Patricia and Kubrick

Patricia looked out… gasping in delight and terror, clutching her onyx pendant tightly – a gift from Kubrick. She stared at the fathomless stretch of darkness. Distant stars glimmering like restless fireflies in the night.

A sight to instill infinite horror and trepidation, full of misgivings and challenges beyond timid minds of human imagination.

But Patricia saw hope.

25 years of hope scattered through the endless void in front of her, as her capsule floated light years away from a place they called ‘home’ to search for someone she called ‘home’.

Communications had been jarred for days now, maybe months, even years. The capsule powered by the same hope that drove her to this limitless abyss of stars, planets and space.

She dug deep in her utility box, scrambling for something. After a while of struggle, she pulled out an old piece of paper. Crumbled and weakened after numerous failed attempts of throwing in the bin, ripped and taped back together after countless tries of forgetting the message it contained.

Kubrick’s last coordinates, his last message.

Another look she gave to the box – Kubrick’s old possessions, a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, pills, pills, more pills and a photograph.

Patricia had avoided looking at that photograph since the time she stepped into the capsule, burying it deep within the utility box. But she knew, this may be the last time. She looked and she saw -

A boy no older than 10, dressed in plaid pants and blue shirt, sitting atop a dark mahogany stool, smiling. Innocence poured out of that picture torrential downpour.

“Be still” Patricia said to herself, placing her hands on her chest, gently rubbing. Tears gathered around her eyes, unable to fall, viscous lumps attached to her cheeks like the agony of knowing she will never see her son again. Of never being able to see him smile again and run her fingers through his dark luscious hair, much like the Onyx pendant. Kubrick’s pendant.

Just like that she was back again, in a world surrounded by a legion of stars, and a capsule floating towards its final destination.

She read the note again, the coordinates were correct, the destination was here.

The capsule swiveled, creaked and made noises like the last roar of a mountain lion. Patricia held firmly onto the decrepit internal parts of the capsule, as the capsule braved through the violent unfamiliar atmosphere of Kubrick’s last abode.

Despite its screaming blemishes, Patricia’s capsule had done its job, now it could rest for the final time.

Patricia stepped out, clad in sealed suit and two breathing apparatuses. One for herself and one… for Kubrick… if he needed it… by the gods, she hoped he was in a state to still need it…

Purple sand dunes, the size of pyramids standing stalwart facing each other… creating a corridor to welcome the lost Patricia of foreign lands. The ground below her feet crumbled revealing a deeper shade of red, as Patricia took quick steps towards the final coordinates… leaving crimson footprints behind her. The winds were harsh, pushing her back almost begging her to turn back. Patricia touched her pumping chest again… “Be still”

She kept fighting the storm, moving against the wind like a battering ram. A woman on a mission, one final mission, the only mission that mattered. Patricia fought for hours, maybe days, the sands turned from purple to red to blue. Miles and miles of red footprints behind her, like invisible soldiers of her misfortune.

It is then. She saw.

At a distance, a figure in a suit, just like hers. But… there was no helmet.

Patricia ran, the winds, it seemed, stopped. The storm couldn’t break her spirit, a calmness befell.

Patricia’s leap towards a hopeless destiny, a failing pipe-dream. She knew what to expect what didn’t know how to accept it. Perhaps that is why she came here all the way, not to investigate the unknown territories of the cosmos, but to explore this uncharted feeling in her heart. To see Kubrick one last time, for one final goodbye.

Her knees buckled, she fell, crying loudly. The first sound of human emotions on a distant planet, the footprints started to disappear, the quiet retreat of the invisible soldiers leaving Patricia alone with Kubrick.

She looked at him, a part of him still alive. But it was too late, Patricia knew. Kubrick’s skin had dried and withered, the unearthly air hadn’t been kind to him. His eyes had turned grey, the wonders of vision stolen from him eons ago. His lips quivered to say something, but it was nothing but a moaning sigh of a man more dead than death itself.

Her oxygen tank was empty now. She had a spare, but she had no purpose.

She leaned to kiss him on his fragile forehead, one last time before their passing… and she spotted his pendant, exactly like hers. Of course, Kubrick was fond of Onyx, and pendants.

Unlike Kubrick, his onyx pendant still shone bright. Patricia couldn’t help but smile as she opened the pendant and she saw…

A picture of a girl, no older than 10, atop a dark mahogany stool, with long black lustrous hair covering the length of the stool, smiling uncontrollably.

At the bottom of the picture, in a child’s unkempt writing –

“Love you Daddy! Come back soon!
- Patricia”

Patricia’s heart broke down and she began to sob irrepressibly.

“You never came back, did you?”

Kubrick, stared at her with his grey eyes, saying nothing, feeling nothing. A distant howl of an approaching storm. The wind began to pick up, the enigmatic alien land started to serenade.

Patricia slowly collapsed on the ground, in the comfort of the eerie sands, as life slowly gave way to the infinity of death like the stars that surrounded them.

She stopped crying. She stopped moving, tightly clutching Kubrick’s pendant in her hands.

Kubrick kept staring at the abyss in front of him and the lifeless figure of Patricia, till finally his hand moved, very steadily, shivering and creaking, as he it placed on his chest, mumbling undecipherable words.

The grey eyes turned black, as black as the Onyx pendant.

A billion stars bowed in honor of Patricia and Kubrick, as the storm covered them with a cold blanket of sand for their last tranquil slumber, a final journey through the stars… but this time... together.