Space- stars, matter- is all that surrounded me. As I glanced curiously to my left, I saw the most breath-taking view: clusters and clusters of galaxies shining in all of its ancient cosmic brilliance, with the stars, infinitely dotting the endless vault of-of black nothingness. I suddenly felt at peace with the universe, as every shining speck in my field of vision soothed me into a mysterious, calming, interstellar state of mind. It was as if the cosmos was an ominous god of some sort, and I was the only inferior life form to witness their divine radiance.
Just as I had settled into the scene, I heard the alarming yell of my energetic astronaut “buddy,” Bruce Skyfall, and he tugged a bit violently on my tether to drag me back into our space cabin. As I took off my space suit and headed towards the crowded lobby, Bruce began to search through our travel bags frantically, in the desperate attempt to find his wood-cover sketchbook. I held my hand in front of him in a “stop” gesture, as I closed my eyes and pulled the large sketchbook out of the front pocket, grinning.
He snatched it from my hand, eager to draw and sketch out what he had witnessed on his earlier “space ride,” as he prefers to call it, and described in an artistic manner in fullest detail of all the wonderful and beautiful cosmic views he has seen. I, on the other hand, grabbed our travel bags and dragged Bruce along with me to a small lounge area, of which we slouched back onto the comfy couches with ease.
We were mentally and physically “exhausted,” in a sense, from all the extraterrestrial experiences and sights we had witnessed. As I sunk into the soft material of the sofa, I fished around for my journal, which, in contrast to Bruce’s, had not a wooden cover, but one made of bamboo. Although they were made of similar material, Bruce had skillfully carved a fine, detailed oyster onto my cover without my permission. It infuriated me at first, but I know see it as a sign of friendship and loyalty, even though it sometimes bummed me- Bruce and I both grew up in New England, New Hampshire on earth, and the oyster was a precious memoir of the state.
As Bruce scribbled furiously upon his sketchbook, I yawned tremendously, sounding like a tired whale. My watch read, in earth time, that it was 10:34 A.M., and I groaned a bit, knowing that I, nor Bruce, were morning people- we’d be crabby for sure.
I sneakily peeked over his shoulder to get a glance at his latest drawing, and he, of course, had already out-drawn Leonardo Da Vinci himself.
He then did his cliche’ “I-totally-don’t-know-my-work-is-impressive” shy artist grin, and pushed my head away, annoyed, and then snapped his head down to perfect his masterpiece.
I respected his privacy, and then took my pen (I preferred not to use pencil, as I typed everything later at the end. “That’s idiotic,” Bruce always would say.) as words flowed out of my mind onto the blank pages. Taking on my travel, business tone, I matched Bruce’s fast paced flow of his writing utensil and finished my rough draft of my article in no less than 18 minutes.
We were a very productive business team and were often called to write and draw reports for different travel options. This time, however, we were going to space. The fact that we were going to the cosmos was not shocking- after all, in the year 2084, even the middle-class could take trips to space for the equal price of a trip to Hawaii.
The real shock, though, is that we would be leaving earth. Ironically, when we were boys, we promised each other we would never leave our planet, out of genuine loyalty and respect for the life force that sustained us for all of our lives. We still believed that, but our boss pushed the trip quite hard on us, threatening to fire us if we didn’t take this assignment. Of course, it made sense- after all, as space travel become more frequent, our company has to catch up on our travel reviews and experiences. I hesitated but took the mission.
“I’m done for tonight- ready to head up to the space cabin? I’m absolutely exhausted from all of this wonky space stuff. What about you, Skyfall?” I teased, as I was used to calling him by his last name. I often played the old song, “Skyfall,” from the 2010’s by Adele.
“Well, as tired as I am, I could go for another “space ride”- if you’re okay with that.” Bruce smirked in his classic “you-can’t-get-out-of-this-now-Tyson-Peters” grin, and as I let him drag me out of everything to waste my time, I resented it and yet had fun.
We headed towards the tether station as we spoke to an employee, who strictly emphasized how the attraction wasn’t opening until 11:45 A.M. Bruce used his charm to convince the gothic employee to give an early ride, and grinned his dashing, friendly smile of which had won him a hundred conflicts in the past.
Regretting going to space at all, I slipped on my space suit as Bruce was ready within seconds. His eyes were bright with excitement, and we double-jumped together off of the ship into the cosmos.
It was no surprise- the beauty indeed stopped one’s heart, confused the mind, and opened up a whole new dimension of thought and sight. The cosmos, the stars, the galaxies, the clusters of smaller universes tied in together in a harmonious dance of life, beauty, and death.
We didn’t, however, get enough time to enjoy it.
Before we could even mutter a word, we heard a chaotic, terrifying symphony of screams and shouts coming from behind us through our suit’s technology. In front of our glass helmets, a holographic message popped up: “DANGER: Black Hole Approaching Ship. Please Return To Space Ship At Once.”
Both of our stomachs twisted into a nauseous knot, and I was the first to turn around to see that our tethers were becoming unhooked as the ship started to blast away from the black hole directly in front of us.
“NO!” Bruce yelled, in his loudest voice possible. He began to break down and cry.
I panicked as well but didn’t cry, because I was in a fearful awe of the cosmic entity in front of us. The light was distorted in an odd, almost indescribable spherical manner, as if the circular celestial figure had a round mirror surrounding it, bending and changing the way light acted. I then remembered how nothing could escape a black hole, not even light. Inside of that, there was nothing- just black and darkness.
That’s it. We were dead.
Bruce and I exchanged our confessions of regret and sorrow, said how much we appreciated each other as friends and buddies, and hugged each other in an awkward way since our space suits were made of thick materials.
Before we knew it, our bodies were “spaghettified” and stretched into the hole, our vision distorted and messed up as we entered the monstrous beast, into the unknown.
    …
As we regained consciousness, we were blinded by the calm, light blue sky dotted with puffy clouds above our heads. We gasped at the same time, stared at each other in utter shock as we realized we ended up where we had started: Earth.
We sat there for what it felt like hours, and finally one of us spoke.
“What on God’s Green Earth just happened?” Bruce shouted, with utter shock and horror.
“I-I think we just traveled through a wormhole of some type. You know, that science conspiracy tunnel that links time to another period of time-”
“What year are we in then?”
“I don’t know, let’s explore and see if there are any newspaper stands or holographic bulletin boards. Then we’ll know we're in the 2000’s or in the 2080’s.”
We traveled around the block and finally stopped to notice that even though our space suits were off, we still had our holographic technology on us: our smartwatches and headsets. We finally came across a house that looked awfully familiar.
Minutes passed, and we both, almost at the same time, yelled, “We’re in New England!”
The house looked the same, and we were thankful. After searching up the dates, we realized were in the day before we traveled to space. I called up our boss, denied the interstellar assignment before he gave it to us (“What do you mean- how did you even know?” he had yelled.)
After that, Bruce and I continued our jobs on Earth and swore never to return to space again. We argued whether or not we should tell scientists about it, and we wrote and posted an article about it. Perhaps not everything is believable, but it better to be experienced.