Galactic Trip

Genre: SciFi, Space, Existentialism, Psychological Mystery, Galactic Trip

4 minute read | SciFi Short Stories | Fiction

Home » Galactic Trip

*No A.I. generated text in this story. Only HUMAN generated ideas from: CyberneticSemantics.com

A young man had set out on a journey, a galactic trip. He sought all the wonders of the world, culturally, philosophically, geographically. Over time he had cultured himself and expanded his visions. One day, in his quest through the deserts of what was Persia, he stumbled through his mirage of searching; through sandstorm and sun storm. A great voice became clear to him, surrounding him, other-worldly. It had come to him and he was ready for it, his fatefulness and his life quest. The Alien voice desired to show him the Universe, if only to experience just a fraction more of it.

“Come with me, inquirer,” said the deep vibrating voice through the sandstorm. “Come drink more of the sacred waters this barren land’s plant life has so humbly relented.”

“It saved my life. I felt guilty to take its.”

“But it relented to you its life’s secrets, as I am one of them. Ask anything you wish to know of knowledge, of existence, of the Universe. I will show you.”

“Show me the distant stars, the edge of the Milky Way. The quasars up close, to witness their chaos. The vast voids between galaxies, and the meaning of existence.”

“I will grant your visions. If you come with me, all questions will be answered.”

In a moment they were transcending the earths atmosphere and burning up plasma as they accelerated astronomically. Faster and faster as the little specs of planets and the distant speckle of the grand mother star’s twinkle grew dimmer, they continued accelerating. The young man looked ever-forward and never noticed the beauty of his past, nor did he wave goodbye.

“We have transcended the stars of your great Milky Way young man, and I’m sure you can sense the cosmic power that is coming. It is strange to “perceive” in its environment as I will show you up close. Its massive, massive stature changes all perception, of all nature,” the voice hypnotically whispered like a Universal Tour Guide.

The Quasar Mrk 231 came into view dizzyingly quick. Its incredible gravitational turbulence in the ether of space-time reality made its light show spectacle that of a full fledged typhoon stand storm at 300 mph with your eyes duct taped open. It warped and distorted the physical localized nature of reality, and the thoughts that were stretched and warped along with it.

“I don’t “Know” a “Thing” of “What” is “Happening”,” the young man’s existence concocted in the whirlpool.

“Come, we will look at all that is from a further perspective and it will become clearer,” said the voice in its impervious understanding.

Their speed increased again and a vast chunk of space-time consumed in their journey of unfathomability. The view of Andromeda was their dessert. They relaxed and they dined with their eyes at the spectacle of a trillion worlds orbiting a vast “nothing” of a black hole. Other galaxies, orbiting the incredible Goddess Galaxy that wrapped her long spiral arms around so many. Everything is moving so fast, but because of the most incredible distance that you have to recede just to fit it into one big full spectacle, that everything appears to barely be moving at all. Perception was so strange in the face of it all.

“This has been incredible. I really am still taken aback by this entire accompaniment, a chance encounter, an enlightening experience,” the young man said with a yawn. “Please take me back. Can this continue or happen another time?”

“I cannot continue with you after this. I cannot be unseen again either. Enlightenment is a threshold, and you continue forward. Where do you wish to return?”

“To Earth of course!”

“But it has been about 10 billion years, young man. Their is no Solar System any longer. I’m sorry my friend. There is just a modest white dwarf nebula in what would have been its trajectory. I assume that you mean the new location of what would be said Earth, if it existed. What is left is great beautiful and vibrant clouds of nebula dust; 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of its matter and radiated energy composition being the scattered and diluted entirety of history and existence of mankind.”

“Um, how can this be. Surely you can’t be serious.”

“It took us nearly 600 billion years in just our first few moments of meeting, my friend. Your request to see great Mrk 231 cost the bare minimum 580 years at light speed, but we needed time to speed up to light speed and slow down from light speed so that you didn’t die from the acceleration. Another 600 million to get back to Andromeda. And there is a cost to gazing into the void that is a Quasar: its utter Godly grip of gravitational chaos slows time to a near stand still in its local wake. Everything else is continuing in its time trajectory, but in the Quasar’s wake we experience the slowness “normally”. In our mere moments of prestige basking in the Quasar’s glory, and its dilation of seeming reality itself: far away, everything of the planets and solar system burned up in the suns expiration over billions of years. Merely moments to us.” [Based on approximations from real current estimates and physics]

“So I am a galactic orphan now, a true hitch hiker, as I have been in my life on Earth. But why did you do this to me?”

“I did what you asked. And what you do not ask can have the largest of consequences.”

“I asked for what I thought was enlightenment.”

“Your unenlightened thoughts could not conceive of enlightenment, but you were blinded by pursuit of it.”

“So, will you answer the final mistaken wish that I asked unknowingly? May I at least have that?” the man pleaded in his desperate last grasps at salvation. “The meaning of existence?”

“It appears that you have just attained that by yourself through our journey, through counter factual being, through experience. If you had slowed down and had appreciated what you have, what you are… THAT you “ARE”, the voice whispered disappearingly, “You wouldn’t have asked.”

*Disclaimer: Some of this story was generated through the use of AI. All italic text was created by the AI Writer.

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