The grip of a soft pencil crumbles and the particles rise upwards, but still, a thin dark trace remains on the wrinkled paper.
Gerard knew exactly where the graphite was leading on the spaceship, but let's be honest, he didn't care anymore.
He sometimes looked into a small round window where Way saw only one void — in time he stopped noticing something special, fascinating in this black space.
The soul is embraced by something as dark, big and transparent — sadness. It is inevitable.
Gerard feels the shock, he needs to check the transmitter, but he continues to write all the accumulated paper quickly, knowing that these letters will never fall into the hands he so wanted to keep on his own.
A rattle.
- "As warned," Way whispers with a bit of fear, covered in a little excitement in his voice, mocking himself and his own destiny.
You have my letter in your hands,
which means I'm not around.
That I am madly far away now
and my ship is being hailed to death by meteorites.
Gerard looks at the readings, which smoothly crawl up, looks at the switches, and then lowers his gaze again at the sheet of paper. And why all this?
Something pink shines in the distance, whether it's a mirage or a tiny, unattainable planet.
I hope I can reach
to a shiny little planet.
The astronaut pulls the lever on himself, making the only possible attempt to improve their plight, to distance themselves from the asteroid.
The ship speeds up the pace, and Way has to get used to this rattling all over the cabin. Gerard feels that fear is coming more and more often, but he knows how to control himself.
Forgive me for being stupid.
And traded love for the pettiness of discovery.
Gerard unbinds himself from the chair, throws the belts, whispering into the void: "Sorry, sorry...". Fingers grab the white handrails, and the head in the hat approaches the window, Wei wants to break the damn glass, get out.
He's either going crazy, or what Gerard's been looking for so long is really quite close, as if you'd reached out and touched it, and then lost your mind.
How strange it is to be alive in a black man nowhere,
in the midst of the stars, the stars, the youngest of them all.
...crossing eternity to think of you,
the sand of the galaxies around the dunes.
— Come on... — the astronaut pulls the lever again, hearing the next blow of a huge stone on the surface of the ship. — Everything is fine.
Way prepares to land, alien and unknown, dead and icy. Hell is no longer perceived as something bloody red, enveloped in fire and smoke. Hell is just like this planet. This small land is hell.
Gerard misses his native home, nourishing a pinching tenderness and love for him, because everyone wants to live in one way or another, and here it is impossible. The snow on Earth seems incredibly warm compared to the silent loneliness and the bluish rays of the sun, the strong wind in the noisy hometown seems mild-mild compared to this dead rattling of the air on this planet.
It is a pity that paradise is broken up in the clouds of the Earth,
and God doesn't leave his own house.
My soul will stay away
and it's gonna be your soul's work.
It is so strange that Gerard has the feeling that he is so close to it, but the way is still endless, and the ship never gets closer to its goal, no.
Or maybe I'm inside your soul?
And that's why my way is so infinitely long?
In the beautiful substance of a sparkling silence
...flying through time, a shard of shrapnel.
Way whispers under the nose of swearing approach the screen, and for a moment his face is covered by a mask of terrible, terrible fear.
Everything is meaningless, the ship moves on something blacker than this matter with scattering of stars and planets.
I will never come back.
I'm sorry, the ship's changing course,
we're entering a dense, dense atmosphere.
I love you so much.
***
Frank searches through white falling petals of cherry blossoms, the branches of which were hidden in a transparent vase that sparkled in the light of the bright April sun. Rough skin of fingers as if scratching delicate flowers, and the man sees in their faces that are distorted by inevitable death, drying up.
Around the eyes, there are small wrinkles, in which warm rays sink, when Frank squinting from their obsessive light. He looks out the window, still waiting, waiting, waiting.
Hours, days, weeks, months, years.
On the beige, with a floral pattern of the walls hanging yellowed black and white photos, which are visible small, barely noticeable traces of folds. They smell old and hopeless, soaking the whole room with this smell.
The man gets up and walks to a small round mirror in which indoor plants were reflected, an old coffee sofa and an open window through which branches of a blossoming tree looked into the house.
Frank looks into his own empty eyes, which have long since lost their liveliness and were rather the eyes of fish thrown ashore.
— I am so tired.
A man holds a shabby rope tightly in his hands, and then he hears a loud clap of the door. He turns around.
This is just a wind.