Contest 2005

The Tales of Future Past Short Story Contest!

Third Prize

Good Vibrations

By

T. L. Cummings

The skies of Prerius had always been blue washed with traces of opal and cream. Random whispers of ionised frozen gas which hang suspended, barely changing for years, slowly drifting in the shimmering sapphire shroud which separates Prerius’ lands from sister planet Iral and beyond that, the yawning abyss of space. Yet, it was only now that the true beauty of the skies had become completely appreciated.

It would be so easy for them to slide quietly into the lake. They would sink slowly, melting into oblivion, their bodies flowing together and becoming part of the stretching volume of liquid, in a way becoming integrated together for eternity, unaware of painful thoughts of destruction, death. But then they would be unaware of love, oblivious of one another and he couldn’t stand the prospect of not having her in his mind for one single day. He pushed the thought away and gazed at her, hoping that she had not picked up on his morbidity. She was staring into the lake, lost in her own thoughts, intense sadness hummed and throbbed throughout her entire being. Perhaps, as she looked at the stillness of the lake, she was thinking the same.

He directed a narrow, focused hum before him and soon a crystal shape hung suspended in the air just above the surface of the lake. He had created it in the form of one of her favourite crystal formations, the type she had said she especially liked one clear day when they were together. She had spent long moments staring into its glistening colourful form and he had seen her shimmering with happiness. The replica he had created for her didn’t have the same level of detail and he was not naturally of an artistic disposition, but all the same it looked similar, similar enough at least for her to know. He directed her attention toward it and for a moment she seemed to brighten. But the moment slipped away and she became lost again. He let the form fall back into the surface of the lake.

He remembered the jubilation which had flushed through them all when looking down on those tiny creatures. Their first impression of new visitors from a far-away world. They could tell that even though the construction of these abstract, tiny beings was almost beyond comprehension, still there were noticeable similarities with themselves. The proportion of base water in their forms was approximately equal. Whereas his kind were made of ice and silicon, they were made of water and carbon. Their mysterious little fragile-looking bodies pulsed rhythmically with unknown forces which seemed to be linked to thought and emotion. Sporadic reverberations would travel through them and out into the air, creating responses and indicating some form of communication.

The world changed for him on that day. Although he had known that rationally there had to be countless other forms of life, he had never been able to fully imagine the strangeness these forms would take. These beings appeared to be coated with a thick puffy white covering which contained a rapidly moving network of fluidity and a connected series of internal solid structures which moved against each other to create motion. At the top of their forms were reflective domes, similar to the surface of their lakes and their backs seemed full of mixtures of compressed gas.

Remarkable, complicated and fragile. These creatures were fascinating.

One of those who had probably stood there longer than the others found his voice and greeted the small visitors. At once, all the tiny creatures lay flat on the ground and the structure of one of their craft seemed to become unstable. It sloped to one side where before it had been level. The shock of this caused my companion to cease his greeting and again we all watched in wonder, approaching slightly in case they were unaware of our presence. We watched as they picked themselves from the ground and started running to the other craft.

In a moment they were gone, bright light and heat stroked the sky but the heat was far enough away for it not to touch us.

The experience was over.

It was at that moment that we found our voices and soon thousands of others were sharing in our experience.

Several elders with particularly acute harmonic sensations joined together to observe the tiny craft as it left the surface of the planet. They followed its path for many months until eventually, just as its sounds seemed as though they would be lost forever in the blurred noises of the motions of the depths of the universe, the craft came to stop. Their senses re-attuned to this point, they found a dizzying commotion which must have represented billions of these tiny creatures. They had tracked the creatures back to their home world. For many months afterwards the elders became the centre of attention for everyone, old and young. They released thoughts, scenes, snatches of noises, harmonies they thought they had found which almost seemed musical. They distributed and channelled these miraculous scenes and for a while nothing else on the planet seemed to matter.

Until the day came when the sounds of a returning craft were first noticed.
The months which followed this were truly joyous. There had never been another point in history where their kind had come together in such unity with the anticipation and celebration of welcoming new life. The possibilities this brought to their own existence, to the meaning of their place in the universe, to the potentials of forming a relationship with these new beings. Throughout the entire world the atmosphere was filled with debate, preparation, joy. It was so vibrant that for a while he forgot he had thoughts of his own, so intense and plentiful were the thoughts all around him, all so similar to his own, all focused on the same thoughts. The same event.

The day the rocket came was the culmination of this anticipation.

Those who could, had made the trip to the place where it was deemed most likely for the rocket to first enter their atmosphere. This place was judged simply by the speed of the rocket and the spin of their own planet. A simple equation which proved entirely accurate. There, on a tiny continent on the far north of the planet, millions gathered, their senses tuned to the skies, tracking the object moving towards them, preparing themselves for the most memorable day of their lives.

Some days later, a lone voice screamed from the confusion. It warned of further rockets approaching from the alien’s planet. Similar constructions to the small object which had brought the heat and death to their world. Similar objects which had smeared the colours of their skies with an ugly black and created fractures through their planet which reverberated angrily still. Others tracked the approach and progress of these objects and for a while panic spread unchecked. The elders knew there needed to be clear discussions away from this jumble of horror, pleas and expressions of disbelief, so a few of them travelled away to a remote land and meditated until their thoughts were clear and focused enough to detune the cries of their world and speak to one another.

When they returned, they had formed a solution to the approaching threat. They gathered some of the strongest and youngest of their kind and issued them simple instruction, to focus on the objects, direct their harmonies and simply shake them out of existence. The elders entered the thought streams to calm and help focus the younger ones and soon they had managed to create and direct a beam channelled and destructive enough to pull the closest of the menacing objects apart at the seams and scatter it harmlessly across the reaches of space. With this first object destroyed this method was used to dispatch the others which approached until they were all eradicated.

A bitter, tired hope returned to the planet.

He had experienced hatred for the first time in his life and was shocked that he should wish destruction upon another being. This is what the tiny creatures of this far away planet had given to him and others of his world.

Further into the ravine, and approaching the place where the others were gathering, he began scanning the air for thoughts and picked up voices talking, planning, reassuring. He focused on them further and joined their conversation, telling them that he would be there soon. He heard talk of the ship they had constructed, the time it would take to travel to their destination, navigation, communication routines, provisions. He heard lingering arguments about the validity and morality of the endeavour, arguments which had been voiced, well heard, debated time and time again to exhaustion. Standard responses were now given to the answers, so well known were the lines of debate that there was little fruition in re-treading avenues which had been travelled before.