Utopia

Utopia is not a place. It is a lie.

Once more I stumble through the hatch, and once more I cannot believe my eyes. This cannot be. This cannot be. Already I can feel my strength weakening. Surely this must be some kind of elaborate joke? Another line of the defence mechanism, perhaps, because this cannot be. After everything — after everyone, this cannot be what was promised to us. But already the sinking sensation in my stomach is telling me that my eyes do not lie, and all that we hoped to find is here no longer.

A new thought drifts through my mind. Perhaps it would have been better if I had not survived the crash. If I did not have to witness what happened here. For then, I would at least have died on the cusp of victory, on the edge of pursuing a noble goal, frozen in time, reaching out for my dreams. But that was not to be. I thought I was blessed to have survived, but now I can see that it is only a curse. Something moves past me into the station and my heart jumps, only to sink back down half a second later. Drifting past me is a bright red sphere of my own blood, spiralling away into the semi-darkness. Looking down, I can see the breach in my suit and around it, orbiting me as if I were a planet myself, a string of blood red moons, growing larger as more blood escapes the wound in my side.

Utopia is not life, it is only death.

It was supposed to be the place that would save us, isolated completely from the crumbling remains of civilisation. Away from the ruins and death spiral decline, there could still be a good life, while the rest of the world slipped away.

Built far above the spiralling pollution and industrial waste that coated our dying world, it appeared in the distant sky as a glistening utopia, shining — carrying with it our hopes and dreams of a better future.

It was there, on that sun-shattered wasteland that we had hatched the plan. In between the towering pillars of smoke and polluted clouds that hung heavy over the landscape, we watched its progress with hungry eyes, little more than a gleam in the smog filled red skies, a pure light, uncorrupted — perfect. A beacon that called to us, almost taunted us with its nearness, at times, when the moon was large and the night clear, almost close enough to touch. And of course, that seemed the only way to escape. All around us, the world crumbled — slowly at first, of course, almost imperceptibly, but then with a gathering pace. Supply lines fractured, communication became more difficult, everything started to pull apart. Now, the entire output of great industrial factories makes only a fraction of what it once produced, and so more and more work needs to be piled into the machine to try and preserve what little embers of civilisation are left. But it’s not enough. Everyone knows it, everyone can see it.

The richest, and most powerful figured it all out first — those that were mainly responsible for the mess, of course. And they set themselves up in the great shining light in the sky — a vast space station with everything they needed to make a life apart from Earth, a life away from the decay. And, really, was it any surprise that everyone else wanted to join them? Of course, it wasn’t easy — nearly impossible, and for people life us, there was no hope at all. Only life in the ruins of what we once hoped to inherit.

Across the irradiated stretch of water, the great factories billow and smoke and fume. In the night, the horizon is lit by the molten metal of the forges, glowing an indescribable orange — little volcanoes, mapping out the edges of the industrial zone. Beyond that, the slums, where the screams and gunfire are not quite drowned out by the incessant, ceaseless actions of the failing machine.

The world is dying. And we must escape.

Beyond that stretch of water is where we put our plan into action. The fences were high, but the security that had once been tight around the perimeter of the launch facility was nothing more than a few ill-paid soldiers with too much territory to patrol and too little will to do it. There was not much need for it anymore, of course, since all had fled — indeed, it was there for the taking, the shuttle almost rotting on the launch pad. It was not that no one had thought of it before — the bodies floating in the water, and rotting on the few patches of dried-up swampland proved that — it was just the people did not think it was possible. But we were not going to half-heartedly attempt to reach it, no, we had decided that this was our mission, our purpose — and we had the knowledge needed to be successful.

And it went well — better than we could even have hoped. The fence was easy to cut and we made it through undetected. Then across the long expanse of the launch facility under cover of darkness, until we finally reached the shuttle, with the glowing light of the space station shining bright behind us, the sky clear, for once of the thick, choking smog that usually dominated the night sky. We were not nobodies — indeed, some of us had even trained for spaceflight before the whole thing was wrapped up to launch the space station and lift the VIPs into orbit. After that there was no more need for it — and no future for us. But this shuttle, we knew, was almost ready to fly. In fact, it was half fuelled, and that was all we would need. It was only when we were climbing the gantries that we were spotted, and the alarm went up, and by that time it was too late. The thin ringing of the alarm and the few soldiers it brought were not enough to prevent us from entering the shuttle. After that, there was nothing they could do to stop us — nothing they were willing to do anyway, and once they saw the engines start to flare, they simply ran. There are few good ways to die in this wretched world, but shuttle exhaust fumes are a particularly nasty way to go. At least elsewhere they’ll find your body.

Inside the shuttle the atmosphere was electric when we realised they were gone, and that our path forward was clear. Preflight checks, spacesuits on, engines tested — we ran through the whole thing, just like we had done hundreds of times back in training. It was difficult without any tower, or voice in your ear, but we did not need one. And so, before long, so fast that the time seemed to have just slipped away, the night was lit by a new source — an angry, fiery dragon that screamed into the darkness for a second, then began to ascend into the black, rising into the air on a pillar of fire.

A certain mythology had built up around the space station in the sky, as all curious things gather stories. One particularly persistent one was that it contained automated defence systems in case anyone — such as ourselves — attempted to enter. It was only when we got closer that we realised the stories were true. It had been an uneventful flight, and the space station was just coming into view, a gleaming mass reflecting the light of the sun — far brighter than we realised without the smog filled skies; and that was when the first explosion rocked us. It happened in an instant. A low, rolling boom as the shuttle shook, behind me someone screamed and then a great light as debris flew around the cabin and everything went dark.

When I came to, I saw that we had automatically docked, but I was the only one left. Around me, the broken bodies of my friends, who like me, had dreamed of a better life, up here, above the Earth and had so nearly, so nearly grasped it. The great wound in my side had managed to seal itself around the jagged piece of tile that had caused it. Stumbling down through the shuttle, almost crawling at one point, I managed to reach the hatch that led into what might be a new life.

That was when I still believed that there was the chance of a good life. Now, staring through the hatch into the interior of the space station, I know that to be a lie. The mummified remains of their corpses litter the floor before me, lying, clawing at each other in pools of blood. Clutched in their hands are knives, and clubs, and crude spears. Deeper in the hallway, the walls are covered in bizarre geometric paintings and bloody handprints. The gravity is gone. I float forward now, passing over the bodies as if they are some strange, senseless tableau. This cannot be. There must be someone still alive. But all I see are the dead, and they have been dead for some time, it seems. The smell is almost overwhelming. Every screen I pass by is smashed — not accidentally, but deliberately. Panels have been stripped open to access wires, lights ripped out of their fixtures. Every piece of electronics they could reach they tried to destroy.  Clearly they missed some of the more permanent fixtures like the automatic defences and the emergency lighting. But everything else seems to have gone. I don’t know what happened here, but the uneasiness I feel is enough even to overpower the pain from my wound. Looking down, the blood is spreading.

It doesn’t make any sense. What happened here seems to be almost unbelievable savagery — as if they all, suddenly and without warning, went mad. In some of the rooms I pass, the doors have been broken down and inside, bodies lie in the half-darkness. I do not stop to look too closely. I just carry on, in the faint, already forlorn hope that maybe there is someone else alive out there. I don’t want to think of the implications of being the only one alive up here.

And yet, as I journey deeper and deeper, that is what I find. They destroyed the crops, smashed the electronics and then turned on each other. As I wander the lifeless corridors, the journey of the rampage is marked by endless lines of dried blood. I call out, but no one answers. And finally, I know that I am alone.

All those nights spent looking up at the shining light in the sky and dreaming of one day getting there and how our lives would be, how happy we would all be. Now they are dead, and I am left dying here, in a place which is perhaps worse than the one I left. There was no utopia — there can be no utopia. Human nature simply does not allow it. Civilisation’s flame has burnt out. There is nothing left. Just like the world below, this place is a wasteland.

Coming to a window, I pause to look down at the world below. It is light now, the sun has risen over the hemisphere. It looks far better from here, than it does on the ground. Even the smoke is hard to see, thin blurs that you have to strain your eyes to discern. It looks peaceful, tranquil even. Perhaps, some would say like a utopia. But of course, we know there is no such thing.

The shuttle cannot fly. I know that. And so I am stranded here, in the paradise that failed, the utopia that never was. Just like the rest of the world, I am waiting, trapped in my own personal hell, to die alone.

At least down there, if you die, someone will find you. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a burial. Someone will carve your name into something. Someone will remember you. Up here, there is nothing but oblivion. At least down there, life goes on, however pitifully, however painfully, life remains. And that means there is hope. An unlikely hope, one that we had forsaken, one that I had forgotten, but nevertheless it survives, living in the deepest and darkest corners of the heart, a thin candle at the edge of the infinite night. Up here, there are no such flames. The blood is spreading. The twisted piece of tile is pushing deeper into my body. I can feel its progress, millimetre by millimetre digging into my flesh. I suppose it doesn’t matter now. Perhaps all our dreams are destined to end here — a hopeful death on the threshold, or the hopeless reality behind the door, either way you will not get what you came for. Maybe there is still hope down there, on Earth, hope that life can live again, but up here among the stars, there is only the cold of the vacuum.

At the edges of my vision, the darkness is closing in. I don’t look down, but I know that if I do, I will see a constellation of small spheres of blood orbiting around my body like so many moons. In that way, like the Earth below, I too am something of a great, dying organism. Life is so long to build, so quick to extinguish. Let them continue to orbit, and I will keep on staring down at the planet below. I have no need to move. Nothing troubles me anymore. I want for nothing.

I have all the time in the world.

After all, I’m in Utopia.

Or, if the only way to get there is death, I’ll be there soon enough, all the same.

Below me, the world continues to end.

Down there, they too wish for Utopia.

They do not yet know that Utopia is not a place, it is a lie.

But it’s a beautiful lie and as I sit here, watching the world below, I think it should remain that way.

Perhaps it will inspire in them a new hope, a great wish to visit this shining beacon in the sky — to claim utopia. And when they do, they shall find me here, waiting for them.

Waiting for utopia. After all, I have all the time in the world, and it’s End is only just beginning.

I’d like to see what comes next. Perhaps one day, utopia can be a place, after all…

[This Radio Transmission was received from ‘The Fracture’ Cosmic Anomaly as part of the Odyssey Survey.]