[ WP ] You were born on a colonizing spacecraft on your way to a distant star . You are the middle generation of history ; born to late to have seen Earth , and to early to live to see your destination .

Zebulon, the scar among the stars, sailed a void of untouched night. Inside its five limbs and tuberous body, spun round in wide berths of axial alignment, biomes nestled within sight of one another, floating conjoined by bolstered grooves. Long-shedding corrugated arteries, these beams hung like great ribs, femurs, and knuckles interlaced by fibrous strings, were sewn onto sails that shone with solar luminosity, and wreathed the whole conglomerate in icy fire. The inner globules turned, one after another, rotating out and up and down, while silent easements ground along outside the atmospheric domes. Insect things without eyes or brains skittered the lengths of every arched extremity, on each caged rung, the glacial underbelly and radiated skin alike under continual repair. Within the glow of outspread wings turned black a moment, then spooled yellow, orange, and purple, awash with light again, as fused sunshine caught itself unwinding, workers tickled, thunk by wrote of execution, and patched up, piece-by-piece, the great ship in somnambulant weaves. 
 
 
 The globes, kept safe in all these fantastic trappings, ebbed, rolled, and turned past one another, each a microcosmic world tethered to its neighbors and yet floating free. Apart, each a hatchling awaited its own daybreak. Once in a generation there came a day when this whole continuum of souls grew anxious, aware the moment of departure had arrived, but only one among the globes would leave their nest of sprawling light and massive shadows. The chosen would ascend the neck kept straight, a yawing jaw would open, and roiling thunder wash the frame, creating waves on oceans and fissures in the land, a catatonic spasm that rattled at the wingtips, and then silence would descend on all of them. The lights would disappear, the workers wilt along the overhangs and skintight frame, and stillness would pervade the worlds assembled there. With the stars their only light, in awe the clustered millions there would ache, might yearn collectively that they ’ d been chosen as individuals to receive the transformation witnessed. For from the helm had flown a drop of water, a distorted ball of glass, hurled with every volt available, and from the font of life preserved beneath the chrome and iron cranium: a cannon blast, seismic waves that wracked the mind, and one impossible thought crossed everyone left watching. Children clasped in mothers ’ hands, lovers standing there in pale reflection, all wondering what those people now apart must feel, cut loose and shining naked towards their future, singular and shorn, inevitable. 
 
 
 Were they wary, were they fearful? Did they dread the red soil and jade sea they might soon call home, alone and empty save for their fresh tread? Or was there elation on their faces, and dancing in the streets? I ’ ve often dreamed of tomorrow and its cousins, for some day it might ring down the line that it ’ s our turn at last, our time to go, and I spin round inside my head to glimpse every stippled globe again, the glacial forms being chipped at on the wings, the green swaths and blue swatches just adjacent us through two panes of awesome arched protection - and I wake up giddy, eager, overjoyed. That ’ s how I imagine they must feel right now, watching the comet fade away, a streak of life among the stars likewise burning brightly, and then one among the billions, its trajectory apart from ours, destiny aligned and married to another body out of sight, inlaid across the void. 
 
 
 A faint glimmer of jealousy has crossed my thoughts. I remain, as ever, an occupant aboard this constellation of sails and spheres. This spinning, silent ship which cuts through endless night is one unending marvel, a fantasy in which I still find childish delight, despite my age and thinning hair. It occurs to me again that all this is ephemeral. As I drift in and out of thought, I discern that down through time, there must be those who never know what it means to live among the stars. That at least is my enduring comfort. That I abided, and maintained, as humanity ’ s existence seemed most tremulous: that is enough for me. 

