Our traveler is an accidental explorer. They move through space in part out of desire for a better future, in part out of necessity to escape a hostile earth. The traveler carries various scientific and musical instruments. These instruments don’t entirely function in space. Thus, they can be seen as nostalgic relics from earth.
The traveler also carries living organisms- a caterpillar, a bird, a rose. In spite of the weightlessness, the traveler seems burdened by these possessions.
The caterpillar, oblivious to its surroundings, spins a cocoon to enter metamorphosis. The bird attempts to fly, hitting the walls of the life support chamber. The animal might be seeking freedom. Alternatively, as the behavioural research studies of B.F Skinner once suggested, the animal might be in the process of being conditioned to peck at a target.
The traveler, like the caged animals, struggles. Does this accidental explorer dream of a new landscape or do they look back nostalgically to the earth left behind? They seem to want to move forward, but their life support system holds them at bay.
Travel is a condition. The traveler is being conditioned. Their voyage is not just through space, but, as physics teaches us, across time. They depend on technology allegedly for survival. But can life be reduced to mere survival? What about free will?
Then too, what impact will the traveler have on the world they encounter? What violence might they wittingly or unwittingly perpetuate? Perhaps its all just a little bit of history repeating? Like in classic sci-fi, some higher authority plays puppet master.
Of course, we can never truly know. Ours is an accidental explorer. Possibly, they could have remained on a hostile earth, even survived there. They arrived in space chasing a dream they mistook for their own.
-T.S. Halpern
