Silver Sphere

Am I a coward for not wanting to climb into one of those silver spheres, get strapped in, and take a one-way ride down to the ocean floor? That’s what I kept thinking, and no one else even bothered to ask me that question. Or question me on my motives. Or even say, hey, man, you don’t have to do this, you know?

Sure, the Superintelligence assured us of things wonderful. All six or seven of us, scattered across the globe. Allow yourself to sit inside that smooth polished shiny metallic ball, a tight, cramped, claustrophobic three feet across, and be prepared for the mysteries of the universe! Had to be that small, they said, to defeat the incredible pressures not just five miles beneath the waves. Heck, those pressures are a feather’s glance compared to the wrenching tidal forces inside the galactic gateways.

I don’t want to do it! But I committed myself, I guess. A hopeless failure as a musician, a guy who kinda sorta knew Zappa way back when, a session man, a man with a long but entirely useless resume. How did this happen? How did I get caught up in this? How can I get out? Must a man be trapped eternally for the stupid choices he doesn’t even remember consciously making?

Word’s already coming back, and it’s not good. A Russian, he died on the trip down. Didn’t even get far, too, something about a crack in the sphere’s trimline. Oh, God, those things are supposed to be beyond that sort of thing. I mean, they were crafted by the Superintelligence! Well, designed by them. We built them, but we’re only human as the saying goes. Sadly, only human.

Or maybe that’s just the rumor. Humans are prone to all sorts of nonsense like that; rumors, I mean. There’s also word that someone else, another Russian if I’m not mistaken, he actually made the trip! Disappeared off the sea bed – poof! God knows where he’ll show up next, or when. He could be in Paradise right now. Or he could be in Hell. But odds are it’s Paradise, at least if you believe the literature of the Old Ones, the Folks from Across the Skies. Ai! I don’t know what I believe, except that I have to buckle in and drop.

Then there’s the danger of being stuck in the mud. But – you say, partly to cheer me up, that is, when anyone broaches the subject with me, which is never – but, you say, surely the technology accounts for that. Why else would they send you five miles down? Why not some launching pad at Cape Canaveral? Why not your backyard? Why why why why why. A thousand whys, except the one why that counts.

I don’t want to do it. But I have to. I am so scared but no one seems to even think it could be so.

- Weird dream bordering but not quite classified as a nightmare, I had just a half-hour ago. Woke up with all these thoughts racing in my head. But the most disturbing is – what is this a metaphor for?