“The Dust We Left Behind”

The dust storms came every evening in Kansas.

The horizon would darken like an old film reel being scorched at the edge, and the skies would swirl with brown and gold. Inside what remained of her childhood home, Iris Cooper stood by the boarded-up window, watching the world disappear one grain of dirt at a time.

It had been eight years since her father, Joseph Cooper, had launched into space on a mission called Lazarus. Eight years since he said goodbye with tears in his eyes and stars in his heart.

And eight years since the world had truly begun to die.

The Earth wasn’t just sick—it was suffocating. Crops failed. Oxygen thinned. People whispered of hopelessness like it was a shared prayer. And through it all, Iris held onto one truth:

Her father had promised he would return.

But even promises stretched thin with time.

Her older sister, Murphy, had grown cold, driven. She threw herself into work with Professor Brand and the remnants of NASA, determined to solve the gravity equation and save humanity. She no longer spoke of Dad. “He’s not coming back,” she’d said flatly. “You can’t build your life around a ghost.”

But Iris disagreed.

She still kept the old watch he gave her. Still listened to his voice on a recorded chip when she couldn’t sleep. Still imagined him flying past Saturn, slingshotting through a wormhole, chasing hope across galaxies.

And then, one night, the message came.

NASA’s hidden base buzzed with static. The relay dish picked up something—weak, distorted, but undeniably human.

A signal.

From Cooper Station.

Iris had snuck into the lab with her sister’s access card, staring at the transmission log. The words flickered in green:

“Cooper Station is operational. TARS reporting. Gravity equation solved. Evacuation can begin.”

The words hit her like a meteor.

He did it.

He really did it.

She raced back home and dug up her father’s old notebook from under the floorboards. Pages filled with scribbles, formulas, flight patterns—and a small Polaroid of the family, taken on the porch the day before the launch.

She stared at his smile. That brave, tired smile.

“They think you’re gone, Dad,” she whispered. “But I know better.”

Days passed. The world didn’t change. But Iris had. She couldn’t sit idle anymore.

While Murphy coordinated with space command, Iris took action.

She joined a restoration crew, helping rebuild atmospheric scrubbers in the Midwest. She taught kids about the stars, about wormholes and black holes, and about how a farmer once became a pilot and chased time through the universe for the love of his family.

One evening, while repairing an old wind turbine, a voice crackled through the makeshift radio.

“Testing broadcast line… this is Cooper Station, calling Earth relay 7B.”

Iris froze.

She pressed the receiver. “This is Iris Cooper. Do you copy?”

A pause.

Then came a voice—not her father’s, but mechanical and familiar.

“Hello, Iris. This is TARS.”

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“I knew it,” she whispered.

TARS explained. The plan had worked. Brand had colonized a planet orbiting the black hole Gargantua. Her father had survived the Tesseract inside the singularity, helped relay the solution back to Earth via Murphy. Humanity had hope again.

But Joseph Cooper was missing. He had taken a ship to find Brand—and hadn’t returned.

Iris clutched the radio. “TARS… is he alive?”

TARS paused. “Unknown. But he believed in her. As he believed in you.”

The message echoed in her head for days.

He believed in her.

That was all she needed.

Iris enrolled in the new astronaut program at Cooper Station, named in honor of her sister’s achievements. She studied physics, engineering, and deep-space navigation. Her drive was unmatched.

Years passed.

And finally, the time came.

A mission to recover Joseph Cooper. A chance to find the man who had crossed galaxies for love, who’d sacrificed everything for his children.

As the launch countdown began, Iris sat in the cockpit, staring at the stars beyond the station’s viewport. Earth was no longer visible—just a pale dot among millions. But she wasn’t afraid.

She closed her eyes and remembered the sound of wind in Kansas wheat, the smell of old books, and her father's voice saying, “We’re explorers, Iris. That’s what we do.”

---

Somewhere near Edmunds’ Planet…

An old ship drifted silently above a pale, ocean-covered world. Inside, a man in his sixties stirred from sleep—his body preserved in stasis, mind foggy but beating strong.

He opened his eyes and looked out the viewport.

A flash of light blinked in the distance.

Another ship.

Coming closer.

He smiled, weak but sure.

“They found me…”

---

🌌 Moral of the Story:

Even across galaxies, the threads of love, belief, and family never break. They bend time, defy logic, and write the future.