Alexander killed me 8 minutes and 8 seconds before. I have still some minutes before I die, on Earth I would have been dead already. I have thought a lot these 8 minutes and 8 seconds: this is the very first murder out of Earth, I am the very first victim out of Earth. Now I see the planets, the stars, the strange metals that form the terrain holding our ship and my resting body. It is a big surface, the eye can’t see else but this straight metal, anyhow at the horizon I can perceive the universe, black as this terrain I am lying on. Some stars are very near, I can feel their heat in my costume, outside my body that is getting cold.
This can be considered the Ancestral Sin, out of Earth. Humans surely had another chance out of our planet, and Alexander ruined that, on the first other planet we set foot on. He is now far from me, with his back facing my face. I don’t know if he regrets it, I don’t know if he knows that I am not dead yet, I don’t know if he fears what to expect. I thoroughly analyzed his case these 8 minutes and 8 seconds and I think that it doesn’t make sense that he gets punished. This is an unknown planet, a property of no country, so no constitution or legislation can judge him. In any case, the death of a man during such a mission is quite normal, he can also confess that I died on an accident, our receivers have been off for days now and no one can ever find out the time and place of my death.
The terrain is pretty straight, still, my blood leaks towards my right side, through my torn costume. It leaks and shines from the stars and the cosmic clouds. This could be the very first river of this planet. It flows, and it flows endlessly, not very fast, but not slowly. If this planet is small enough, it can happen that my blood makes a full rotation through the sphericity of the planet and reaches at some point in time my left side. Then, beneath my costume, it will meet with the initial bloodstream on my right side, creating an infinite cycle of blood flow. There are approximately five liters of blood, too little for a river, but anyway, if it goes on flowing like this, without any visible barrier, it is possible to happen exactly so. There is another possibility: there may be no gravity on the bottom part of this planet, or another planet may apply a bigger attractive force on that side. If that is the case, I think my blood will start flowing downwards, on the tangent of the sphere, as soon as it reaches the end of the surface I can see now. A bloodstream will pour out across the universe, five liters of blood pouring out, pulled and pushed by who knows what forces, wandering in other planets; and if it comes that close to a star and starts vaporizing immediately, the molecules of the created gas will spread out randomly in the space. And still, I will never see my blood flowing, I will forever see it up to the tangent point where it continues downwards. It is statistically almost impossible, yet the hypothesis that once a molecule of my blood reaches Earth, cannot be denied. Maybe it will condense and it will fall down as a microscopic drop, perpendicular to some flower, or in the mouth of someone sneezing.
This could have been the second planet where humans could have lived, but there are no more chances. I am dying and Alexander is alone, with a broken receiver. Time here surely passes differently; otherwise, I would have been dead already. What if the wound is only superficial and I do not die? What if the time passes that slowly that I live forever, paralyzed in this position, lying here, watching the blackness and the stars, waiting for my blood to reach my left side?
This was the second chance of humanity, and Alexander ruined that. I am happy, to some extent, that it wasn’t me that ruined that. I have forgotten the faces of my children. Now they may be playing in the neighborhood park. It’s summer. Bullshit. There have surely passed years, centuries. They are dead, I’m dying much after my children. I’m enjoying just one thing: thinking, meditating on my ending. I am really enjoying it. It is such a peak moment in the history of humanity. The first planet reached, the first murder. The first murder in the civilized world that cannot be punished. Alexander takes off his space helmet. You can breathe on this planet. My children are playing in the seesaw if there haven’t been centuries already. Otherwise, they would be decomposed underneath, I hope after a long, beautiful human life.
I want a Japanese violin in the background. That’s my last wish. Alexander stands over there. He regrets as hell, now he will decay alone on this planet, all alone, all by himself. He could walk and walk and walk and reach sometimes the end of this planet, he will find a place from where to jump and float in the space. Endlessly. I’m feeling my eyes closing. I can hear the Japanese violin. Ancestral sin, this is meant to be the Garden of Eden. Garden of Eden Two, if there ever was a Garden of Eden One. If our fate is written, I find it very unfair, unjust, unscrupulous to designate someone’s fate as the first murderer out of Earth. In this aspect, Alexander is the most unfortunate, miserable human that ever lived on Earth and out of it. I, on the contrary, have a really interesting, understandable, maybe necessary fate. I feel sorry for Alexander. Out of the first Garden, the very first sin.