Dig and I have been communicating with each other using gestures. I feel like a tourist trying to buy bread from a local baker, gesturing vaguely and preferring it to be sliced. We both comment in our own languages amid the jumble of hand signals. When two persons who almost completely fail to understand each other meet, the outcome seems to be quite similar, regardless of species and planet of origin. The syllables slow down, some words are emphasized, and hands are used like mallets to hammer understanding into the other person's head.
After intense stress and a near-death experience, it feels relieving but at the same time strange to just chat without understanding anything. Dig babbles her strange vowel combinations and laughs between them in a way that tickles my ears. I will never fully grasp this language. Babaru once tried to explain the basics of the Aldebaranian languages. It didn't work. The grammar was so complex that there was no vocabulary to describe it. The language is also not common on Dig’s planet. A bit like the Saami language of mine.
If Babaru hadn't been with me with the Mumenos, I would probably be wandering aimlessly through realities, like Geber. It feels like my friend did most of the work. I just ran the Mumenos' questions through my head and turned them into observational responses. We both did what we do best. One of us just had to stretch ourselves a little further. The Mumeno language couldn't be translated in the usual way. It had to somehow be injected into my consciousness, like electricity. It wasn't words in the traditional sense, but concepts and images. Babaru was like a converter, with images flowing in and energy flowing out.
The silence between me and Dig is not uncomfortable. Her words flow into my ears like velvet, but their absence doesn't bother me. Even though I would rather wave my arms around than spend time with my overwhelming anxiety, I prefer to remain silent. My head feels like it is buzzing with static like an old television, but ignoring the feeling won’t make it go away.
Dig, on the other hand, is downright tranquil. Although something in this strange environment caused her mind to sink into a black hole, it appears to be behind her now. After the worm, it took her a while to wake up. But when her mind stopped slipping and the wheels started turning again, the ever-sharp captain was ready and waiting.
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We are drifting without control, but that doesn't bother either of us. At first, Dig tried to regain control of her ship. When that didn't work, she dug a bottle of vodka out of a compartment between the control buttons. She's not a drunk driver, nor does she drown her sorrows in a bottle. Aldebarans don't get drunk on alcohol. Dig simply likes the taste, and the drink quenches her thirst.
There is no clock on the ship. If I ever wore one on my wrist, it disappeared into someone else's pocket a long time ago and was turned into cash at a pawn shop. Although measuring time and racing against it has never been my favorite pastime, I find myself yet again missing the structure it brings. If we had some kind of universal clock, I could have calibrated it to Saturn's local time. Now there’s no way of telling where in the fourth dimension we are.
I'm not actually sure anymore if time really exists. It's such a flexible and relative concept that maybe we should just stop worrying about it altogether. If I could look at our universe from somewhere very far away, I could see it as a whole. But when viewed from inside and with limited visibility, everything that has happened elsewhere is long gone by the time the information reaches my eyes. Unless everything is just behind the corner.
We traveled here through some kind of cosmic sponge. I have sent my diary entries to Pearl via the same route, in the hope that they will reach her. I'm not sure if our return journey is still possible, but I'm keeping my hopes up.
The view outside the ship's window is now different. We have drifted out of the colorful bubble of the Mumenos home back to the dense star cluster surrounding it. If there were still dark spots in space between the stars when we arrived, they have disappeared. Now the environment is like the inner surface of a huge sphere lined with bulbs of varying strengths. A thrilling thought about the cyclical nature of the universe creeps into my mind. Spongis are certain of this, and Twirppies are living proof of it. They are a species from a previous cycle after all.
I have a strange feeling that everything around us has become confined. The end is called the Big Crunch. It sounds like a breakfast cereal that contains so many nutrients it can pull the universe back together. Basic marketing, but this event hardly needs it. I would love to wake Babaru up to make Dig understand this enormous idea. However, I'll just go and check that my friend is okay. Besides, if everything ends, informing Babaru about it won't change anything. We wouldn't have any memories of it.
I think that's all for now. I'll send this the same way as all the previous ones from here. Stick to your routines, hold on to your composure. Next I'll go get a glass of orange juice from the mess hall. Just as Dig doesn't get drunk on vodka, I don't get drunk on orange juice. It's just good and refreshing.
Till next time... Because never give up hope. Even though I've had conflicting thoughts about it in the past.
- Johnny