The Horizon Where Nearly Everything Disappeared

And everything left behind changed forever

Roman Newell
The Interstitial
Published in
5 min readSep 28, 2024

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Photo by FlyD on Unsplash.

Darkness stretches like a cat, roused by Halloween moon at eventide. Bars of light interspersed with curtains of darkness. Intercoms croaking with buzz-saw bursts of information. En-route to the next horizon. Black puddle after black puddle, crashing through plate-glass-improbability.

This spaceship is made of several solar fan masts and long tentacles and a spring net that bounces back space debris. We don’t know how the net will hold up. We don’t know where the expedition will unfold in the soil of this potted space-time. We know only that it matters, more a feeling than certainty, since knowing is made of screws and physics.

This mighty adventure. One of many undertakings that have resulted in place and canopy, umbrellaed into petals, one for each nebula in this moon-flower-galaxy. When I peer out windows I see the culmination of my life. I see the palace of my death. Reflected in the glass of my helmet is everything I wish to hold, all I hoped to be, and everything I will never have.

They say wars and expeditions are for country, and science, but they are really for self. I am a selfish man made of selfish purpose given to selfish lust. In this space shuttle I feel my sexual greatness engorge and whine. My…

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Roman Newell
The Interstitial

Busy working on my novel, 20XX. I also talk about the writing journey on Substack. romannewell.substack.com.