Dreams of the Planet Spoon.

Dreams of the Planet Spoon

Henry looked at the patches on his jacket, the edges worn with time and training, he folded the cloth neatly by the bed where he would sleep for the next one hundred and twenty-three years. Alpha Ursae Majoris a star in the Big Dipper constellation was embroidered on the small hexagonal fabric. A small, stitched planet orbited it: Kermode. That was their destination. The letters “H.O.R.A.S.” labeled the patch and from the jacket he looked to his right where Charlie and Rose stood. To his left was Adrienne, Jan, Ian, Maggie and Byron. They all disrobed to their personal garments to sleep in solitary, soundless stasis until they arrived.

           Charlie was a beauty. Tall, blonde and strapping. He had been a competitive surfer and mixed martial arts competitor before he had lost his family. His back seemed to have a six pack and Henry envied it thoroughly. Henry was being modest, all the members of HORAS had to be in peak physical condition. Rose stood beyond him, slim and beautifully elegant. Her features were sharp as razors. High cheek bones, a sharp nose and chin were only accentuated by the eyes. Her eyes were nearly black, almost as black as her hair. She was the quiet one, the Japanese doctor who had thought of Charlie most all the time, but he seemed oblivious to her. Everyone knew of course.

           Henry struggled to lift his eyes from Adrienne. She was gifted with blonde hair, shoulder length, and brilliant blue eyes. Her figure was tough and strong but graced with perfect curves and Henry and Adrienne had struggled to keep things professional.

           She looked at him. Fit and handsome. Emerald eyes and exceptionally dark brown hair. He had light facial hair and his smile was infectious. She smiled back and noticed his eyes shining from the harsh fluorescent lights that lined the craft.

           Henry’s eyes continued past her to notice Jan, Byron, Ian and Maggie. Byron and Maggie spoke lovingly. They were husband and wife knew that they would dreaming for the next 123 years. They usually bickered whilst leading the group of misfits. Maggie was a specialist in linguistics and Byron was the captain. Fitting, since he had been named after the late great Byron Nelson. Ian, the big scot was cracking his knuckles and neck and jumping up and down just slightly to prepare. He was a tough man. Scars wrapped themselves around his entire body and Jan was at the end of the line. The engineer, the most important person on the ship. She had lost her family in South Africa, in fact we had all lost our families.

           This was his new family, and he was theirs. They would sleep for over a century and then be together on this scary new planet. What would they find? So many thoughts raced through his head. His hand lifted a small capsule up to his mouth.

           “You know what I call it?”

           He looked over in Adrienne’s direction. “What?”

           “I call it ‘Spoon’.”

           “You call what spoon...This?” He held up the sleeping pill.

           “No. Kermode. It is the second brightest star in the big dipper. The big dipper is a spoon, so I’m calling it Spoon.” She smiled at him.

           “I like that.” He smiled. “Spoon.”

           He popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed. For a moment, the pill stuck sideways in his esophagus and he coughed lightly. He then started to hack and smack the edge of bed hard. Charlie walked over and touched his shoulder and smacked his back forcefully. The pill slid down and coughing in recovery stuck his thumb up. “Smooth.” He choked out, smiling at the others, always making a joke. “Thanks Charlie.”

           “Sure, thing mate.” He said, his accented voice echoing lowly through the hull of the ship. He turned back to his bed, ready.

           A blaring siren shouted through the halls and vents. “Enter pods.” The voice robotic and feminine.

           He looked to his left and right, praying that everyone would end up on the other side. He lifted himself into the bed. Sliding his feet into the glass chrysalis that would house him for the next 123 years. The cushion on which he lay was warm and enveloping and comforting for the next step which he both loved and hated. Purple jelly began to fill the pod. The goo too was warm and comforting, and it swirled around the container. It started at his feet, and worked its way up to his face, foaming and frothing. As it reached his chest, he began to feel uneasy. Drowning had always been his biggest fear, and the bubbling, semi liquid ooze unnerved him. As it reached his face a small tube jutted out close to his nostrils and sprayed with a deft ‘sssss’ noise. His eyes rolled into his head and he was gone.

           His world was a white floor, he could not find or make out any walls. Henry walked the blank world for what seemed eternity. And then there in the distance was a speck. It was black at the distance and skinny, and against the pale tapestry on which his feet had tread this speck seemed, in an instant, to be the most important thing in the world.

           His steps took him closer to the black dot and as he neared, he realized its true form. A tree. Not ebony but verdant in color and shone with the sparkle of a polished gemstone. Henry studied the soul for a few moments and looked up seeing two more specks. This time he ran to them and as they came into better view, he saw that they too were trees. Taller and even greener than the one before. Then in the distance more, and more again until he was standing in a forest, and that pale, white world was left behind. 

           A forest sprung up around him glistening with crystal clear droplets of sunlight filled water. Sap spilled out of certain trees and the sounds of a forest began to echo around him. Frogs chirped and splashed. Birds began to shriek in the darkness and unknown creatures and monsters growled and crept in the shaded shadows. Henry felt no fear, no sweat fell off him and the animals seemed to not to notice him. Flowers of every color bloomed at his toes. One, that was grey caught his fancy and he reached for it. As his fingered reached the ashen foliage his skin skipped through the flower. He tried again and again phased through. He was a ghost. This land was nothing more than a dream, or heaven, or…something.

           He heard muffled voices and from around a giant tree of unknown species entered his friends. First Adrienne, who spoke quickly admiring, noting and spouting about the ever-expanding list of species never encountered. She had worked as a biologist and botanist her entire life and was a true expert, on Earth anyway. Behind her followed the group. He could see himself there, and he had a newly acquired cut across his cheek which was lightly bleeding. In fact, they all looked a bit worse for wear.  

“Is this the future?” He said to himself.

           Their heads snapped toward him, their eyes pierced into the jungle, confused expressions waiting for the creature that made the noise. They looked through his body to the bark and leaves beyond. He was nothing more than an apparition. A banshee in the thicket.  

           The jungle disappeared, shrinking in an instance to leave an immense angel. It floated a few feet off the winter white floor. “If you come here you will die.” The creature said, “This planet is mine.” Its body was humanoid, pitch black, must have been forty feet tall; it displayed no gender and its gigantic wings clothed in feathers of royal purple and midnight black. Cobalt blue eyes pierced Henry like two large robin’s eggs ready to hatch just studying him in the angel’s skull.

           “If you come to my home you will meet the same fate as the natives.”

           Henry must be dreaming, there was no way some blue-eyed angel was threatening him, not really. “Why can you see me? My friends couldn’t see me.”

           “My father gave you a warning already I see…Here is mine. If you come to my planet, I will destroy you. I will play with you first, killing you off one by one, and toss and desecrate your corpses. You will feel your intestines stretch snag on the bones of your allies. Your eyes will be singed in the heat of my home’s fire. Flesh will be flayed, and your heart will burst in the palm of my hand.

           Henry smiled and turned away, “Alright bub.” He blinked and those eyes were a breath away from his face. The dark skin around the sockets owned celestial bodies. Stars and cosmos floated in him. The eyes foamed with a gorgeous and deadly blue hue that calmed and terrified.

           “Perhaps you will be a fun challenge for me. I hear that humans have grown slightly more intelligent since I ruled Earth. I am sure He will give you a fighting chance, He has loved me to the point of extinction. To the point of exile.”

           “Mhm.” Henry had had enough. He walked away keeping his eyes shut this time. He strode until boredom struck, then he sat. He kept his eyes shut and waited. When he opened them again, he was in a new world. He wondered what had happened. “New dream.” He said, getting up and walking once again. But he wondered, he wondered if what he had seen did have actual meaning. “Was that the future?” “Was that thing real?” “Was there really a jungle on the Planet Spoon?”