Eyes close.

“You’ll be left behind,” they say. Force multiplier. More time for creativity. Exhaustion from the day. From hearing it everywhere, from everyone.

Livelihoods are being stolen. Taps are running dry. But sure: the IPOs will save us.

My body settles into bed. Subconsciousness swallows the thoughts. Finally, rest.

Eyes open.

Pitch black. Shallow breaths in a tight space. Knuckles scrape wood all around me. The new confinement dampens my scream.

How did I end up here? I was only trying to dream.

Wearing myself out, I surrender. Only the tears move. Gradually, peace.

Maybe it’s better this way.

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“Morning,” says a humanoid behind the counter, who pushes a few buttons that make coffee and a place setting appear. “Big day!”

“The day, Jess!” Tom says, “I still can’t believe I qualified.”

“I can,” Jess says. “You’re born to ride the waves! The usual?”

“Yep,” Tom nods.

Jess pushes more buttons. Breakfast materializes: eggs, sausage, and a bottle of mustard.

“Favorable conditions today?” asks Jess.

“Looks like it,” Tom agrees. “Waves look evenly dispersed over the first hundred parsecs. The Twins are in perfect gravitational stability.”

“Listen Tom,” Jess leans in, their solid black eyes searching for contact with his slit pupils. “You’ve been coming into this diner for over a year now. That pair of neutron stars… They’re unpredictable. I’ve given a last meal to more solar sailors than this planet has moons. Don’t be a hero, you hear me?”

Tom nods.

Jess stands upright, smiles with uncertainty, and walks away. Tom waves his wrist over the counter to pay for the breakfast tab, and leaves.

Moments later, Tom seals the spaceport hatch behind him, and the computer chimes on.

“All systems are nominal.”

“Copy that,” Tom says, checking gravity readings on the interferometer. He enters a series of commands at the helm, and the sailship slowly advances to the starting line. As it does, a race portal activates on the view screen.

“Good morning, sailors!” says the announcer. “Five minutes until launch.”

Tom and the computer make the vessel ready for sailing, just in time for a green orb in the distance to detonate.

“Go!” Tom shouts, grinning as he works the helm. The delicate, gold mesh solar sail unfurls from the mast, and the sailship thrusts forward.

“Velocity: 0.1c,” announces the computer. “0.2c. 0.3c.”

Tom notices the redshift of the slower ships as they streak behind him.

“Yes!” Tom exclaims. The ship gently vibrates, but Tom adjusts a few settings to settle the ship.

“0.4c.”

“Wow!” Tom shouts. He checks the beacons for the other competitors on the view screen to find that they’re far behind him.

The alarm on the interferometer sounds, breaking the excitement.

Tom checks the interferometer, and gasps.

“No,” he whispers, as panic sets in. “Computer, project the next four waves…”

The view screen display shows three steady waveforms, then a peak that is too large or the screen. A gravity swell.

Tom sits down, and takes his hands off the helm.

“Computer, time to impact?”

“Thirty seconds.”

Tom shakes his head in disbelief. He’s lost all control of the vessel. The neutron stars are unstable, throwing gravity swells across kiloparsecs. He’s not the fastest. He’s the only one to launch!

“Four seconds to impact. Three. Two. One.”

The sailship capsizes as space and time expand, then contract. Everything goes black.

“Morning,” says a humanoid behind the counter. “Big day!”

“The day, Jess!” Tom says.

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“Good evening, Doctor.” The host greets me with a warm smile. He glances down at the guest list. “Party of…”

“One,” I say. “Just one.”

He looks up, his eyes acknowledging what that means. He nods and gestures. “This way.”

I follow him down the dimly lit corridor, flanked on each side by private rooms behind sealed doors. As we pass, each window reveals a scene. In one room, a crew member sits at a table, surrounded by people who are both crying and smiling as he opens their gifts. In the next, a couple is seated side by side, one weeping on the other’s shoulder while their food goes untouched.

“Your room, Doctor.” He raises his badge over the sensor, and the door slides open. I step inside, taking my seat at the otherwise empty table.

“Do you need a moment to review the database?” he asks.

“No, I’ve decided,” I say.

“Very well. Bon voyage,” he says. He steps into the hallway, secures the door, and walks away.

The room is small and quiet. Three floating lighted orbs hover over the dining table. In the corner of the room, the screen from the stasis pod displays scientific telemetry, and reads:

Mission: Centauri Colony

Status: Empty

Time to Destination: 44 years

The screen changes to solid gray. A white circle pulsates on the gray screen, emitting a baritone voice.

“Good evening, Doctor Lorna. The Time to Stasis is thirty-six minutes. Have you selected your final meal?”

“I have,” I respond.

All I could think about was my first meal with her. A crowded spaceport diner. Her hair tousled from running to catch the last lift of the night. A laugh I would never hear again. A tear falls, and I wipe it away.

“A sparkling water with a squeeze of lime. And a cheeseburger.”

The screen produces a pulse, and the three orbs hovering over the table begin to vibrate. A meal setting materializes in front of me: a cheeseburger, and a glass of sparkling water with a wedge of lime on the rim.

The meal carries a sense of finality. She isn’t here, and she wouldn’t be coming. Too painful, she said, to say goodbye forever.

Tears stream down my face, dropping steadily onto my lap. I lean forward, and take the first bite. Time moves at an agonizing pace as I eat and I grieve, alone.

“Time to stasis: eight minutes. Please prepare for pod integration.”

I stand and step aside. The table disappears, and an orb approaches, stopping in front of my face. I part my lips, and ultrasonic waves clean the inside of my mouth.

“Time to stasis: five minutes. Please initiate pod integration.”

I step into the pod, lay down, and connect all of the pod ports to my suit. The pod seals shut.

“Engaging stasis.”

I close my eyes and breathe out. One final tear drops, and then freezes.

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The ocean swelled around me. I gripped the edges of my bodyboard and leaned forward, riding the swell of the waves. My board coasted smoothly to the beach. As I stood up, my feet descended beneath the sand, creating tiny rivers as the tide receded between my toes. Dusk painted the sky in purple and gold gradients. It was my third time in the water as a bodyboarder, and I was finally getting the hang of things. The ocean water pulled on my ankles, beckoning me back into the water for one last wave before nightfall.

The lower tide meant that I had to paddle nearly twice as far out, but my patience was rewarded when the ocean bloated beneath me. I rose quickly with the water, but this time was different: I could not see over the crest of the wave wall. My board slid along the backside of the waves, down and further away from the coast. The waves rushed towards the beach without me. I felt like a fish caught on an invisible hook, being pulled helplessly by the riptide.

Fueled by adrenaline, I exerted all of my energy to overpower the current, kicking vigorously in parallel to the direction of the flow, but it was no use. The torrent was too intense, and I was headed straight towards the sharp rocks that lined the edge of the cove. At high tide, I could try to land safely and wait, but at low tide, the exposed, jagged peaks would break my body. I clung to my board, closed my eyes, and braced for the impact.

My eyes adjusted to let in the last rays of the recently set sun while I drifted back into consciousness. A bright spotlight shifted into and out of my peripheral view. It was a rescue boat, and they were headed straight for me. Sitting upright, I was surprised to have felt no pain, but relieved to learn I was able to move. I jumped up, waving my arms above my head.

“I’m here! Help me! Over here!” I shouted.

The boat approached the rocks to my right, and the spotlight scanned the shadows. I expected the light to stop as it passed over me, but instead, it kept traveling along the edge of the cove. As the light shifted to my left, my neon yellow bodyboard appeared, mangled and wedged between two sharp boulders. The boat stopped, and they retrieved the remnants of my board. The spotlight operator gave a solemn nod, and the driver turned the boat around to search again.

“Can’t you see me?! I’m here!” I pleaded. The rescuers had completely missed me, again. My voice tightened with desperation as I screamed from deep inside my belly, waving my arms and jumping in place.

The spotlight approached a second time, but when the light reached me, my eyes were not sensitive to the light. My body remained unlit. I lowered my arms and examined my hands. No shadow. I clapped, but heard no sound. I was there, but I was not.

Over and over again, the light would come and go. They searched for hours, but they could not see or hear me. Eventually, the light turned off, and the boat turned back towards the shore. Sorrow expanded in me until I wept, and with my tears came a terrible knowing: the salt of the sea comes from the unending tears of the dead. Ever since the riptide, I have contributed mine.

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