JJFBbennett

  Piloting and despooling The reality of JB’s confinement is suffocating. The air inside is thin, hot, and heavy with the scent of his own fear. His flight suit, usually a second skin, feels like a lead weight. Through the visor, he sees the control panel—a blur of familiar red and green warnings pulsing just inches away. His fingers twitch, aching to override the sequence, but the shimmering silver nanoweave holds him in a vice grip.  He is a creature of action reduced to impotent stasis, staring at salvation he cannot touch. JB feels the phantom touch of ancient hands as they apply ceremonial linen over the nanoweave. The timeline collapses. He is no longer just a space tourist; he is a modern man drowning in the dust of the ancients, suspended in the liminal space between the cold silence of the cosmos and the heavy, golden air of the afterlife. As the pressure locks against his skull, the final thread snaps. It is the disintegration of the self. JB feels his history, his n...