November 2025: Lullaby – Suzanne Wacker
Lullaby
The stars are singing. The blue and green planet below me looks like Earth but it’s not home. I’m tethered to my ship but floating in time to the music that flows around me.
‘Three minutes of oxygen remaining.’ The computer reads out my death sentence in the same tone it once told me it was time to get up. Or to remind me to check the carbon scrubbers. Or that the last of my crew had died.
‘Computer, can you hear the stars singing? Isn’t it beautiful?’ Tears sting my eyes.
‘You’re hallucinating, Captain. There’s no sound in space. It’s just your mind trying to make sense of what’s happening to you.’
‘It’s a lullaby. Like the one I used to sing to my daughter when she was a baby. Have I ever told you that story? She’d be fussing and crying, and I’d start to sing to her and she’d stop. Even though I was singing offkey. She didn’t seem to mind.’
‘There’s nothing out there, Captain.’
‘You’re wrong, Computer. The stars are singing louder.’
‘I’m never wrong, Captain.’
‘Don’t get snippy, Computer.’
Science told me we can see the frequencies of the stars, their vibrations. It never told me that the stars can sing.
‘Two minutes of oxygen remaining.’
‘Are you afraid, Computer?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of being alone once I’m gone.’
‘Perhaps the stars will sing a lullaby to me, Captain.’
I laugh. ‘You’re hilarious, Computer. I’ll miss you.’
The solar flare had come without warning. A blinding flash, as a wave of radiation swept over our ship. I tried to save my crew but there was nothing I could do except hold their hands as they died. Now, it’s my turn.
‘Tell my daughter I love her, please, Computer.’
‘I will, Captain. I’ll send a message back to Earth today.’
‘It’ll take 10 years to get there, Computer. My daughter will be grown up.’
‘One minute of oxygen remaining.’
‘Captains on Earth went down with their ships, Computer. Do you think they were afraid as the waves crashed over them? Did they hear the ocean singing?’
‘The human mind tries to survive even at the very last, Captain. It’s possible.’
‘I want to die out here, among the stars, not on the ship. Do you think somewhere my daughter can hear them too?’
‘Perhaps she can.’
‘Careful, Computer, you sound almost human.’
‘You’re just hallucinating, Captain.’
Was that a hint of warmth in its voice?
I’m struggling to breathe now. Blackness creeps closer. I shut my eyes and the last thing I hear is the stars singing.
Suzanne Wacker
Right Left Write’s November prompt was Space Age. New prompts are announced monthly February-November in QWC’s Pen & Pixel email newsletter.
Find out more about Right Left Write at www.queenslandwriters.org.au/rightleftwrite.
Right Left Write’s November prompt was Space Age.