THE BAKERY!!!

You haven’t responded in 12 years.

Abused by your own defiance, you attempt to call for help on the small radio. You fiddle with the controls, attempting to feel the radio through your calloused, rough fingers.

A horrible,  discordant harmony of digital noise emerges. It doesn’t cease.

13 years.

‘I’m going to try to jumpstart us to lightspeed!’

The radio gurgles and screams at you.

14 years.

The light milks your eyes of all their vision. It flows through the ship, oppressing each corner. It’s hard to believe this is the same place that was so dark from the outside.

16 years.

‘6e, 6f, 20, 68, 6f, 70, 65!’

19 years.

‘Captain?’

24 years.

He’s saying it so quickly, you can barely hear him.

32 years.

45 years.

Aren’t you going to respond?

66 years.

He runs into the room and types on the–100 years155 years

***

Anoma JW980

Classification: Supermassive

Size: 155,031 ly

Age: 142 months

A sanitised jingle welcomes you. The mild distortion of the speakers reverberates. He appears out of nowhere with the awareness and confidence of a child. I guess you’re having a conversation now.

‘Twelve years ago, some noticed that their radios were able to pick up new broadcasts from foreign nations. When we attempted to translate, to figure out which country’s radio signals were interfering with ours, we discovered something I think you might find interesting… ‘

He’s wrong. You won’t find it interesting. You don’t find anything interesting anymore. Each day, you come to work and listen to the same pages from the same comic books. You used to actually read comic books– You know, with your eyes. And you wouldn’t just read individual pages, either. You used to read the whole story, and you used to enjoy it.

Over the years, you discovered which parts you like, which parts you don’t. You used to wish each comic book would just start in the cool part, the part where the hero saves the day, and then explain only the bare minimum to get you to care. You’d read selectively, enjoying only the origin stories, and the moments the hero decides to change everything and jump into heroism.

Then you started taking it for granted. You realised the moment you started doing it, and you tried to stop yourself, but it’s so intoxicating. Every single emotion, the entire symphony of the human experience, in its powerful triumphs that fill you with adrenaline and its devastating falls from grace, is now condensed to something you eat, consume on the way to work. It’s content, and you’re just content with it.

There was a time when you wanted to write your own comic book, and its panels were glued to the insides of your eyes like– Wait, what’s he saying?

‘Aliens.’

‘What?’

‘There’s something on the other side of Anoma. Someone. And they want to talk to us.’

‘That… is pretty interesting.’

‘It’s life changing! We need to know what they know about Anoma, how their language works, if they can help us figure out the key to supermassive blackholes, or maybe we could even stop Anoma from swallowing the Milky Way!’

***

The desperate crescendo of the ocean’s creeping tides announces your return as you wake in a violent jolt, he’s spilled on the floor like spaghetti.

Thin strands of light tear off of every surface.

As you rotate the ship, you’re surrounded by a hurricane of light.

There’s no sound in space. That’s simply not how it works. You must be imagining it, but…

If you listen closely, you can hear an entire orchestra just outside the ship.

The percussion builds in bursts of rageful thunder.

You know. You know it like a musician knows music. You know it as a certain fact.

The strings are tense as they harmonise on the leading tone, leading you to believe.

In your throat, your stomach, and in every atometre of your being, you feel as the adrenaline takes over your body. Pumping throughout, it’s intoxicating. Because you know–

The entire orchestra reaches the tonic chord.

No matter what happens, you are getting out of here.