A clock-work doll sits atop a wobbly mountain of rubble.  He has dry, empty sockets where his eyes should be.  His smile is wide and full of teeth.  A fat tear hangs in suspended animation, mid-dribble down one dirty cheek. 

The aging sun is going down on the distant horizon, casting its purple gaze across the broken remains of a barren metropolis.  There's a tentative click, then the sound of slowly grinding gears.

Suddenly, a sharp melody explodes into the air - a relentless, one-man merry-go-round of a carnival.  It's that kind of song; the kind of song that spins you round and around in your nightmares before grabbing you by the throat and squeezing the breath out of your lungs. 

How many times has he played this tune?  He has no one left to applaud his remarkable musical wit; no comrades, no culture.

Dran's sphere flickered for a moment then glowed brightly. Finally, the signal was strong enough for live-talk again.

Frantic, he fumbled with it--fingers shaky. "Wheela! What in the stars happened? Answer already!"

"Well, hello to you too, Dran." Her voice was hoarse, irritated and it was obvious that talking took monumental effort but she was stubborn. He was banking on that because the thought of her going quiet on him again was maddening.

At first, it didn’t seem so strange, waking up by the sea. I thought I’d simply fallen asleep after my usual swim again.  The damp sand was itchy, crackled bits of seashells were cutting into my skin. I was tired to the bone, so I didn’t mind that too much.  Waves were idly lapping at my toes. There was a nice breeze rolling over the water. I inhaled deeply, savoring the sharp, salty air.  I couldn’t quite contain my delight. It was perfect, that moment. Everything was perfect. The world only tilted after I opened my eyes. 

Capella: the tiny planet languishing in the soft crimson glow of her dying star had been a late bloomer, coaxed into habitability by human colonists only a few centuries earlier. The tiny body was nestled among a dusty smattering of moons and asteroids that awkwardly wobbled along the outer edges of the Magellanic Spiral. Cappella boasted no major goods or tourist attractions, and was more often overlooked than not, by most respectable commercial enterprises throughout the known worlds.

In fact, the closest citizens of Capella came to interstellar travel was a choice of staffing the planet’s single space docking station or submitting to a blood contract with the only race of beings to visit Capella on a regular basis.

There is no such thing as silence in the world. The earth hums incessantly. Strumming the wind and the electric energy of human lives, every city orchestrates its own chaotic symphony. It was just noise but when Cara was floating through the air and far enough above it all to get a glimpse of the big picture, it became something quite beautiful.

She’d been content to bask in the mellow haze of wine and sunset. It always seemed like the world was just taking one long, deep breath whenever the sun started sliding down behind the distant mountains. The noisy streets below would soften but only briefly before picking intensity, just in time for nightfall.

Say the only dream you ever had was blue, a cool brilliance that engulfs everything in the universe. All you know of your place in the monochromatic everything is webbed feet, jewel fingers and a certain unnameable longing.

At night, there in the dark you reach upward and out, straining to grasp the hazy glow of a distant light in your palms.