My friends often get caught up gazing at the brightness of the stars. They begin comparing shapes and colours, their dreams and hopes. I was rather amazed from the dark space in between them. How can one define light after all without taking darkness into consideration? Oh dear, I can hear the voice of my mom. "Lumina, are you being a hopeless romantic again?".
My grandfather used to share stories about the plank-drive. He was one of the first to have tested it and apparently the only one that went "beyond"— whatever that means — and came back. Sensors went off for 0.37 seconds. 0.37 seconds that created enough fuss to make him a hero and for some, a prophet.
He used to talk about it but not as much as the Lumina rock. From what I read, it seems like the entire human race went mad after it crashed on Titan. Everyone tried to make sense of it. The military got a hold of it, scientists all around took a sample to study it. Religions added new heresies to their repertoire. The locals went mad thinking that Earthers tried to put them out of their misery. Apparently, so far at least, is something similar to uranium, but on steroids.
For 150 years everyone was trying to figure it out but no one knew what it really was. It had no place in the periodic table. It was just standing there, reminding us about our ignorance, our pettiness and position in the cosmos. I swear I could almost see it laughing at us. I hate my parents for naming me after this fucking rock. I mean, who does this? It reminds me the early names of the currencies of the 21st century. Pathetic. Ebooks riddled with people called Ethereum, Ripple, Steem. I get it. We couldn't do much back then as a species. I guess people got excited that they no longer had to exchange printed papers with funny faces for a living and decided to hop onto the next meme.
I visited Lumina for the first time on my 22nd birthday. Titan was one of the most dreadful places a human could set a foot upon but somehow it made sense to me at the time. Staying on earth was starting to take its load on me. I couldn't take all the patronizing from the blue rock. My parents were one of the first mining volunteers. They worked for the largest corporation at the time. Everyone hated us. They had no choice, since earth was getting way too crowded. My parents were promised secure jobs and three discounted organ replicas of their choosing. Everyone's life span almost tripled at the time. Heck, I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for CORPO.
I hold the picture I took with my grandpa standing next to that rock. He is holding me with one hand. Darn, I was so tiny. Lumina standing next to Lumina. Funny thing. We are both sitting on the picture, still, lifeless. Photons imprinted on the surface of an old carbon composite. I guess time makes all the difference...
