Short Story #9: Silence

Prompt: Write a short story with the title "The Silence." (Word count: 258)

* * * * * Captain Ray Douglas sat in the command chair of Mars-bound Golden Hind with his eyes closed. The viewscreen was covered by temporary shielding, and though the consoles flashed readouts, there wasn’t anything he wanted to see. All he wanted to do was listen.

He’d tried listening in the cryochamber, but the sleep-pods insisted on pinging out pulserates and O₂ feeds and every last little thing they did. In Command and Control, silence reigned.

Not that he begrudged company. If helmsman Danny Reyes joined him for a waking hour, he’d enjoy discussing philosophy or literature. Likewise sports with Dr. Meg Faugh; endocrinology discussions, though, were more lecture than conversation. But he could talk any time, and they’d have time enough for that once they landed. Silence like this only existed in the vastness of space.

He sat and breathed as quietly as he could, cast his hearing beyond his heartbeat. To the nothingness of the void. Nothing and nothing and nothing. If he’d been told that such a non-sound existed growing up in a family of eight in a six-room house he wouldn’t have believed it. Even after the deafening roar of an Ares-class rocket launch, when everyone used datapads to communicate, was nothing to this silence.

And then it was over. “Captain Douglas, please return to sleep cycle,” the ship’s computer announced. “Extended time outside of cryosleep will result in heightened fatigue at journey’s end.

Douglas sighed—quietly—as he left C&C. Unlike everything else in his life, silence was the one thing he couldn’t get enough of.

–30–