The Voyage

THE VOYAGE

A dystopian story by Andrew Beberman

The color sank from Dr. John Harkel’s face. His veins ran ice cold with fear and insecurity. The usually calm and collected Dr. John Harkel was nervous as he shifted through samples of halite and cobalt in clear fluorescent tubes in the makeshift lab in his house unit’s basement. The small cobalt samples cracked and split up as he separated them into reactive tubes. He had come up with a solution. A moment of relief washed over the doctor. And now a great crack of confidence.

Dr. John Harkel was a professor. He worked in a small town called Wilmington. His job consisted of grading student’s papers. This was the most common part of his career, one of the biggest variables of his job was how much his students liked him, Because Dr. John Harkel did not love teaching. He wanted to explore. Since he was young, Dr. John Harkel wanted to try adventuring, but he never had the right chances. He played with a wooden rocket ship model that sat above his fireplace ledge. It was a decoration, merely a model that he liked looking at, that sat in his living room. But it inspired him, it inspired Dr. Harkel to take off to new limits.

It’s when the sun started dying that Dr. Harkel thought he’d have his chance. This was a teacher who had spent his whole life doing something he felt he wasn’t feeling made for. He wanted to touch the stars, to go beyond, and far where no one had dreamed of. He wanted to be the one to save the planet when the time came around. Since he was a boy, he’d dreamed of traveling up in a spaceship. When he was young and was told by his parents to just eat rations of creamed corn, he told himself, he’d be the one to bring more food back to earth, when the time came.

Instead he saved up corn, he kept barrels of it in a squat, cool pantry for he and his wife to share during the days of food shortages. Winds, rain, hail, and dust-fueled storms had shattered the infrastructure required to farm in Wilmington. The earth was covered with big gray clouds. It was never sunny, it was never warm, no crops ever grew. The greenhouse farmers had suddenly taken over with a rise in warm indoor planting units, spaces to grow vegetation and plants.

Life was depleting rapidly, Harkel would save up the corn he’d shucked, and place it in wooden barrels in the family’s pantry. His home, and his wife Diana were the only things that meant anything to him. His home was a squat little building, a tiny farmhouse built above a sewer system. Diana was preparing dinner, she had pitchers of water saved up, filtered in a tank crafted by Dr. Harkel. Diana took two cobs of corn from the pantry and dropped them onto the stove, turning up the heat. Using a plastic bottle, she poured in a tiny droplet of water, not enough to boil the whole corns, but it would do for now, as a ration.

“I love you Diana, and one day, I will, I promise, I will get us out of here”. She rubbed her hands against a dish towel. “I hope so too”. “As long there as is a place to go”. Dr. Harkel poked longingly at his food that Diana was serving, the small niblets of corn, the dried rations of dinner. “You know I would kill for some butter Diana.” She looked at him with unease. “We don’t have any dear, you know that.” He looked disappointed. “No cows, no pigs, no goats, no cheese, no milk, no dairy, we’re gonna run out of protein soon enough”.

Diana remained intrinsically optimistic. “No we won't dear, and we have lots of protein to last us”. He sighed, resigned to a life of eating canned beans and recycled water. “What happened to the world, Diana?” She looked at him quietly. They sat over a table with their meal in front of them. Two pieces of corn, a small plate of rationed mashed potatoes. It was an ugly feature of their otherwise cozy looking farmhouse.

“Fear, war, overpopulation”. Dr. Harkel shrugged. But that’s why Diana, I think we can still have another life. He looked quickly at the hatch on the floor- his eyes shot back up to Diana.

“My fear is, there won’t be a world for our children” Diana told him. He put her hands on hers. Dr. Harkel ran his hands through her soft dark black hair. “My angel…Don't say that” He assured her. Holding her hand. “We will have a world. I will make sure we have one”. She smiled. “Really John?” He kissed her hand. “Yes Diana. ``A full world of life, and prosperity”. “And our children will grow up, and have lots of babies, live long happy lives, and fill their bellies with whatever they want. No more starving, no more waiting for food drops, and preserving rations, no more nasty weather, and stormy days and nights. The world has become a dry, ugly place, we will find a new better one for our children”.

“Oh John” She embraced him. Tears began streaming down her cheek. “You give me hope for a new tomorrow.” “I'm glad dear, here there’s something I want to show you”. Dr. Harkel stood up. He walked over towards the kitchen cabinets adjacent to the square dining table where they’d been sitting. Dr. Harkel opened up the yellow painted cabinets and reached towards the top shelf. He reached into the darkness of the unseen shelf, and removed a clay jar.

“Oh what’s this dear?” A smile forming on his face, Dr. Harkel lowered down the jar and brought it forward to his wife who leaned forward at the table. She also began to form an excited kind of grin as he slid the jar forward on the table. Diana removed the lid, there was a popping noise as the vacuum lid clicked off and she stared down into the well of the jar. “John, it’s beautiful.” Her eyes were fixated on the apparent darkness of the jar. “You really like it?” She gazed up, her red lips had a warm pleasant look. “I really do”. She reached into the jar and removed a heart shaped locket, attached to a long, slinking, thin, gold chain, it quietly hummed, vibrating as she tethered it through her soft fingers. She looked at Dr. Harkel, “will you?”. He leaned forward. “Oh of course”.

He placed the necklace around her neck and took a glance at it. “This is the most beautiful woman in the world” he thought. “And I don’t want to be away from her for so long”. The cold feeling sank back into his heart, and his face ran white with nerves as he saw the happiness forming on Diana. “I don’t want her to see me like this”. He turned away, quickly, a bit too quickly, and walked towards the bookshelves. He adjusted his volumes, trying to evade Diana’s attention. “Is everything alright, John?” He felt the lumps and fears forming in his throat. He answered, but croaked out a stuttered “yes”. Diana sat up and walked over to him. “What’s the matter?” John ripped at a blue piece of paper that was on the bookshelf, between two volumes and crumpled it in his fist.

“It’s nothing.” “I’m just tired, is all”. Diana looked at him, she looked gorgeous with that locket on. “Something else is wrong isn’t it?” She looked at the blue piece of paper in John’s hands. He slowly moved it back, but he was almost paralyzed fixated on Diana. She grabbed the paper from him and unfurled the crumple blueprints.

Her eyes scanned over the prints. “What IS this?” I could see the tears forming in her eyes. “It’s a rocket ship”. “A rocket?” “And what you weren't’ planning on telling me about this? Did that ever come across your mind?” “Of course darling, but-“ Dr. Harkel felt terrible for Diana. She was experiencing so many emotions, anger, confusion, sadness, but also betrayal. The months Dr. Harkel spent away in the lab keeping her in the dark on his experiments, now came back to haunt him.

“I’m going to be taking a trip”. Diana’s face erupted into a terribly broken look. She began to cry. “Diana, I need to leave. And I need to leave tonight”. “It’s for our children. It’s for the future of this planet. There are other worlds out there, worlds with sustenance, with air, with wind, with water” Diana fought through her tears, as Dr. Harkel wiped them away. “But how could you leave me?” He consoled her. “It’s just for a few months, maybe a year, but it has to happen tonight., Professor Brewster has helped smuggle in radio energy over state lines. We are going to take off in our ship and find habitable worlds out there. And I will come back for you and everyone else and take you with me where it’s safe, where the air is clean, and the land is fresh”.

“But how could you go? Take me, please.” “It’s too dangerous sweetheart, and there are only two seats. One for me and one for Professor Brewster. The world’s only got a few years left before it’s ash, let’s find another one before that happens.” He wiped away Diana’s tears and kissed her once more on the cheek. Outside, a car horn sounded up ahead. The faint voice of Dr. Harkel’s colleague Professor Brewster was heard following loud car honks, “Harkel, let’s go!”. He embraced Diana, holding her chin and holding her close. “Remember this, I love you, and I’ll come back for you”. He gave one last kiss, and rubbed his hands down her neck towards the necklace. The last thing he felt was the locket slip through his fingers. Suddenly the front door burst open, Brewster, a grey mustached- middle aged man, barged through. He had a gruff voice and military equipment on. “Harkel, lets’ go. This shouldn’t take forever”.

The two proceeded towards the kitchen. Harkel grabbed up the rug from the floor below and ripped it off the floorboards. Diana shook trembling, as Harkel ripped open the metal hatch hidden below in the floor. He slapped it open and proceeded down a ladder into unseen darkness. He descended down, as he caught one last glimpse of Diana. Harkel headed into a maze of sewers and pipes. He dropped down after climbing the last ladder rung and stood in a flowing pipe of water. Professor Brewster shone a flashlight down as he climbed and barked at Harkel. “Move, let’s get to the shuttle.

The men ran down the sewer line through the darkness as the flashlight cut through it. They walked for a good mile until suddenly they came across a vault door. The men turned the latch and opened it. A large, vast room, about four acres long, and eighty feet high. Inside sat a dense, compact rocket ship. A small ship in a massive aerospace. A portable metal staircase had been placed next to the hatch. Professor Brewster climbed up and opened the hatch. Dr. Harkel was rushing. He had installed a timer to allow him time to ignite the fuse and get inside the rocket ship. It would be easier with a third person, but time did not afford them this. Outside the ship sat six massive blue barrels of cobalt and halite. The ignition fuel. Harkel put on a gas mask, he connected six black wires to each of the barrels and connected them with a spark plug to the fuel canister of the rocket. The combined pressures would cause the rocket to soar into the air. Brewster was already seated in the ship, strapped in. He put on his space helmet.

Dr. Harkel hurriedly ran over to the wall. He pressed a large red button, and then opened up a glass panel, and turned a key into a small metal ignition. A large hatch above them began to open, and the night sky and stars poured into the bunker. The doctor began the countdown. He lit the fuse of the barrels and the rocket fuel began to ignite. One barrel began to set the fuse. Dr. Harkel hurried back into the ship and sealed the door latch. He ran towards the cockpit, the seat belt the first thing he’d apply.

The other barrel began to set the fuse, then the next, then the other, after all the barrels had been set, there was a large explosion, and the fuel canister had lift off. The rocket climbed into the air. Professor Brewster and Dr. Harkel’s teeth gritted, their heads shook and discombobulated. The rocket tumbled and soared like a paper airplane caught in a jetstream, and then after several minutes it balanced out as the ship exited the atmosphere heading into outer space.

The ship climbed up and ascended into the infinite sky. Harkel and Brewster looked through their space helmets, as they drifted up towards the moon, towards other dots and colors in the sky. They looked back at earth, just a small indistinguishable blue dot on the infinite horizon. The rocket picked up speed, zoning through the jet blackness of space. All quiet now. They drifted through space. Harkel observed planets down below. Small red dots and stars.

There was a computer program Harkel had installed into the rocket to detect life forms. The scanning computer waved out a satellite radio to see if there was any kind of oxygen below. NO OXYGEN DETECTED. Harkel and Brewster lowered their ship and jettied closer to the surface of the planet. NO OXYGEN DETECTED. “What about air, water?”, thought Harkel? Harkel switched on the humidity detection modulator. NO PURE WATER DETECTED. The ship ascended above the surface and began to scan for other stars and life forms.

“What about that up there?” Brewster pointed to a large dot on the horizon, a green lush star. The ship hovered over it. “Are we reading anything?” “OXYGEN DETECTED”. A smile cracked across Brewster’s face. Harkel felt relief. “You know what this means? We can go back, we have found a suitable world”. Brewster stated- ``What about fuel, we still have more?” Harkel slapped him on the back. “When we return home, we’ll get whatever we want for free, we’ll be heroes, having discovered a new world, and a new planet. We won’t have to take anything for granted again”.

The ship began its descent back towards earth. It would take two months to get back, one month of climbing back to the solar System and one month of landing on Earth. The ship jettied through the blackness of space, cutting through it like an alien among an ocean of stars. As it approached earth, it began to somehow feel more alone. Brewster and Harkel commanded the ship back but felt as if the stars grew less bright as they got near Earth. It felt more ominous, more quiet, more eerie. As if they were leaving the vastness of space to come to a dead end.

“We are now approaching Earth” Professor Brewster began to descend the ship into the atmosphere, large grey clouds formed over the sky, the blue dot was unrecognizable. No longer a multicolored marble, but a foggy dark star. The ship protruded through the smog and fiery sky, it burnt up on re entry. All the men could see was the smoke forming on the outside of their ship. Dr. Harkel desperately wanted to see Earth again, but his eyes were focused on the blank whiteness of the windshield in front of him, as teh ship spun around and out of control. Professor Brewster yelled as the ship hurled back to earth. He smashed on a console. His fist grew bloody as he pounded on a small switch. “The parachutes won’t deploy!” “Brace!” Dr. Harkel heard this and closed his eyes. A large shattering and crushing, like metal exploding as it impacted the ground. Water formed up around him.

The inside of the cockpit began to fill with water, Harkel leaned toward the latch in front of him, but the water pushed him back. More sea water filled his mouth and choked him. As he spit it out, coughing and gagging, he swam forward with great force. Dr. Harkel pulled on the switch and the hatch burst open. He slid out into the ocean and fell into the deep sea. Harkel tried to bring himself up, he swam up to the surface. “Professor Brewster?” There was no answer. The metal ship, on fire, and filling with water began to sank. He didn’t have hope for the Professor.

Harkel headed towards land. He could make out a beach somewhat close ahead. It looked like land, but with rain pouring on him and his exhaustion, he struggled to swim back. Harkel flipped over onto his back and began to kick, his eyes leaning back towards he saw the land. Suddenly a large wave came over, and knocked him out.

Dr. Harkel woke up on the seashore. He heard birds, seagulls calling. He saw the sea coming to the shore. He looked up and saw a cloudy sky. Dr. Harkel struggled to stand up. His legs were weak, adjusting from the pressures of space, and his bone structure was all around flimsy. But his mind was still intact. One thought came to him- Diana. As he looked around he thought- do I know this beach- just sand, no trees. Then it came to him, the small canal by the beachside. He was in Wilmington.

But it looked so different. There were no houses, there was no color, the streets were covered with sand, grass and tress blasted away. What had happened? Dr. Harkel limped down the road, he saw no signs of life. There was a tipped over bicycle. He continued walking through the empty lot of Wilmington when something caught his eye, a small section of houses intact, in the corner of his eye, far across this desolate wasteland. “Hello?” “Anybody?” Dr. Harkel ran towards them, limping, his leg carrying him but not too far. He approached the set of white cubical houses, burnt out, destroyed. It had been a mirage, or at least he couldn’t have imagined this is what the houses looked like up close.

The interiors were smoldered, windows blackened with smoke and ash, and the white painted homes were laden with soot and scars from fire damage. “What happened here?” Dr. Harkel walked towards the house and looked inside. “Hello?” He walked into the dark, burnt up kitchen, and turned to see if anyone was there? “Hello?”

He walked into the family room. “Is it empty?” Dr. Harkel gasped at what he saw, a clump of mangled skeletal decay, what looked like skulls and ribs, mangled and melted on the floor. The imprint of bodies sitting on the couch had been seared in with a black fiery ash. Dr. Harkel began to tear up as he saw the forms of what looked like two young children, and two parents burnt to a crisp, silhouettes forever etched into the walls of the home.

Dr. Harkel burst out of the home, trying to keep himself together. That’s when he thought of his Diana. “Diana!” The aerospace center was not far, maybe his house was nearby. Dr. Harkel hurried through the wasteland, through trashed and melted cars, through the burnt down power lines and poles that had been eviscerated and melted by heat waves. He ran down a block where all the trees had been melted, the stumps still remain, pointed and deformed. That’s when Dr. Harkel saw something he recognized. A car belonging to his wife. Her Silver Pontiac. Surprisingly untouched, the house had been badly damaged, melted with the ceiling collapsing into the foyer. The roof and front door had been blown through. Smoke surrounded the house.

“Diana!” Dr. Harkel ran up towards the home to find his wife. He sifted through the smoke and ash, and logs. “Diana!” “Where are you!” Now he sorted through the volumes of books, melted into the floor. He found a newspaper, scattered about too. He picked it up with a fear in his eyes. “UNSTABLE RADIATION LEVELS LEAD TO NUCLEAR WAR” Another paper lying nearby with a similar subtext “COBALT LEVELS IN ATMOSPHERE LEAD TO DRASTIC GOVERNMENT ACTION” The whiteness formed in his face, and the ice cold feeling ran back through his veins. Had he been the cause of this? Had the fuel used to stabilize fuel his rocket caused an unexpected chain of events. He’d thought of the results but never much of the risk. “The world was always doomed.” His mind had told him.

He had lost hope, but still thought there was a chance Diana could be alive. He went upstairs, clinging to hope she was there for him. “Diana!” Nothing. He stumbled into his living room, so hopelessly. He fell to the floor, crying, Tears and sadness took over him. “Why Diana? Why couldn’t I have just listened to you?” He leaned forward and clutched the heart shaped locket that lie next to a melted dead skeleton. “Why couldn’t I have just stayed with you?” He choked and coughed as he succumbed to the poisoning. “The radiation will take me, and soon I’ll be with you”. Dr. Harkel held onto the locket, and looked up at the stars through the blown out roof. He saw infinite worlds up ahead. Infinite chances, infinite times to be with the woman he loved.