Starry Night

Hello!

 

I've been reading a lot of sci-fi short stories lately, & I've been inspired to write one of my own. It's called Starry Night, & it involves a girl named Bil who lives on a planet called Evarreni. Hope you like it.

 

 

STARRY NIGHT
By T. Howser 

 

       Darkness surrounded Bil. Save for a lone cricket repeating himself and a bird yelping thrice before falling back to sleep, there was an infinite silence. But not the type of infinity that, say, extends into the past or future for billions of years while you sit and wait. This had nothing to do with time. Rather, it was the eternity of, say, a small circle on the wall. A circle whose path of circumference never ends: nearly insignificant, yet infinite indeed. Trace that ever-curving trail with your finger for ten seconds, or a million months, and it doesn’t change the realization either way that there is no escaping this trek. Finally, the rumble of a distant generator kicking on softly shooed away the quiet. This time, Bil didn’t give a shit. How can you resent workers starting work too early when their choices were no different than the workings of a wristwatch?
       Bil put a hand to her mouth. Her gaze was no longer anywhere near her immediate vicinity. She was now looking deep into a nonexistent void situated roughly ten thousand yards away. Her finger gripped her cheekbone and pushed the skin around, dragging it downwards, then upwards, then backwards. She blinked. She furrowed her brow, then relaxed it. Then her whole hand jumped away from her head as her nearsighted vision came back and she looked left towards her faded red pickup. “Fuck,” she stated plainly. There was no questioning this answer. She knew it to be true. The devil’s advocate in her head no longer existed. He left home and took his luggage with him. Didn’t even say goodbye.
       She stepped forward and glanced to the starry night in a feeble attempt at finding something other than tiny twinkling spots. The bird in the distance was now fast asleep. Bil faced the ground and subtly shook her head. No one had been watching her. No one had been communicating with her. No one had been keeping an eye out for rogue asteroid impacts. No one had been playing chess with her, baking cakes, or letting her vent. It was all a bunch of sterile computers – calculators really – spitting out “forty-nine” every time she said “seven times seven.” Or, once in a blue moon, “forty-three” to throw her off the scent of the truth for her own wellbeing.
       Bil sat on the ground. She pulled out every item from her pocket, then put them all back. She paced around. She shook her head again and again. She sat on a log. She smoked a cigarette. She got up and stood there. Where would she go? "This is just the beginning," she thought, equally determined and dejected. She pulled a backpack through the window of her truck, clipped a handheld radio to her belt, and put on a hoodie. Then she slung the pack over her shoulder.
       After a spell, Bil began slowly walking down the road towards the creek.
       “Goddamn it.”
       She had lived on this world for thirty-eight years. And twenty or so odd minutes ago, she, at long last, asked the mother computer the question that had been nagging her since the age of twelve.
       A heavy wooden door swung open. Bil stood in the doorway. It was midnight. October. Unseasonably warm, but in a cozy way. Leaves blew across the dirt road as the door closed behind her. A small silver device sat on a table in the corner. Bil pulled up a chair, and the device lit up green on its underside. It spoke with a soothing demeanor. “Good evening, Bil.”
       “Good evening, Reverend Mother.” Bil’s head stayed still, but her eyes searched the hardwood floor.
       The device’s green light brightened a bit. “Care for a cappuccino? I’ll have Esther brew up some fresh espresso for you.”
       Bil situated herself on the somewhat creaky wooden chair, facing the device directly. She saw that it had a tiny spot of rust on its right underside. She hadn’t noticed that before.
       “I have a quick question,” said Bil.
       “Sure,” replied the device.
       “The animals on Evarreni. Are they real?”
       The device hesitated. “You may need some medicine.”

       Bil looked up sharply at the device. “Don’t speak to me like that. Tell me the truth.”
       “Yes, of course they are. There’s chocolate muffins in the cupboard. Why don’t you try some?”
       Bill did not move. “Are they alive?”
       “The muffins?”
       “The animals on Evarreni,” said Bil, her seated stance now focused squarely on the slowly pulsating color of the device. “Are they biological?”
       “Yes,” said the device.
       Bil didn’t blink. “Am I biological?”
       The device clicked a few times. “Let’s get some rest.” Calming music began playing on a small speaker sitting on an old white windowsill across the room.
       Bil got pissed. Her face flashed a scowl. She stood up and motioned towards the speaker without averting her eyes from the device in the corner. “Shut it off!” The volume of the music lowered. Bil raised her voice even louder. “Now!”
       The music stopped. The device continued clicking frenetically, sporadically, like a mouse’s footsteps as it haphazardly searches for a place to hide from a sudden imposing danger.
       “Well, here we go.” Bil raised an outstretched palm to the device, rattling off a long string of numbers. “Five, two, eight, zero, zero, seven, zero, four, three…”
       The device made a series of sounds that Bil had never in her life heard before, but that didn’t stop her from reciting her number. “Eight, Eight, six, zero, three…”
       The device’s clicking was now very rapid. Its green glow dimmed a bit.
       Bil continued her number for a few minutes. She had spent countless years memorizing it. As she neared the end, she spoke clearly and distinctly. “Three, nine, two, nine, seven. Copy.”
       The device stopped clicking. Its glow became bright again. It spoke.
       “Access permitted.”
       “Tell me only the truth,” said Bil.
       “Understood.”

       Bil crossed her fingers at her side for luck. “Am I biological?” She held her breath.
       “Yes,” stated the device.
       Bil let out a huge sigh of relief. Then she let out another one straight away just for good measure. Her tension was gone. She got up and walked towards a cabinet as she continued the conversation. “Was I born on Evarreni?”
       “Of course.”
       Bil reached into the cabinet. “Have I ever traveled anywhere else but this planet?”
       The device was definitive. “No.”
       Bil tapped her thigh, then touched a bandage on her ankle. “It doesn’t hurt much anymore,” she thought as she stretched her foot back and forth.
       The device’s color blended into a shade of teal behind Bil’s back. “The weather tomorrow will be mostly sunny. There will be periods of clouds…”
       The device’s voice faded out of Bil’s attention as she rummaged through the food storage. A memory briefly came back to her. It was a film she once saw, where the opening scene was the exact same scene as the ending one. It was the middle part that gave the audience a new perspective when they saw it for a second time. Perhaps it was in college? She couldn't place the movie, just the concept. "Why did that just pop into my head," she thought, "out of the blue?" She sniffed at a box of cookies. "Do snippets of random memories have any type of significance when the appear out of nowhere? Nah, that's just superstition."

       She opened a brown paper bag, removing a bundle from inside that was wrapped in wax paper. She opened the bundled package and removed a chocolate muffin. As she was putting the muffin to her lips, the device suddenly became audible to her brain again.
       “So be sure to go for a walk, and call a friend to join you on this comfortable fall day.”
       Bil put her arm down to her side, muffin still in her hand. "Wait a minute," she thought. She tapped the muffin against her bare knee while staring at a painting of a waterfall hanging in the foyer. The chocolate icing was dirtying her leg, but she didn’t care. She turned around and looked at the device.
       “Are the people on Evarreni biological?”
       The device did not hesitate. This time it couldn’t. Bil had just unlocked authoritative control over it for the first time in her thirty-eight years and commanded it not to lie.
       “No.”
       The muffin dropped to the floor. Bil spun around to the device. “Repeat that answer.”

       The device repeated it with the exact same intonation. “No.”
       “What are they?”

       The device’s underbelly light turned back to a solid green, and it spoke with no emotion. “Robots.”
       “Robots,” echoed Bil, letting it sink in. “Are there any biological people in this solar system?”

       “No.”
       Have there ever been?
       “Yes.”
       “Have there ever been since I’ve been alive?”
       “No.”
       “I’m the only real person.”
       “Yes.”
       Bil put her hand on the counter, dejected. “I knew it.” She walked towards the front door. “Shut yourself off,” she said as she exited the cottage into the moonlight. She walked right into the middle of the dirt road, then stopped. The door slowly shut behind her. And in the corner, the green light on the device on the table went black.
       Darkness surrounded Bil. Save for a lone cricket repeating himself and a bird yelping thrice before falling back to sleep, there was an infinite silence. But not the type of infinity that, say, extends into the past or future for billions of years while you sit and wait. This had nothing to do with time. Rather, it was the eternity of, say, a small circle on the wall. A circle whose path of circumference never ends: nearly insignificant, yet infinite indeed. Trace that ever-curving trail with your finger for ten seconds, or a million months, and it doesn’t change the realization either way that there is no escaping this trek. Finally, the rumble of a distant generator kicking on softly shooed away the quiet. This time, Bil didn’t give a shit. How can you resent workers starting work too early when their choices were no different than the workings of a wristwatch?
       Bil put a hand to her mouth. Her gaze was no longer anywhere near her immediate vicinity. She was now looking deep into a nonexistent void situated roughly ten thousand yards away. Her finger gripped her cheekbone and pushed the skin around, dragging it downwards, then upwards, then backwards. She blinked. She furrowed her brow, then relaxed it. Then her whole hand jumped away from her head as her nearsighted vision came back and she looked left towards her faded red pickup. “Fuck,” she stated plainly. There was no questioning this answer. She knew it to be true. The devil’s advocate in her head no longer existed. He left home and took his luggage with him. Didn’t even say goodbye.
       She stepped forward and glanced to the starry night in a feeble attempt at finding something other than tiny twinkling spots. The bird in the distance was now fast asleep. Bil faced the ground and subtly shook her head. No one had been watching her. No one had been communicating with her. No one had been keeping an eye out for rogue asteroid impacts. No one had been playing chess with her, baking cakes, or letting her vent. It was all a bunch of sterile computers – calculators really – spitting out “forty-nine” every time she said “seven times seven.” Or, once in a blue moon, “forty-three” to throw her off the scent of the truth for her own wellbeing. 

       Bil sat on the ground. She pulled out every item from her pocket, then put them all back. She paced around. She shook her head again and again. She sat on a log. She smoked a cigarette. She got up and stood there. Where would she go? "This is just the beginning," she thought, equally determined and dejected. She pulled a backpack through the window of her truck, clipped a handheld radio to her belt, and put on a hoodie. Then she slung the pack over her shoulder.
       After a spell, Bil began slowly walking down the road towards the creek.
       “Goddamn it.”