"Mother Earth to Solar Drift, come in, over."
"Solar Drift, receiving you, over."
"Are you prepared to initiate warp sequence? Over."
"Roger. I have cleared the solar system boundaries and am ready to roll. Over."
"Roger. Mother Earth ready to monitor your voyage. Have a good one John. Over."
"Mother Earth, this is Solar Drift. I'm now beginning countdown to warp...5...4...3...2...1...Engage..."
I was pinned against my seat, unable to move as the incredible "Boom" of the engine signaled its decision to create ever increasing speed, to exceed the barrier of light speed.
I awoke in bed that morning feeling a little groggy. Perhaps bad for the mission, perhaps it wouldn't matter. I sat up and released an incredible stretch. My wife strolled in from the bathroom fluffing her blond hair. She was wearing the same pink bathrobe I had given her for Christmas last year.
"Morning honey."
Out of the blackness of space appeared streaks of color, every color imaginable. I looked at the control panel and it became blurred with rainbows of color, becoming one.
"Light speed by five," said the soft female computer voice.
Melissa slapped me, her school books in one hand, my face in the other. She turned her pretty brunette head and walked away. I could only watch, stunned, as her beautiful figure dressed in the sweater and extremely sexy miniskirt I gave her, walked away to join the crowd of teenagers moving like fish through the hall.
I turned to locker 165 and hit my head against it, several times. My good friend Zoner came up to me wearing his circular mirror shades and wild purple mohawk, and said, "Don't worry man, it will pass, as all things in the vastness of time, and dissolve to nothing".
"Light speed by ten."
The colors faded to blackness, a blackness I could only feel. I wondered if I was blind, or dead.
I stooped down and plucked the beautiful violet from the garden. I ran into the house and found my mother in the kitchen doing the dishes. I tugged at her dishcloth which hung loosely around her waist. She looked down at me, "What is it Johny?". I held out the violet in my hands and said, "For you mommy". She crouched down and smiled.
"Light speed by twenty."
I opened my eyes to see only red. Was it the end of the universe, or the force of my speed flushing my eyes? I decided I would never know and closed them again.
"Light speed by thirty."
BLAM! Suddenly there was no longer any noise, no engine, no pressure, no movement, no knowledge of the universe at all. Suddenly all was still.
"Drifter."
I heard an unfamiliar voice, yet familiar, as if it were an ancient memory.
"Do you understand?"
I thought for a second, and I did. I knew who he was, what he asked, and what I had chosen to accept.
"Yes", I replied. He appeared before me, the one in blue robes. The color not of the sky, not of the oceans, not of the clouds, yet all three.
"Then it passes to you", and he held out his hands to my naked form and in them he held a black sphere. "It's yours now. To guard, to guide, to protect, to help them understand each other, all yours." He placed the sphere in my hands and I became he, and he I, and yet we were one and the same.
Now it is all mine to guide, to protect, and... I understand.
Copyright Eric Stryker 1988, 1997, 2001