Cradle

I hear that back in the days when interstellar travel was the subject of nothing more than wishful-thinking sci-fi people called what we do "cold sleep", and other such frozen variations. But the scientists never did figure out how to make it work with "cold", so when they finally developed the process that let us sleep away the distance between hops, people without specialized degrees just started calling it "wet hibernation". This in turn was eventually shortened to "wet-hi".

The scientists like to tell us grunts that we don't dream in wet-hi, that our brain waves have shut down with the rest of us. We grunts smile and nod and let them keep the comfort of their rational fables- because every last one of us has dreamed while in the cradle, to greater or lesser extent. Makes you think that maybe there's something to those cultures that thought dreams were the soul taking a break from the body. Makes sense, don't you think? I mean, if our bodies are shut down, and our brains are shut down, what does that leave to hold things together? The soul. And I figure the soul's gotta' get pretty bored with nothing more entertaining going on than a warm red glow and the hypnotic hum of maintenance droids. So out it goes, in search of adventures to keep it occupied.

This last hop I dreamed of Home. Sort of. I mean, it wasn't my literal home that I grew up in (the sky warrens of Ateel) but it was one of those dream-scapes that feels like Home. All the more-so because she was there, waiting for me. Not charred and crippled as I'd last seen her, but whole and young... no, not young, really- ageless. And so was I. And she had something to tell me, something about the mission; she leaned in close to whisper in my ear and all I could think was that she smelled just like blackberries, real blackberries, not that fake perfume crap... and then I realized I'd missed what she was trying to tell me, so I tried to get her to repeat it, but the bees were buzzing louder and they kept distracting me, telling me I had to wake up now, I had to wake up...



(Cradled in Light)