Voyager

The lights spread apart, collapsed and recombined in a devastating flash that echoed through Connor’s body.  He felt their pull, gentle but insistent, yearning for him to join them in the blackness.

The young man’s skin tingled with nakedness.  He knew, in the back of his mind, that he should be cold, but he felt warm instead.  Lesser lights, gods of galaxies old and new, sent their energy in whipping undulations--the waves cresting and breaking over him like solar tide, while his body remained motionless.

Patiently, the lights urged him forward.  Connor reached out with his hand and grasped nothing, and awoke.

* * *

“Last night I had a dream I was a jackal eating a wild hog and its baby,” Marsha said.  “What do you think that means?”

Connor Levinson looked up from his cereal.  Only Wednesday morning, and he was already tired of his mother’s bullcrap.  He sat, hunched knees-under-chin at the folding dinner table; across him hung a cross-stitch with the words “Home Sweet Home” poked in cotton pixels.

“I think it means you shouldn’t have cheese curds before bed,” he said.  Connor shut his eyes tightly, as if he could will himself back to sleep in his chair.

“I think it means my animal spirit is trying to reach me,” she said.

“Maybe it wants you to eat more bacon.”

Connor’s mother looked at her son carefully.  The bedhead made him look slightly imbalanced.  Her eyes lost focus.

“Maybe,” she said.  “You know, your dad always had weird dreams.  Have you had any good ones lately?”

“No.”

Outside the tiny window above the faucet, pink sunrays yawned out over an inviting sky.  Connor scooched his chair out, groaning against the linoleum, and slipped on his shoes.

“Oh, won’t you comb your hair first?” his mom shouted after him.

“Are you going to Wayne Manor tonight?” he asked.

“You know I hate it when you call it that.”

“So, you are going?”

“I’ll leave some dinner for you,” she said.  “Actually, there’s still some chicken in the freezer.”

“Does Kenneth feed you frozen dinners?”

“I will not have you talking about him that way, mister, he’s obviously done very well for himself.  Maybe there’re some things you can learn from him.”

The screen door banged shut as he jumped down the steps and got on his bike.

* * *

County Road B slid between houses and dales in a windy northern perimeter, containing the crusty town of Parcel within the dirt farms and cattle pens that surrounded it.  In the spring and fall, Connor took B to school on his bike, but during the summer he only went up to Marshall Street, which led to the southern side of town and the public library, curved a bit, and then became Highway 81.

Connor’s shoelaces clicked against the bicycle frame as he pedaled.  Weaving a trail between stray clumps of gravel and dirt on the roadside helped him to relax and filter his thoughts.  That way, by the time he got to his tree he had a clear head.

The tree stood in a grand patch of grass, holding the ground for dear life as it stretched bony black fingers toward the sky.  This part of town wasn’t really a part of town at all, left behind like a cluster of broken kernels on a cob. The road had to go out of its way to meet it.  For the hundredth time, he climbed to a bough a full eight feet from the ground, removed a book from his pack, and began to read.

“Watcha readin’?”

Connor jolted in surprise at the voice and lost his balance on the narrow limb-seat.  The book flew out of his hands as he flailed outwards, reaching for a branch to grasp.  Finding nothing, he fell with a thud to the hard ground.

“The Voyager Mission.  I’ve heard of this book,” said the voice, unfazed.  “Are you okay?”

Connor looked up.  He had fallen on his chest, forcing the air from his lungs.  The emptiness paralyzed him.

I’m dying, he thought to himself.  I’ve stopped breathing, and now I’m dead.

“I think you killed me,” he mouthed.

His eyes made out a slim shadow, black like an eclipse in front of the morning sun.  She leaned down, hands on her knees, her face finally coming into focus.

“Where did you come from?” Connor asked.

“I live across the street.”  She answered. “I come here on my bike sometimes.”

“There’s nothing across the street.”

“Nothing except my house.”

Connor pushed himself up, the breath finally returning to his lungs.

Shielding his eyes with his hand, he looked out past the road.  There, distant but clear, sat a plain white house. Its long driveway stretched out into a tributary of Road B.

“What’s that book about?”

“It’s about girls who talk all the time.”

She didn’t roll her eyes, just let out a short “Ha,” meant to evoke laughter.

“What’s it really about?” She asked.

“People exploring space.  It’s science fiction.”

“Do they find anything?”

“No.  They’re all alone in the universe.  That’s the beauty of it.”

“But they’re not alone if they have each other, right?”

Connor paused.  “I guess. But they’re still alone on a cosmic level.”

“I see,” she said.

Connor tipped his bike back up and hopped onto the seat, the shock from his fall gone completely.

“Aren’t you a bit old to be reading young adult fiction?”

“My dad gave it to me,” Connor said.

“Oh.”  Tess got on her bike, but decided not to follow him.

“Where are you going?”

“Somewhere else.”

“Have a good voyage, hope you don’t find anything!”

Connor kept his eyes locked on the road as his wheels scraped the dirt.  During the summer he had nowhere to go. He certainly couldn’t stay at home all day, in the tiny trailer with no yard.  No basement, no attic. Mother never going anywhere. The tree saw him through, no company but a book and whatever twigs hadn’t fallen off the branches yet.

Now that was shot.  He’d have to find a new hiding place, one with no crazy people.

Maybe I can read at the bottom of the ocean, Connor thought.  Or inside a volcano.

In Voyager Mission, the crew of explorers discovered a distant planet in a faraway solar system, the only distinguishing feature a lone mountain, miles higher than Everest.  The size of a continent, it towered over every monument of mankind. From the peak, the explorers could see the curve of the horizon beyond the endless desert floor.  But no such places existed on Earth, and the thought made him sad. He felt like he needed to be there, to look down and see everything.

Connor returned to an empty trailer, his mother already gone to Kenneth’s house.  Connor had not seen Kenneth’s house, but he could envision it easily enough: a perfect lawn, with a nice car out front, and a riding lawnmower in the garage.  A medium-size dog that roots around in the meticulous landscaping arranged by an ex-wife.

In the few times Connor saw him, Kenneth came across as shallow, weedy, and, worst of all, talkative.  Not the kind of person you’d want to share a bus seat with. Kenneth owned a car dealership just off Highway 81.  Like a cheerful little troll, he guarded all means of transport out of Parcel. If you had a car, you knew Ken.

When Connor’s mother met Kenneth Dupont for the first time, she was waiting in line for the teller at the bank.  The way she tells it, the universe came together, her fate finally falling into place as she locked eyes with him across the lobby.  He complimented her hair. Connor imagined it differently. He didn’t know what his mom was wearing that day, probably something tacky.  A too-small floral print blouse with overbearing colors, and jeans that made her hips look small and her feet look even smaller. Kenneth in his ubiquitous sport jacket and loafers.

She would have seen Kenneth’s gold watch and swishy slacks and hungered for an escape, from waiting tables at the diner chain, from sleeping in a trailer on the trash part of town.  From frozen dinners. An escape from an empty house.

* * *

The lights didn’t alarm him so much this time, as Connor opened his eyes wide to take in the universe around him.  Constantly dancing and flowing, he couldn’t make out all of them. Still they beckoned, unchanged in their apparent desire for him.  Connor ached to join them, but all he could do was float in the black.

Connor knew he should feel afraid, panicky even, but a calmness infused his mind.  He breathed in the emptiness. Surrounding him, distant stars shone out, and planets flickered.  The misty froth of nebulae, intangibly distant, strung themselves through the heavens like cobwebs dangling in the breeze.

Despite the darkness, Connor saw perfectly.  The surrounding void, equidistant in every direction, comforted him like a womb.  Still, the twirling lights called out to him with their movements. In the weightlessness of space, Connor felt his body lurch and fall, pushing through nothingness.

* * *

“Connor, you have a visitor!”

Connor had no idea where he was.  His surroundings seemed strange, like relics of some forgotten civilization.  The desk in the corner, the monolithic bookcase. Detritus of a fallen order. It seemed arbitrary, this stuff.  Unnecessary.

All at once, his brain found its gear.  His room. His books. But even with his memory restored, he still felt like someone missing.

His mother opened the door.

“Connor, there’s a girl here to see you!” she said, with excruciating excitement.

The clock on his dresser read 11:14.

“Tell her I died tragically in my sleep.  This is a house of mourning.”

“She has your book.  She said you dropped it yesterday.  Have you two been hanging out together for long?”

As much as Connor hated the idea of being forced out of his room, especially this early in the morning, the idea of letting this mysterious, annoying girl have his book disturbed him more.  He had to take it back, so that he could go on never speaking to her again.

“I’ll be right there, just let me get dressed.”

As Connor changed out of his pajama pants and into a pair of jeans, he rehearsed his plan of action.  He would grab the book, hop on his bike, and immediately begin searching for a new hiding place, one with no chance of distractions.  Even if it meant having to go past the train tracks, or into the woods behind the gas station. He needed some place he could go to be completely alone.

“It’s not often I get to meet one of Connor’s friends,” his mother was saying as he entered the kitchen.  “I’m Marsha, Connor’s mother.”

“I’m Tess.  Nice to meet you!”

“Where’s my book?” Connor asked.

“You didn’t tell me you had such lovely friends, sweetie!  Won’t you come inside, dear?”

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t stay, Mrs. Levinson.  Connor, your book is in my backpack here.” Tess stepped over to her bag, which she left next to her bike.  Connor slipped on his shoes and went out the door.

“Is it okay if Connor comes over to my place for a while, Mrs. Levinson?”

“Yes!  That would be fine.  And please, call me Marsha.”

Connor groaned.

“I’ll see you kids later!  Have fun!”

Tess slipped her backpack onto her shoulders and got on her bike.

“Wait, give me my book!”  Connor said. Tess reached behind her back and pulled it out just enough for him to see the title peek out over the zipper.

“Maybe I will, if you can catch me.”

With a smirk, Tess set her feet to the pedals and took off.

Connor screamed internally.  Unacceptable. He got on his bike and rode after her, catching up quickly, despite her substantial head start.  When he got to within a dozen feet of her, she downshifted and pulled away again, toying with him. Connor hated it.

“So,” Tess shouted over her shoulder, her breath surprisingly steady.  “Where should we go?”

Connor put his head down and pedaled harder.  His tires needed air. He couldn’t remember the last time he had pedaled this fast.  Tess turned onto Road B and Connor followed. Being tormented was a new experience for him.

The road slithered on as it always had.  Connor focused on the rear tire of Tess’s bike as it spit dirt ahead of him, tantalizingly out of reach.  They passed Connor’s tree, and the memory of yesterday’s humiliating fall returned to him. The thought made him buckle down and pedal harder.  Tess kept turning her head and smiling back at him.

As they rounded a bend in the road, Connor realized that he had never ridden this far out of town before, and wondered if Tess’s route had a real ending in mind, or she simply enjoyed taking him as far out of his way as she could.

“You’re not getting tired yet, are you?” Tess shouted.

Connor said nothing.

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”

Tess turned onto a new street, Mclellan.  Gravel. The two riders left a floating trail of grey dust in their wake settling back into the rock.  Tess leaned to the right, steering her bike off the road and through the shallow ditch at its side, flying into a grassy field running back several hundred feet from the road before it met the edge of the woods.  Connor quickly did the same.

In a small stand of trees in the middle of the field, cloistered from the rest of the forest, stood a tree surprisingly similar to Connor’s.  Leafless, it stood dead or dying. As they neared it, Connor saw that it was slightly bigger than his, and had the potential for real splendor if its boughs could blossom.

Tess had solidified her lead, but finally slowed down as she neared the base of her tree.  An upturned root caught his front tire, stopping it dead and sending Connor flying over his handlebars and onto the ground.  Tess turned around just in time to see Connor skid to a stop, his face planted firmly in the grass and his limbs splayed out dramatically around him.

Connor knew he wasn’t hurt too badly and could easily stand back up on his own, but he lay down regardless, the sense of pure shame and defeat keeping him down.

“You’re kind of a klutz, aren’t you?”  Tess stood over him, looking down with something between delight and pity.

“Yeah, well you’re kind of an asshole,” Connor said.

“If you’re just gonna lie there and insult me, then maybe I won’t give you your book back.”

“You’re the one who called me a klutz.”

“Maybe I meant it in an endearing way.”

“Or maybe you’re just an asshole.”

Connor rolled over onto his back.  Once again, Tess’s figure appeared shrouded, blocking out the sun behind her.  Connor marveled at how, from his current perspective, something as small as this girl in front of him could hide the entire sun with her shoulders.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Me too.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Do you really think you can go through junior high completely anonymous?”

Connor paused.

“Yes.”

Tess sat down in the grass beside him.

“You’re not the only one who thinks this town sucks.”  She gave him a funny look, like staring at a zoo animal.  “At least, I assume you do, because you don’t really do anything here.  And I thought I was a loner.”

“People don’t really like it when you don’t want to fit in.”

“They don’t, do they?”

Tess stood up and walked over to her bike, leaning against the tree trunk.

“Let me get your book.”

Connor followed her to her bike.  She reached into her bag and pulled out his copy of The Voyager Mission.  He reached out to take it, fully expecting her to pull it away at the last second.  To his surprise, she didn’t. Holding it in his hands finally made the whole ordeal seem silly.

“I read it last night.  Hope you don’t mind. It was really good.”

As he thought, he found himself staring into the girl’s eyes for the first time.  They were blue--enough to make Connor take notice of them, instead of staring right through.  Her tan, sandy skin lent them a dark coolness in contrast. Connor’s own eyes started to lose their focus and he had to blink rapidly to recover.  The girl hopped on her bike.

“You need to lighten up, Mr. Voyager.”  Tess smirked.

Connor smiled.

* * *

All around him, the darkness began to swirl and coagulate; far-off oceans of stars raced in, only to ebb and wane as they shrunk into the void again.  Still, the lights remained, and Connor started to move.

Even in the emptiness of space, weightless and careless, he could sense great swaths of nothingness sweeping by him as he hurtled towards who knows what, these great galactic entities--beings, creatures, gods--drawing him to themselves with cosmic magnetism.

As before, what should have been fear manifested itself in Connor’s mind as oblique, detached curiosity.  He wondered what these subjects wanted so desperately of him, that they would hoist him up from his home, from his soft bed, to weave through the stars.

Even in his state of heightened awareness, Connor could not gauge the distance between him and the lights.  Supermassive stars, encircling him in every direction, gave off the same hint of glow that a nearby moon would, pinpricks in an opaque intergalactic sheet.  Even so, as he moved inexorably towards them, the beckoning lights shifted and revolved in ever-changing orbits, all the while growing brighter and more expressive, their movements widening until Connor thought he could reach out and grasp one as it flew by, only for it to hurtle past, out of reach.

* * *

Wind whipped past Connor’s ears as he raced down the hill, letting his feet rest on the pedals and gravity pull him forwards.  The old road curved right where it always did, and ahead of him his tree stood where it always stood. Unlike always, a girl stood underneath it, impatient hands set on her impatient hips.  She grinned. The stars were out.

“I told you to be here at nine!” Tess shouted.

“Sorry,” he said.  Traces of sweat sparkled on his neck.

Tess vaulted onto her bike and off she went, leaving Connor with no choice but to follow.

“Where exactly are you taking me again?” He asked with a huff.

“I never said.”

They rode past the Parcel town square and he asked again for their destination, but Tess dismissed his question with a flick of her hand.  She took the lead again, easily, but she didn’t taunt him this time.

They passed quickly through the brief commercial area on the edge of town, carefully deserted save a few cars waiting in drive-thru windows or pumping gas.  Connor kept expecting them to stop somewhere, anywhere at this point, but he followed dutifully as they rode. The night air felt good on his skin. By the time they reached the edge of town, Connor gave up all hope of discerning Tess’s plans.  He was about to turn around and go home when they reached Dupont Used Auto.

“Here we are!” Tess yelled.  She parked her bike at the drive and hopped over the low metal gate guarding the lot.

Despite being the only car lot for miles, Dupont was little more than a narrow stretch of tarmac, a fleet of optimistically priced vehicles, and a humble office building off to the side.  Connor stepped gingerly onto the pavement, unsure of what he should be doing at this exact moment in time.

“We’re gonna get in trouble,” he said.

“We’re not gonna get in trouble.”
“My mom’s boyfriend owns this place.”

“Exactly--we’re not gonna get in trouble.”  Tess eyed a Cadillac coupe and jumped resolutely onto the hood.  Connor winced.

“Your mom told me about him.  She worries that you two don’t get along.”

“You talked to my mom?”

“Online.  He can’t be that bad, can he?”

“He’s an idiot.”

Tess lay down on the hood, her back resting on the windshield, covering two nines on the price sticker.

“Sure.  But he can’t touch you.  You actually have a lot of power over him, you know that?”

Connor hesitated for a moment, then scooted gently onto the car.

“Is that what you like?  Having power over people?” he asked.  Tess just shrugged.

“Sometimes.  Mostly I just like doing stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Whatever I want.  Lie back.”

Connor did.  From their backs the night sky swelled into view, a dazzling barrage of celestial bodies hanging silently over the world.  Connor felt the weight of the Earth anchoring him in place so only his eyes wandered.

“You have to get pretty far out from town to see the stars like this,” Tess said.

For a long time they lay in silence.  Miraculously, the empty highway meant they had the sky to themselves.

“What else has my mom told you?”

“She told me you’ve been having trouble sleeping.  Thinks you’re probably not eating enough.”

“It’s these dreams I’ve been having.”

Tess turned on her side, suddenly intrigued.  Connor stared on into space.

“Weird dreams?  Nightmares?”

“No, they’re just . . . well I guess they’re just weird.”

“Tell me.”

No one had ever asked about Connor’s dreams before.  He told her about the strange lights, about being in space, about feeling them draw him in, like gravity.  He told her about how he sensed the distant stars all around him, felt their rays shining onto him.

“Do you ever reach the things, in the end?  The lights?” she asked.

“No, I always wake up first.”

“What do you think they want from you?  What would you say to them?”

“I would say that I think I’m wasting my time here, and I shouldn’t have followed you in the first place.”  Connor sat up and slid off the hood.

“Connor, wait.”

Hearing Tess say his name gave Connor pause.  He thought of all the other vast galaxies in the universe, filled with solar systems and planets of their own, and wondered if there were any other beings out there, looking up at their own field of stars, wondering if they were the only ones who felt alone.

“I’d ask them why I have to wake up in the same bed every morning, and spend all day around people who don’t realize that they’re trapped here, with no way out, on this dumb planet, with their sad little lives, and why my dreams have to taunt me every night, to the point where I hate going to sleep.”

Tess put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“I know you won’t think so, but I really do know how you feel.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Maybe I could, if you talked about it.”

“My dad,” he said.  His throat tried to stop itself.  “Seizure, two years ago. He just . . . fell over.”

“I’m sorry.”

Connor turned away and ran back to his bike.  Shame stung his face and ears and the night air, now blistery cold, only made the feeling worse.

* * *

Connor fully expected to spend the whole night awake in his bed, but after an hour he sensed that the dream had come again.  The walls, the bed, and everything else melted away in an instant, and he stood perfectly still at the center of the universe.

The lights were gone.  Pure emptiness surrounded him, as calm and sweet as the day it had been born, eons ago.  In the very spot where he stood, the cosmic egg had hatched, spouting outwards in every direction the raw materials of life, the universe, and everything else.  In its wake it left great swirling masses of energy, systems within systems, spinning and interlocking, colliding and escaping. But here, in the eye of creation, nothing remained.

“This is where I came from,” Connor said aloud.  The power of his own voice surprised him. The fact that there was no air for him to speak through seemed trivial.  His voice came from somewhere deeper.

“And this is where I will return someday, when the dream ends.”

Connor’s field of vision expanded upwards, downwards, in every direction, until he saw everything around him.  From each corner of the universe, the lights raced up to him, sweeping together in one grand motion, until they encased him fully.

“And here you are again, in the meantime,” they said.

“But this is not where I belong.”

“In all, there is not one mite out of place.  Each galaxy has a path, as does every star within it, and every planet, moon, and man.”

“And where does my path lead?”

“Where you go.  Action flowing out of action, decision from decision, all from here, all ending here.”

“But why am I here?”

“You are not.  You are everything, everywhere.”

“Nothing is out of place,” said Connor.

“And you are not nothing.”

* * *

“Connor, it’s your friend again!” said Marsha.  “She says she has a book for you.”

Connor went outside, where Tess sat on the steps.  He sat down beside her.

“I’m getting tired of you stealing my property,” he said.

“I didn’t steal this one, but it can be yours, if you want it.”  Tess pulled a bright hardcover book from her backpack. Connor read the title as she handed it to him.

“The Return of the Voyager?” he asked.

“It’s about boys who sit in trees all day and never talk to anyone.  Figured it’d be right up your alley.”

Connor got on his bike, book still held tightly in one hand.

“Come on,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

Connor smiled.

“Wherever we want.”