The Traveller

Time. So much time. Too much really, out here in the darkness. It overwhelms you. No matter how much you bend your mind, you simply cannot fathom the seemingly endless amounts of time. I guess, in some way, by breaking time into years, months, days, hours and seconds we are able to cope with this somewhat distressing fact, but when you free your mind from such thinking your understanding of time expands wildly. Time isn’t some tangible thing that you can classify and categorize. The more time you’ve experienced, the more you understand it. I am still far from the truth, if there is such a thing, but through the past many millennia I have seen it. Seen how it changes everything around me.

When they searched for volunteers for this mission, I didn’t hesitate for long. Everyone I knew had long since passed away, and I became increasingly alienated with my home. They searched for people like me. People who could endure such an endless mission. I could of course just shut myself off and let the computer wake me up when I had reached my next destination, but that would be too easy. I wouldn’t feel the passing of time, and I wouldn’t see the stars pass above my vessel. Now, you might think that this would get dull after a while, but it doesn’t. You enter a form of strange bliss. The actual boredom sets in when I have to do something, like scanning and analyzing anomalies I pass by on my journey. I always look forward to leaning back, and observing the dance of the celestial objects.

Why did I choose this form, you ask? Well, everyone sees death as something inevitable. Everyone I knew faced it, but I never understood them. Why choose death, when you can choose life? I do miss my old body, but at least this one doesn’t degenerate, and if something breaks it is quite easy to fix it again. You might say that I fear death, but I don’t. How can I fear nothingness, when I can’t experience it? I just prefer something to nothing, I guess.

Where did it all come from? A question mankind has asked since before we could write or perhaps even possessed the ability to speak? This is the truth I seek, and I cannot die before I find it. How can people die in ignorance? How can they walk to the gates of oblivion, thinking that this is the best way out? Perhaps I’m just being to judgmental of the rest of my kind, though I don’t feel much of a connection to them any longer. I guess billions of miles and countless millennia does that to you. All data I collect is automatically sent to the nearest human outpost, so I have no contact with anyone.

Have I ever considered going back? Sure, and considering that most other human beings have gone through the same process I have, now, and that they are able to both communicate and travel over long distances much faster than when I was shipped out, I received a message about a decade ago offering me to end my mission, and return home, has made me think that they might have changed. But then, even though they might do my job much better than me, I don’t think I’d be able to adjust to that life again. Considering that I’m an ancient model they’d probably just assign me to office duty, rather than replacing every little chip in me. Plus, my brain might receive damage during the replacement. Even cyborg isn’t guaranteed eternal existence. No, I prefer to stay under the eternal light of the stars.

Do think much about my former life? Yes, I do, but I don’t miss it. Too much to do in too little time. When you have time in abundance, it moves so wonderfully slow. Perhaps, if I travel long enough, I shall see the truth.