Absolute black presses against the observatory window. He’s expended most of his fortune on this station, built to house him and him alone, and its bleeding edge components show him the universe in a rainbow of false colours. But it’s still nice to have a window. On the lip of the event horizon, he stares into the abyss of the black hole.
Time moves slower here. Outside its gravitational grasp, the universe speeds around the black hole. Around the station. Around him. As it does so, it puts years and years between him and his loss. But the grief? We’ll, he’s finding out that he can’t accelerate past that. He’s starting to think that the universe could pass him by, black out into irretrievable heat death, and he’d still be waiting for the pain to subside.
He’ll go back out into the world, he knows. It’ll be changed. But he’ll have to face it one day. Not now though. Now is a time for him to gaze into time itself and seek out some reflection of its better days.
Paddy Dobson
7th May 2022