#to jupiter

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlbY1tGARUA)

To Jupiter

Zora adored the view of Jupiter from the solitary round peephole in her cell. With her former crew she had voyaged through its storms, yet their last voyage into the clouds had cost their lives. She remembered their terrified faces as the storm ripped at their limbs and hurled them into its vastness. Still she cherished the view of the giant red-eyed planet. In cases where she couldn’t see, was it flying debris or a turbulence in the ship, Zora would direct her attention to the crew and the lives they led outside of her compartment. All she could do was hear their stories from behind the massive door and occasionally see the faces to those stories when someone opened the hatch in the door to give her some old soup. She breathed on those stories. She scribbled dismembered sentences on the pieces of paper she requested from the wardens and asked for them to be hung up around her. They never allowed her to use any tools other than a spoon and her pen. Zora knew they were wary of her, and she understood why, yet she had no more will to fight and frankly was fairly comfortable in her current situation. She liked her cell; it was well lit, the walls were white and straight yet decorated with her yellowing pages, and she could see Jupiter. On quiet days or nights she would fill the room with song. Old ballads she had learned from her old grandmother back on old planet Earth. Of ladies and gents and fire and seas, of the fragile flower and the gusty wind, of the timeless life and ending days. And she heard man and woman silently humming sadness in front of her steel barrier and silent tears being shed in memory of the world in songs. And of the sun she sang so far away. Of burnt out fire and steps on sunshine, Zora reckoned the notes illuminated her room brighter than the fires of Aries.

Zora was too young to remember her parents’ death and later too ignorant to remember her grandmother’s warning about the man, once her lover. Zora had never disobeyed Old Clarissa except that once. And she’d never disobeyed her after that again either. Because she ran. And regretted. But sometimes she felt like the ghost of the old woman still followed and pitied. Zora had been a beautiful dark youth, with a beautiful honey voice, with which she loved to bewitch people’s hearts. And one day she bewitched her own heart to follow a tall handsome man. He was wealthy beyond measure, wealthier than Zora’s whole town combined, but he loved her, so she thought. He begged her to come with him on his journeys through countries and continents and Zora’s grandmother begged her to decline. Because although Zora was blind to his danger, her elder was not and saw through his lies. Yet Zora ignored her. And became betrothed to the man who promised her the world. He kept his promise and Zora delighted in the wonders of the colorful Earth.

“Would you please hang this up for me?” she asked the warden through the door, waving a paper that contained sketches of the Chrysler Building from various angles.

“In a bit,” the lady told her and suddenly ran off and out of Zora’s sight.

I wasn’t rude was I? she asked herself, A bit too informal perhaps? Zora was concerned that she had annoyed her warden and crumpled the corners of her sketches thoughtfully. If the crew was unhappy with their prisoner it was by law allowed to throw them off the ship. Whether in water. Or in space. The warden came back shortly, and out of breath she exclaimed, “Come on, hands through the bars, we have to leave!”

Zora was stunned, but then hesitated.

“Can I get my pictures?”

“No, we must hurry, just keep that one in your hand.”

Zora sadly obeyed and stuck her hands through the bars to be shackled. The door was opened and Zora led out by the warden and another man.

His name was Edleas, and she only found out just before her marriage to him. But she didn’t care then. She had the whole world on her lap and later a child. She loved her little girl and called her Astra, after the stars she still sought. But her days with Edleas became darker after the child, and she finally recalled her grandmother’s worry. He stayed away for longer periods and became hateful. He cursed Zora and the girl and one day betrayed their love and killed the starchild. For witchcraft and fortunes it was excused, but Zora came to loathe him. She found herself a fire of fury which she let burn to the heavens. And she ignored again any restraint, and found herself being pursued by the law with his blood on her hands. Whenever Zora thought back to those days of hiding and evading she sadly smiled at the idea of her grandmother chiding her for being a trouble like that.

The lights were flickering in the corridors of the ship. Zora could make out reds blues and oranges before she was led further. There were shouts and cries to be heard and Zora felt an old memory surge up. One she had ignored for a long time, and began to feel an uneasiness creep up her spine. A young blonde woman ran towards them in the corridor and collapsed at their feet, gasping. Her sleeve was ripped off and revealed two large gaping cuts. Zora felt nauseous but bit her lip to restrain the bile and turned her head away from the woman.

“I’ll care for her,” Zora’s female warden said. “You continue with the prisoner Jack, stay safe.”

Soon after the man’s death, Zora found herself running away. Over the far off lands she had wanted to see but never got to. Over the seas she wanted to sail but never had. And then into the sky she ran and found herself a new family, a new life with the crew of the Aries Voyager. She knew none of them, but found herself fitting like a long lost puzzle-piece not as a fugitive but as a person. Before she knew it her days of running were past and they travelled from stars to stars and saw planets and people and lived. They would always stop at the side of Jupiter and gaze into its colossal red eye as the ship was loaded with provisions and fuel. And one day all went wrong when they came too close and fell. Into that gaping eye they fell. Zora distanced herself from that memory, all she remembered was that they were all gone and she was still there.

The warden called Jack was pulling Zora along with him through the corridors of the ship when the lights failed and the glow-in-the-dark emergency strips on the floor showed up. The warden called Jack momentarily stopped and then turned to Zora.

“You’ll stay here,” he said and snapped her handcuffs to a thin pole nearby. “I’ll check up with the lighting crew. No running. Not like you can.” He winked at her and left through a nearby corridor.

Zora sighed to herself, and although she had no chance or will to leave her waiting post, she tugged at the cuffs, only resulting in a thin cut on the back of her hand. She slid down with her back against the smooth wall and listened to the people far off. Dismembered shouts and calls reached her, but she didn’t understand any of them so she didn’t respond. After some time she heard a crash and the ship-siren began wailing. The lights flickered back on, but they took on a red tinge for danger. Zora was unsettled, but then the ship jerked from under her and began leaning. Her breath came shallow, and she began remembering. Remembering the disaster. Panic was welling up inside of Zora’s throat and suffocated her call for help. Again there was a crash but from a different side and the ship flung Zora to the ground. A surge of air ran through the corridor and a slight smell of ashes and nothingness caught Zora and made her gasp.

She ran again but not as fast. Her hopes were gone and her regret had come. Why had she disobeyed her grandmother? Why had she left her? Why had she run with a strange man? And why had she killed him? “Why?” she asked herself. And she never answered. She let herself be caught by a failing flight. But her will could only hold so long.

The sirens abruptly died. And so did the lights. Zora was enveloped in darkness once more. A scream finally erupted from Zora’s throat. Her cut burned at her skin. And she let herself go. The walls ripped apart at another crash and before Zora knew it she flew with her last cloud of oxygen.