Monday 18 November 2013



IT’S EASY

Welcome, sundry Humans, to spaceship Enlightenment.
Your journey will take approximately two of your Earth minutes.
Please sit and relax a moment.

Now, look out forwards through the window at the space station centre point marker.
Close your eyes.
Imagine the length of the distance you have just seen, as you have been taught.
Now shrink yourself inside your head until you are a black dot.
Feel that you are weightless, tiny, out of space and time.

Now remember the distance to the marker and think of each one of your ten fingers.
Increase the distance in your head by ten times.
Hold it.

Think of your ten fingers and increase it again.
Hold this distance – the baseline of about ten kilometres is achieved
Imagine and increase again by ten.
Now imagine your line of ten in a cube of one thousand – ten by ten by ten.
Pull them in your mind and string them out row after row.
See the thousand and multiply your distance by this factor.
Hold the distance.

Think of the thousand dots in a cube again, line them up and multiply the distance again.
See the length of the line.
The distance you can see is the distance from your Sun to the Earth.
See the thousand and extend the line.
See 500 and extend the line.  Add ten more.
Good.
Hold it.

Now take your mind point and ‘step’ across to the other end.
Hold it.

Feel that you are complete.
Hold it.
If anyone is lost at the moment, please hold up your hand. Good.

Now you are ready - let go of the line from your head – feel the snap.
Good - open your eyes.

We have arrived in your solar system, your shuttle craft will be leaving shortly for Earth.
Please check your calendar has adjusted correctly:  Today is November 17th 2113.
Please take all your belongings with you as you leave the spacecraft.
Virgin Hops thanks you for your custom.
We look forward to seeing you again soon.


Colin Morgan  

11 comments:

  1. Ahh thank you for a great Sci-Fi poem.. space is so vast beyond any understanding... well written (maybe you were inspired by the Poetics prompt)

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    1. Yes, this is just the distance from the nearest star... 4 light years away - the gallaxy is 100,000 lightyears across and the most distant objects we can see are 15 000 000 000 lightyears away. As you say, boggling...

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  2. What a smart piece :) My favorite part was the snap of the line. I was right there with you, and I felt the release. Thanks for the trip!

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    1. Thank you - it will be great when they get this working one day...

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  3. ha. nice bit of sci fi...i like the release...the letting go of that line...and that heralding our arrival....

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  4. Well, that was quite a journey indeed. Enjoyed this poetic voyage.

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  5. A fun journey. The contrast between "complete" and "lost"-- perfect. Loved the snap at the end, too!

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  6. Very clever and very imaginative - but please don't let Richard Branson get hold of intergalactic travel ...

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    1. Thank you - I am afraid once it gets going Virgin are likely to be one of the big players, like it or not.

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