Recollections, Entry 4
13 May 2016Astrachalasia
It has been two weeks since I last wrote. Every night since then, I dream of Joseph. You wouldn't be able to tell that it's Joseph, but it is. I dream that I sit here, in this ship for weeks on end, and that signal source draws ever closer and eventually after years of waiting it reaches me and it's his dead body. On his back are wings of fire and his body is on fire and his eyes are dead and he drifts through space right towards me. I don't even have to move (good thing, too- I can thank my busted thrusters for my current predicament), I just have to open my cargo scoop and let him float into my bay. When I get him into the cockpit, he lays on the floor. His wings are gone, his fire is gone. But his dead, cold body is there. I go to embrace him, but the cockpit expands endlessly as I run. So I run faster. And faster. And faster, until I am sprinting down an endless cockpit towards him. I begin to approach.
As soon as I get close enough to touch him, his mouth opens and the hell cloud comes out, the same sinister purple that occupied my first series of dreams. My ship clouds and my lungs cloud and I suffocate, choking on the hell cloud until I collapse. The violet fog consumes my ship and takes it into nothingness, and then the cloud shoots in the direction of 27 KP. All that remains is Joseph's Gladius. I see this every night.
Joseph once told me, "The galaxy as we know it is an argument. You argue with it, and it argues with you, and the stronger argument wins. It is up to you, as a disciplined navigator of the stars, to exhibit the strongest argument. The stronger your will, the stronger your knowledge and honor."
This enigma holds a place in my thoughts above all else. After all, it should; it is the only lie Joseph Pompeii has ever told me.