Silence. Then a soft click as Stone’s oxygen failed.
But Hollister looked.
And for one incandescent moment, he became a shard of light in a billion turning pieces—falling not into death, but into the endless, hungry, beautiful kaleidoscope of being remembered. kaleidoscope ray bradbury
“…can’t be just me. Anyone? Tom? Les?”
Hollister spun alone for a long while. He watched Earth grow from a marble to a melon to a world. The air in his suit tasted of iron and autumn. He thought of his own front porch. The rake leaning against the elm tree. The smell of rain on hot concrete. Silence
The planet hung there—a blue and green kaleidoscope turned slow. Clouds spiraled into ivory roses. Oceans glittered like fractured sapphire. Continents drifted beneath veils of gauze. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and it was the most terrible, because he would never touch it again.
Hollister tumbled alone, his suit’s radio a graveyard of whispers. And for one incandescent moment, he became a
He laughed.