On the Wings of Hope : Prose

It seemed to them this very instant, that those ten seconds lasted for the whole eternity - wonderful and everlasting.

It seemed, that just as quiet - always - these short words will beat off their mysterious rhythm, and Earth, mother Earth, their space home, one of myriads, will caress their sight with its familiar and dear landscapes. And that this launch pad, and this star vessel, and cosmodrome control tower, looming in a distance will never-ever disappear from the sight. And that the sun will shine just as warmly, and tomorrow - only twenty hours later - this planet will meet its new day. But by that time they will long be gone …

And each of them during these short and at the same time never-ending instants remembered his own life in this star home.

They say, that when one is dying, all his life, all its particles - both bright and dim, all its flights and fallings, - they are all swirling before him. These last instants are extremely short - and at the same time practically endless. They are like the awakened eternal memory, drawing a slice of his past before a man … one of his steps in the eternity.

They weren’t dying - they were reborning anew during these instants, and during same instants their memories were recreating the images of their past before them. They remembered the childhood - how each of them was a beautiful young and still totally helpless child, having come to this world. They remembered, how this very child has finally grown up, learnt the world to which he has come, and how he has fallen in love with it. Each of them was travelling his own path … some in a desperate and furious run, some measuredly and easy, some even joyfully jumping, yet the roads of their destinies once joined together - and since then they have been travelling as one. They have formed a unity during all those years - and thus they will work as a single whole.

“We shall make it”, - those were the thoughts of everyone.

And thus they came at last - these words. Or, truly, just a single one.

“Launch !”

The ship rushed upwards, furiously speeding up, desperately trying to leave from under terrestrial gravitation. And once again as a series of small eternities - instants of time, melting and disappearing in something so much greater … and once again a new life - and myriads of births each and every second of a life’s journey. And yet somewhere deep in themselves a woken up gentle melancholy of a native home, left for a while, - a home, where they will surely return ten years after, when their mission will be fulfilled.

* * *

 - Indeed, I’ve heard of that. The first space vessel “Trailblazer” successfully orbited the Earth and from now on they are travelling to a different solar system to build a first colony on a planet, discovered by auto-piloted ships, which significantly meets requirements of our world’s inhabitants - there is an atmosphere, very close in its structure of gases to our home world, there is a comprehensible planetary landscape, there is organics - practically an ideal new home for us.

- And still our true home is where we are living in each single moment. Haven’t you always been telling me that?

- Yes, you are certainly right - our home is where we are at present. That’s why our home is the Earth, and their new home … their new home is awaiting them.

- When, according to calculations, should they return back to the Earth?

- Almost ten years from now, judging by previous measurements. Their journey to a new planet will take four years, one year for establishing and building of a colony, and a bit more than four years to travel back home. Well … I mean to one of their homes - back to us.

- Do you believe that they’ll make it?

- I have no doubts in that. They are the best ones we were able to find - masters of their kind, who have successfully passed through all conceivable earth trials and trainings for adaptation in space. But - and that is the most important aspect - they are almost like a uniform monolith, a single whole, that’s why they’ll make it all - and no other option is ever possible.

- I take it, that now we have little options left, except for to await their arrival. Ten years, right? Just a small fraction of the eternity, isn’t it?

- And now you are talking my language. How did I manage not to notice such a change in you earlier, I wonder? I must have totally lost my attention by the end of my years, I guess!

- We all are constantly changing. Someone rises up, somebody falls down, there is no stopping in the Universe, as well as no ending of a life - for that’s the eternity and endless fractions of it. Those were your words, remember?

- I do. And now, after even twenty more years of my life, I can add to it - “and men, like the Universe, belong to it”.

- Now, it, apparently, is totally obvious to the overwhelming majority. But everything could go a wrong way, had they not listen to reason in due time. Do you still remember those years?