Futurism logo

New Horizons

Dark Matter Sisters on the Dwarf Planet

By Marquis D. GibsonPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
Like
PLUTO, NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

I.

The first sign of intelligent life has an afro. Her clothing is made from water, rock and sand. I landed the ICP. Stella, my orange ragdoll, meowed. We stared at her and she at us. Within and without time.

We disembarked.

Orange winds whirled. She stood, waiting. Against reason, I removed my helmet. Then Stella’s. The first breath we’d taken in open air in nearly ten years. My chest swelled. Stella stretched.

“Welcome home.” she said, neither to me or Stella.

We were in a forest of silver streams, rosy trees and a jade sun slicing. To the north were mountains, capped with pink snow. Miles below was dry land, craterous and teal.

At the edge of the universe, everything felt right.

II.

I was never homeless. I just didn’t have a house to sleep in. I lived on the streets of earthly cities. My old haunt was The Tender, a neighborhood antithetical to its name. Rough, they called it. I learned real roughness from suburban moms in minivans. However rough, Tender was home. My girls and I nurtured a secluded fort opposite a church.

My girls, Hashi and Nyota. Sisters who believed people had no right charging other people for places to sleep. So, they deposited themselves wherever, whenever. The three of us happened upon each other in celestial serendipity. You don’t need to know my backstory. I had a life with the bells and whistles but bells and whistles cost too much.

None of us were mean by nature. We chose meanness. Hashi, sweet as cloud bread, was mean by virtue of her height and girth. Nyota, a former dancer, erupted into violent, unhinged movements that were always staged. I was the voice, a cusser by trade. Tourists avoided us, regulars banned us but meanness was easy. The alternative may have garnered pity and we didn’t want that mess. A place to sleep and shower? Hell yes. Pity? Save that for people who never gaze at the stars or for retail workers.

Every night, after the girls fell into their slumbers, I’d unzip the tent and share secrets with Orion’s Belt, introduce Stella to Ursa Major or float on the winds of Venus.

“Celeste! Stop letting all the good air out!” Nyota hollered. Hashi giggled.

“Hussy, if the air is bad, it’s ‘cause you sleep with ya mouth open!” I hollered back. Hashi giggled again. Nyota growled. They were my community, coven and congregation.

The stars were alive that night, the skies clearer than Neptune’s waters.

The following morning, Stella and I landed at our favorite spot, ARC Books, a rickety clay-red and white storefront. I scooted past schoolgirls getting their fix on ironic tote bags. Creaky tables hosted pyramids of new releases. The shop smelled of papyrus, musk and chocolate. I raced past employees brimming with ennui, giving them the finger on my way up to the science section on the second floor.

“Constellations for the Constable!” I screeched. I liked irony, too.

“Shh. There’s an event upstairs.” a pasty, scrawny boy snapped at me.

“Sorry, Bitch!”

“It’s. Mitch.” he corrected, flush with rage.

My sanctuary was where I’d left it between religion and philosophy. Titles on the wonders of The Great Out There. Before I could get comfortable, a procession filed from the attic and scattered around the science section. Stella and I slithered to a cobwebbed corner.

A warm voice fell over me. Her laugh, a shooting star.

“One more picture please?” an employee begged.

She dropped her things on a shelf behind her and struck a powerhouse pose. “To infinity baby!”

The crowd cheered.

I was beside myself. I knew that phrase. I was holding it! The introduction to the book I held concluded with “To infinity baby! Not even the sky’s the limit.” The motto of astrophysicist Dr. Aurora Rigel.

I dusted myself off and approached. A pesky ARC employee blocked me.

“Not now.” This one’s name was Topanga. Or, Tapioca.

“I can’t say hello?!”

“Should’ve come to the event.” Tilapia was smug.

“Move, Tampon!” I growled.

“It’s Tempest.” she said. Close enough.

“An admirer?? No one reads my first anymore.” It was Dr. Rigel.

She wore a crisp, cream suit. Her magenta locs cascaded beyond her shoulders. Sis was a vision.

“Do you believe we can do it?”

“What’s your name?”

“Celeste.”

“Nice to meet you Celeste. I’m Aurora.”

She shook my hand. And we were on a first name basis. The employee, Temptress, was fuming.

“Believe we can do what?” She asked.

“Live..in The Great Out There.”

She placed her belongings on the shelf behind her. Stella gave the doctor permission to pet her. Aurora held my hands. I could’ve lived in her infinity.

“The better question is do you believe.”

Aurora gifted me with her new book and the one I clung to. The crowd dispersed. I could’ve shat stardust. Stella hopped off my shoulders onto the shelves. She picked up a small black notebook with her teeth. It was sturdy, used. I disregarded the notes and pocketed the find. By the time I descended, Aurora was gone. No matter, my head was in the clouds. The staff failed to mask their glares as I left. I flipped them off for good measure.

I spent the day pouring through Aurora’s works. Her first, On Knowns and Unknowns, an exploration of the multiverse, black holes, planets untouched. “The unknown should be embraced, not eliminated.” I consumed every syllable. Her second was autobiographical--Dark Matter Girl. She asked questions but gave few answers. I was weary of reading, eager for starlight. We took a bus to Gemini Summit where the stars shine freely. I remembered the notebook.

I freed Stella from her leash. Before I ripped the first page, my eyes bugged.

Perspiration slapped my neck. Stella chased a red bird. I was stunned to silence, then giggles, then silence again. My eyes jumped in disbelief. I couldn’t stop laughing, crying, dancing even.

Stella threw shady looks, chewing on a crimson feather.

Stars appeared, brilliant as the night before. I scanned the notebook, eyes straining. Some notes dated back five, eight, twelve years. Were these revelations ever shared? I grabbed Stella and trekked home, frustrated and fueled. This notebook was a beacon. My head was in the sky, heavy with night.

The Tender greeted me with unnecessary roughness.

“Where were you, Celeste?” Hashi’s voice was charred from crying.

“Stargazing. What happened?”

Our tent, ripped and upturned. Belongings, tossed everywhere. My girls, deflated.

“People happened.” Nyota lay in a reclined butterfly pose.

“The city came.” Hashi squeaked.

Nyota interrupted. “People came, saw and told us to evacuate expeditiously.”

“Where were you?” Hashi asked again.

I was the voice, the one who handled disputes if anybody stepped to us. I strayed longer than I normally would have. Hashi wept, Nyota exhaled. I prayed.

Beam me up, now.

That night, we found a resting place with poor views of the night sky.

Days later, I rose with the brightness of day. I walked anywhere, nowhere. Tourists spilled out of overpriced thrift stores. Mothers grabbed their children at my sight. I yelled expletives, Stella hissed. We landed at the ARC.

My heart sank. The front door was littered with signs:

MISSING NOTEBOOK. SMALL, HARDCOVER, BLACK. PROPERTY OF SPACE INNOVATION SOCIETY (S.I.S.) & DR. AURORA RIGEL. CONTAINS EXTREMELY SENSITIVE INFORMATION. $20,000 REWARD IF FOUND.

I quaked.

The journal Stella and I nabbed was no children’s book. It was a blueprint featuring sleek sketches of an egg-shaped individual citizen pod (ICP) spacecraft. At the bottom of each page were the initials A.R. Upon checking the contact page, I screamed. It was the property of my hero, Dr. Aurora Rigel. To boot, everything I imagined for myself lay in my lap in that little black book. The prototype to escape this ghetto Earth.

It would’ve been simple to reach out to S.I.S if I owned a phone. Sadly, I had one option.

I walked into ARC Books unassumingly. Mitch and Tempest worked the front.

“Hello.” I said sweetly. They scowled. Being nice to them felt strange.

“Lemme use your phone.”

“Why?” Tempest asked.

“Personal.”

“Well, this is a business, Constable. Business calls only.”

Smart ass.

“Fine. Personal business.”

“No.” Mitch snapped. “You can browse but--”

“It’s about that missing notebook. Let me use the damn phone.”

They rolled their eyes, non-believers. I had to prove it. That money could change everything.

I presented the find, flipping through pages from what I thought was a safe distance, pointing out the A.R. initials. Shock and confusion.

“The phone...Please.”

It happened so quickly.

Mitch snatched the notebook from my hands and scurried behind the counter, blocked by plexiglass and a swinging door which he locked.

“You stole this.” he hissed. “You need to leave!”

“I’m calling the store owner.” Tempest dialed the store phone. “Celeste, I’m sorry but you are officially banned from ARC Books. Do not return.” She was half-smiling. The store owner approached from the back.

I wanted to rip their teeth out through their noses. This was a game of chess and I was playing hopscotch. A stinging reminder of how crushing mother planet could be.

I was tired. Truly tired. I left without a word.

Hours later, while I sat on a curb down the block, large black cars arrived. Aurora emerged, wearing all black, locs in a severe bun.

I fled to a corner of the store’s front window, unseen. Aurora greeted Mitch, Tempest and the store owner, a plump bald witch with an awkward grin. The ARC people were overtly kind. Aurora flipped through the notebook, sighing. Men in suits stepped forward, holding the check.

I ripped a hole in the sky.

Everyone gawked. I don’t remember everything I yelled that day. Something about Mitches get stitches, capitalism, my girls. My face was wet and hot. The men in suits reddened after I said something about their mothers. I remember Aurora. Time stopped.

Hashi and Nyota were by my side. When did they arrive? Stella purred at my feet. ARC employees busied themselves, ignoring me. The street bustled. The men in suits loitered by their cars. Someone held my hands. Aurora.

“They told me you found this.” Aurora clutched the notebook

I nodded, words trapped. Nyota rubbed my back.

“Thank you, Celeste.”

“Don’t lose it again.”

“I won’t, sis.” She called me sis. “Well, I believe this belongs to you.” The check.

I gazed for light years. $20,000 in my orbit. Fingering the flimsy paper, I cackled.

“I don’t want this.”

“The hell you don’t!” Nyota shouted.

I didn’t want money. I wanted home.

“Aurora, do you really believe we can live in The Great Out There?”

She weighed invisible things.

“These are..theories.”

“Prove them right. Send me. Please.” My heart beat through my tongue.

She looked at me, into me.

“What about the money?”

I turned to my girls, sisters, friends, taking their hands in mine, praying my eyes communicated what words couldn’t.

They comprehended. No tears, just understanding.

“Take care of them. And as many people on these streets. For as long as you can.”

“Celeste, you’re serious?”

“As a meteor. And she comes with me.” Stella meowed. Aurora nodded.

“To infinity baby!”

III.

The Pluto woman’s name is Dawn. We sat beneath purple clouds. She shared her foraging finds--blue edible grass, a spongy orange fungus and spiky fruit.

“Fascinating story.”

“Thanks.”

“I have a question.”

“Alright.”

“Did you ever read books not related to space? Poetry for example? My friend Phyllis is a poet. Heard of her?”

Phyllis? Phyllis. I conjured up one poet named Phyllis.

“Only Phyllis I heard of is Wheatley.”

“So you do know her. ”

The fruit had a tangy aftertaste.

“Um. Dawn. What year did you arrive here?”

“The year of our lord, 1784.”

All I could do was laugh and watch Stella paw at the green sun above.

Dawn was our new beginning, a forever home.

space
Like

About the Creator

Marquis D. Gibson

i am an artist.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.