passing

My fingers pick out the words on this Log almost in spite of myself. Alone, in the darkness, waiting to make a scheduled Jump that no one will see. Everyone else is asleep. As I walk through the ship I hear Em's sleepy sighs as she shifts and scratches at herself. The marks of her Chemming days will never leave her. Mezaro's room is quiet, as I walk through the other wing I hear Kon snoring. Downstairs is the typical silence from Ice's quarters, and I don't know why I expected something different from Caban's room. It is hard to imagine that man limp in sleep, though I have seen it before. All of us lie still, unaware, and in the day we pretend we don't. Even Jamieson, the most legendary Runner of our Age, drooled a little here and again.

This next jump will take us somewhere new, it doesn't matter where. Everyone will slumber through the short transition through space and arise in a different location, as dark and empty as what we left behind. I am the only one awake to see it pass.