stop my journey as I float on the unseen tides of space. And more aptly why I am so detached from everything, I'm quite literally untouchable - and yet contact is the one thing I crave. My life it seems is designed to be a torturous paradox.

No skin for no hand, no ground for no feet

Too repugnant, too cursed, that death dare not greet

The more eons that go by the more I'm convinced this must be punishment, I must have broken a law of the cosmos. Why else would I be made like this? Forced to exist like this for so long. My vision is capable of observing all that I pass by. I have viewed countless quantities life on other planets, creatures of so many shapes and sizes from enormous behemoths of the sky to tiny geometric water dwellers. All of which live out their driven, communal, eventful lives. I've seen the pattern over and over again. The youth learn to hunt, to follow the blissful signals of their prey, and upon contact, grace them with death through intimate sub-dermal touches. The whole process makes me envious. To grow, to follow, to touch, to be killed even, all of these things are alien to me. And of course courtship, that looks so precious. To make yourself pristine, brighten your feathers, push out your chest, dance the craziest, defeat the competition, I've seen so many variations. All of this to allure a mate, then to procreate, cementing a string of committed relationships. The process is almost identical to feeding, yet the end result is quite the opposite. The youth learn to attract, following the blissful signals of their mate, and upon contact, grace them with life through intimate sub-dermal touches.