fisk

Think of it, Rocky's world must be so full of sound. All of them constantly using sound to see and locate one another and talk to one another. They are so social and need one another to survive and stay safe.

He is alone on the ship in a place his species has never been before. Pure silences of space with nothing solid around them but the ship.

He stands on such a thing surface and all he sees around him is openness and emptiness and silence.

He was bound to develop odd idiosyncrasies out there. Talking to himself, thinking out loud, singing, constantly sending out echo-locating pings to see if anything came by.

But the years stretch on and on and there are less pings. He is tired of seeing the emptiness around him. He has come to accept the silence. His voice has grown harsh from over use and perhaps from miss-use. He can't remember what that exact sound was that indicated he was near his favorite spot with his mate. He can't remember the sound of his mate's voice. He knows the name. He says the name in times of deep loneliness with such longing that the name has come to mean longing.

And then Hail Mary shows up.

A place of solid walls and build and panels and rooms and devices and depth. His pings go crazy as he just SEES for the first time in a long time. Is it any wonder he bounced around frantically in the ball? "What's this? Solid. A wall. A floor. A big empty room? Meh. But look a place of solid things! Layers!"

And because humans do love our sounds, everything makes sounds! This room hums with the sound of electricity. This room beeps. This room has the sounds of gears. This one makes fire sounds. Water sounds? A robot that makes strange little songs!

And Grace? His body is made of energy. It glows. It whooshes, it breathes, it has a heart beat, a rhythm. So glorious to look at. So glorious to sit next to. To talk and use words and say things he had not said in such a long time. The words come out so fast and stutter at first then build and yell and fluctuate then become stable so the stupid computer can pick them up and translate correctly.

Rocky has an accent now. One he can't hear. And some words stay strange and ragged and now have a new tone.

So when Rocky sees his mate again for the first time, the name is stretched out and said with such poetic longing and beauty. Every time now, for years and years, Adrian is said in a way that they all find strange.. And Adrian falls in love again each time it is said.

Never mind that their mate is now a little strange. That Rocky talks to things, hums to himself, has picked up human gestures and talks in a strange accent. Never mind that Rocky will sometimes just sit in their home and ping around just to look at the shape of their world.

the world is counting on you [ get it as a print here! ]

don't forget the final boss

Imagine if one day you were given a choice: Become immortal and indestructible for eternity, unable to be harmed by anything ever again, and get to live forever.

However, in order to achieve that you must give up whatever your purpose in life is. Whatever it is that you were always meant to do, what you were supposed to contribute to the overall scheme and future of the life of the universe, your purpose… the whole reason you were even created, even born in the first place. You must give that up. You don’t know what that is. You’ll never know; But, regardless, you say yes.

Perhaps you assume you wouldn’t have made any sort of significant difference anyway. That butterfly effect theory or whatever they call it? Nah, you call bullshit. It doesn’t matter - you don’t matter, at least not to anything outside of your immediate connections - and it’ll all be fine, and you’ll just live forever with minimal (or maybe even no) consequences.

So, yay! You’re now immortal. You’ll never die or get hurt ever again. Wee!

But then, centuries and centuries later (not to mention that by this point you’ve gone through horrible heartbreak and misery and despair because every loved one you ever had, every friend you ever made, ever person you barely got to know, has passed away, died as you lived on long without them, helpless to do anything for them as you watched them perish, unable to ever go with them or ever see them again. But I digress), now, you learn you actually were important in the grand scheme of things. You were supposed to be a key factor in the world’s survival, long ago; but, because of the choice you made (immortality over individual purpose), you were never given the knowledge or awareness or resources or ability to save the world that you were always supposed to obtain, before you unknowingly made the wrongest choice to ever wrong.

Needless to say, you’ve fucked up big time.

The entire universe as we know it is destroyed soon after this horrifying revelation. It implodes, collapses in on itself, essentially forming a massive black hole or something. Stars, nebulae, galaxies, solar systems and planets, worlds and worlds of living people and things, and light-years of time and space and life, all sucked up into absolute, indefinite nothingness.

But you remain.

Just you. Floating amongst, spiraling around, rocketing through, suspended in… nothing. With a feeling of such unbelievable loneliness that your feeble brain can hardly perceive, can’t possibly hope to comprehend. Not only are you the only living thing left, you don’t even have one inanimate object to keep you company. You have literally. Nothing. And you are literally nowhere. I mean, technically, you are now the universe - if it would bring you petty comfort to think about it that way. You. Only you. With nothing, no one, nowhere. Forever. And ever. And ever.

All because you thought you didn’t matter. That you had no real, meaningful purpose. That you could never possibly make a difference.

But you did. And now look what you’ve gotten yourself into, you silly nugget. You’re gonna be pretty bored and lonely for that eternity, huh?

Or maybe it was out of selfishness. Maybe this wasn’t because you felt useless, but because you simply only cared about prolonging your own life and nothing else. Hm.

The moral here? Be selfless, and always know and remember that you matter.

Or else, one day, you might destroy the universe. And be left to suffer, and be tortured horribly and endlessly by the void of nothingness that has consumed you. With no way to escape. Ever.

Other moral because I got sidetracked from my initial point - all things considered, would you choose longevity over purpose? Immortality over meaning? 

OR, IDK, MAYBE SOME IDIOT JUST LAMINATED A STUPID PIECE OF PAPER TOWEL FOR NO GOOD REASON

AND MAYBE I SHOULDNT BE LOOKING FOR THE ANSWERS TO THE MEANING OF OUR SHORT, FRAGILE LIVES IN

A LAMINATED

PAPER

T OW E L

IDK MAN,

and the pages of that book

were made out of

laminated