BENEVOLENCE (Original Space)

         Inside of the prism-like J-10 hexadome, the setting rays of a muted Sol shone through its distant hexaplate structure. The Violet-hour hung heavy upon the farming district of Hydross-Q. Against the shimmering ultraviolet dusk, two siblings quietly walked to the end of the driveway.

         Although the elder of the two, there was something Bernese longed to know about her strange half-deaf, half-albino stepbrother. Not one for tact, she bluntly asked, “George, how come you never had any fruit chews when we were growing up?”

         George stopped next to the Highland Ranch Cattle-moth Nursery signpost, at the end of the driveway, as did Bernese, who looked less pale but pastier in the waning violet light.

         Without batting an eye her way, George replied, “I’ll answer that, sis, if you tell me, first, why you had so many....”

         Tossing back her long dark hair – its purple highlights blending into the crepuscular evening – and with a sly smile, she said, “Touché, little bro!” then quickly looked away. Fighting a lump in her throat and chewing on her bottom lip, Bernese spat, then said, “Well White Rabbit, it’s been nice growing up with you. Too bad you’re choosing the city life....”

         “Yeah....” he commented, staring down his path. A path leading off to the Jovian city of Phlur-Goneous Keptem-8.

         Bernese wondered if he heard her.

         “Well, Bernie, ... you’re pretty unique yourself. But you know what? Phlur-Goneous’ has been calling me since I was young. So, I figured it’s about time for me to answer its call.”

         “Humph,” commented Bernese, looking in the opposite direction, at the distant hexadome structure, barely visible through the deepening violet sky. “You do what you got to do, okay White Rabbit? But stay chill, all right? And someday we might see each other again.... And, hey, as if you didn't know, silly, I’m the Red Queen!”

         George smiled at his older stepsister’s infallible love for Alice In Wonderland.

         She looked past his sarcastic smile, put her hands on her hips, and said, “You know the Red Queen has to have her deck of cards to play with. So I shuffle.... And I play!”

         “Humph,” chuckled George, his thin pale lips pulled taunt. Oh, how he wished he could just walk off to his ominous light speckled destiny. But Bernese, of all people, always had a way of catching him off guard. After a moment of silent reflection, he said, “As if you didn't know sis, I'm an allamagoosa. It’s a proven fact that we’re a strange fruit, who do best by sticking to our own. Well, adios, Bernie....” With that said, George walked off.

         An artificial breeze stirred the air.

         Standing alone next to the Highland Ranch signpost, Bernese was stunned by George’s unexpected rejoinder and remission.... Then he simply walked off like that. Yet, Bernese had to stay and watch his silhouette shrink away, then disappeared into the dark maw of Phlur-Goneous Keptem-8. She wiped a tear away, whilst thinking, I wish you the best, my dear White Rabbit!

         With a pang of nostalgia, Bernese looked back at her beloved home one last time, then turned away to begin upon her own path; a path to see, first-hand, what makes survival within the hostile environment of Jupiter possible.


         At the age of twenty-three, Bernese walked down a rough-cut track of untamed farmland. With no rocks to kick, and little else to do, she quietly trod down her barren path. It stretched out ahead to where the diatanium hexadome curved down to meet the metalla firma below. Without fear, Bernese traverse down the lane, knowing full well that it ran straight through the heart of cattle-moth country. Besides being hunted by wild mantiswolf, the free roaming cattle-moth could die at any given moment during flight, making the possibility of being crushed to death by a two-ton, six-legged, inimal’s death-dive a gruesome and comedic event.

         Heaving a sigh of boredom, Bernese abandoned her thoughts about reaching J-10 before Blackout. In the relative silence that ensued, she checked the contents of her knapsack a few times, then considered her alternative. If I turn around and head to Phlur-Goneous now, I know I can catch up to White Rabbit if I run! But Bernese’s long legs kept taking in the direction her soul wanted her to go.

         Presently, she wondered what Alice would do to alleviate her boredom. Not sure what that was, Bernese decided to work with the few options she had at her disposal.

         After sometime of humming, skipping, and fiddling with a strand of hair, Bernese noticed an unearthly noise began to fade up in the distance. It was the muffled, purring moo-sound uttered by a herd of flying cattle-moth. Their eerie anesthetic moo-sound resonated from a pack of internal neck chambers and it was augmented by the flapping of their dusty wings. As they lumbered overhead, the drone of the herd seemed to blackout the sky. They were chasing after the fading indigo light streaming in through the day’s thin storm clouds swirling about J-10.

         Out of her knapsack, Bernese pulled a hooded poncho and breathing mask. She put them on to protect her from the falling cattle-moth dust. Mantiswolf might be in pursuit, she speculated, but decided not to worry about it unless the flying herd had failed to disappear before the fading light did. Either way, Bernese was alert to the telltale signs of a cattle-moth’s death-dive when, sure enough, it happened. A careen of the herd, followed by a strange thrumming silence, and an unsteady feeling in her gut, made Bernese inhaled sharply, then hold her breath.

         There! A single cattle-moth drifted away from the herd, its shadow expanded slowly as it strayed away, down along the valley lane. Seeing it was not headed in her direction, and that the herd was now a safe distance away, Bernese exhaled. Then she stopped, took off her poncho, shook it out, then took off her breather and stowed them both in her knapsack. In curious delight, she stood there and watched as the dead inimal plowed into a field of industrial grade hemp.

         Shuddering at the thought of being crushed by a rotund missile, Bernese’s dread deflated as the herd had dawdled off further, into the deepening violet sky beyond, their ominous bellowing becoming more uncanny as they flew closer and closer to the hexadome. Bernese resumed walking.

         At thirty miles away, blurred reflections of the moon, Io, began to crest along the bottom hexaplates. Bernese was admiring their slow rising curve when a non-artificial breeze fluttered her hair. It made her shiver involuntarily. A natural breeze?... Inside of J-10?!


         After a paranoid half-hour of stomping through cattle-moth dust, suddenly an electric hum zipped by overhead. Freaking out, thinking it might be a straggling mantiswolf, Bernese drew on an inner strength to look up. As she did, a non-blinding spotlight met her look. She instinctively covered her quivering yellow eyes, but peeked around a forearm, blinked, and wondered if what she saw was real.

         A huge ovoid ship decorated with winking lights loomed overhead. It projected the shaft of light and produced an ultra low hum that reminded Bernese of a sick cattle-moth. Then, as if in a lucid dream, Bernese watched the ovoid ship fall away into the night, taking her along for the ride. Beside the plethora of winking lights, she noticed the smooth metallic surface of the ship as she drew closer to it. When she was near enough to touch its hull, a portal twisted open for her to float through. Safely passed the threshold, it resealed itself as smooth and seamless as before.

         Bernese had one thought as this happened, Through the Looking Glass I suppose....

         Inside, she was blinded by the sheer brightness of the white rectangular room she was received into. Her eyes adjusted slowly, but when they were, she was astonished to see life in a whole new light – a pure white light to be exact. It was a surprising sight for somebody who was born and raised inside of a light bending prism, even if there was nothing to see in this brightly lit rectangular room.


         A humanoid couple appeared from out of nowhere, startling Bernese. Both were wearing a disturbing clear skintight flight suit. The female looked a lot like Bernese with her long black hair, slender oval face, but had prominent cheekbones. The male though had crewcut black hair, with a Roman nose set within a sharp square face. Both had trim fit bodies, with no hair except that on their heads. Yet, the thing Bernese found most strange about both humanoids was the droll look in their otherwise intense emerald eyes. She felt each pair of those intense emerald eyes boring into her mind; into her soul. She could not help but to look at the couple, packaged in shrinkwrap. They bowed upon eye contact, spread their hands, and in a unified voice announced, “Greetings lovely Bernese! It is time for your mind expansion ceremony with the 12 Masters!”

         Bernese choked on something, but her struggle was ignored as the couple demanded her to, “Follow us!” Then they bowed, spun about-face, and walked straight through the opaque wall behind them.

         Regaining her composure, Bernese thought, What the ... ! Tucking a loose strand of hair behind an ear, she walked up to the solid looking wall and regarded it for a moment. A missing section? Maybe it’s cut at an angle? Possibly the lighting? “Humph,” she declared. With a stomp of a foot, she dismissed her thoughts before stepping forward through the opaque wall ...

         ... and into a small triangular room where the couple were waiting. Taking another step in, Bernese was elbowed out of the way unexpectedly by the couple as they rushed to exit. Bernese turned and stared after them, amazed at their rudeness. Then, she noticed the ultra low hum again before she stepped back through the opaque wall ...

         ... and out into a floral garden that trailed off into an exotic blend of plant species. Bernese’s eyes lit up with the lush greens of grass, shrubs, vines, saplings, and trees that extended up higher than her eyes could see. The couple waited patiently for her to stop gawking before they led her down a slightly hidden pathway.

         A scent of moisture in the air and the sound of a waterfall grew prevalent as the three marched deeper into the tangle of foliage. The couple easily stomped through vines and branches that Bernese had to push aside. And, a few times, she had to duck a broken tree limb the couple let snap back at her. Humph! They remind me of robots. Five minutes later, as the three of them walked around a giant redwood tree, a serene little pond ringed by cattails came into view. The pond was downstream from a lake running down river from a distant waterfall.

         “Uh-mazing,” uttered Bernese.

         Sitting symmetrically spaced apart around the cattail pond were the 12 Masters, chanting lightly in meditation. The couple stopped a respectful distance away and bowed to them. Bernese stopped as well but did not bow. Being nervous and knowing not what to do, a shiver started in the cores of her feet, traveled up her long scissor blade legs, passed through her thin waist, up through her heaving bosom, and ended as a twitched nod of acknowledgment. All because she was thinking, Are all these monks wearing the same styled robe? The ritualistic robe of the Be Eye Gee  – the mythological Bored Immortal Group?!

         In unison, the couple announced, “Undisputed Lords and Masters of All Things Great and Small, Benevolence, the one you wished summoned is before you now.”

         Did they just call me Benevo—

         “Leave us!” ordered the 12 Masters.

         The couple immediately bowed to them, bowed to Bernese, then spun about-face and marched up the slightly hidden path. The sound of snapping branches faded into the distance and drew Bernese’s attention. She looked back at the sound, thinking about the couple, What could their main function be?


         Returning her attention to the 12 Masters, Bernese jumped when the lush environment around her pixilated, then dissolved into a cold dark and starless abyss. Unlike the inside of the bright white rectangular room the ovoid ship had received her into, Bernese’s eyes adjusted quickly in the blacked out environment. A weird pressure alerted her to the fact that the 12 Masters began to accelerate the space surrounding them.

         In the streaming silence that followed, the monks whispered without a sound into her open soul, “Behold, young Benevolence, original space!” She tried to respond, but was hushed by an unseen force that emanated from behind her; from the 12 Masters. Bernese turned and glared at them. If you guys didn’t breathe or think out-loud, I’d swear you were all statutes! Looking forward again, she wondered where the many strings of stars had appeared from.

         Without warning, an unsuspecting glowing ember nestled within that nebulous net exploded! A single pinpoint of light amongst far-off billions transformed into a blazing emanation that rippled through the universe in mere seconds! When the star-burst dimmed, Bernese dared to peek. As she did, the aftershock washed over her and the hooded monks. The cosmic pressure of the event subsided as sudden as it hit and the blinding light shrank to its former undetectable size; a mere mote of dust swallowed by the darkness, inseparable from the billions of other stars found within the wrist of an unseen spiral galaxy countless light-years away.

         Unsuccessfully wiping at her tears as the scene zoomed in to the point that individual stars became silver streaks, Bernese intuitively knew the 12 Masters were advancing space-time toward the ember that exploded moments ago. Their singular voice whispered again into her soul, saying, “Indeed, we are traveling toward that brand new star. For it harbors a secret!”


         Speeding in from out of the dark and lonely universe, toward an outer wrist of the Milky Way galaxy, the silver streaks soon became individual stars that took up their anointed positions of the celestial map. Mesmerized by this cosmic spectacle, Bernese gave up trying to wipe her tears away or even trying to blink as the 12 Masters slowed down space-time and maneuvered really close to the proto-star.

         A full spectrum of color shifted and modulated endlessly upon its surface. It hemorrhaged everywhere as it orchestrated immense solar prominence and a mass of fire storms. Pitching winds thrashed about wildly forming and dissipating, appearing and disappearing around a jagged edges of sun spots. Bernese felt flabbergasted as the intense heat from the blazing proto-star kissed her skin and dried her cheeks. How is this observation possible without being cooked alive?!

         Ignoring her internal question, the 12 Masters announced in unison, “Behold, young Benevolence, the beginning of your Sol Star System.”

         She stared in speechless amazement as they moved closer to Sol, beginning its main sequence. The heat increased accordingly, becoming nearly unbearable. If this star gets any hotter, thought Bernese, shielding her eyes, I’m gonna faint from heatstroke!

         As Sol’s heat reached its peak temperature, all of its surging energy slunk down into the core of its bloated radiant body. Slowly, its brilliance continued to fade, fade, fade; and like a huge thunder storm gathering out at sea, fascinating dark hues danced mercilessly upon its surface. Yet, darker, more sinister and violent hues were blooming amidst its epicenter. Although this star was just born, it looked like it was about to go nova!

         Shuttering involuntarily, Bernese’s skin began to crawl. This star’s not dying.... It’s eclipsing itself, ... from ... the ... in ... side ... out!


         Then, from out of Sol’s violent and unstable core, looking like an armored warrior arising out of a pit of molten lava, emerged a glistening liquid metallic sphere. The newborn liquid metallic sphere received a healthy welcome of lustrous space dust as it drifted out into the cold vacuum of space. Its churning surface flash dried almost as soon as it was free from Sol’s internal heat, and its shiny crust fractured more and more the further it drifted away. Vast continent-sized plates of its frozen crust began to buck and grind, to play against each other as the liquid metallic sphere continued to encase the turbulent forces perpetuating its existence. Chemical imbalances creating magnetic forces radiating out from the core of the frozen liquid metallic sphere collected and enveloped it in a blanket of solar radiation, dust particles, drifting gas, and other cosmic debris. In no time, this blanket of elements sparked ablaze. But that only served to cook the internal and external elements into a highly unstable multicolored liquid planetoid swirling throughout space with numerous lightning storms rampaging across its surface.

         With her mouth ajar, Bernese could not look away even if she tried. And try she did. But the trance-inducing effect of the mother planet being born would not let her attention go.


         As the newly formed gas planet continued to drift, its movement paused when the group rotated around it to get a panoramic view for the next event. Once they were in place, life returned to the scene and the mass of Sol began to diminish in size as well as in luminescence until it became a stable star. Meanwhile, the new born gas giant, Jupiter, quivered to a stop before it belched violently – once, twice – each time shooting out a tiny blue sphere away from the warmth of Sol. Then, with less enthusiasm but with more pacheesemo, two more spheres, both medium sized and butterscotch in color, were birthed in the same direction as the first two. Jupiter recoiled slightly from each birth but also gained a natural sense of rotation. The baby spheres began to rotate as well when they got ensnared by Sol’s gravity. As all five spheres started upon their revolutions around the Sol star, a play of  interplanetary gravitational forces formed. A harmonic push and pull creating the dance of the heavenly spheres, a dance of the celestial body, a dance that consists of separate but equal paths; paths that influence all of Greater Outer Space.

         The medium-sized butterscotch sphere, known as Saturn, was the largest that Jupiter had birthed. It was also the sphere that stood closest to Jupiter. Being so, Saturn’s rotation syphoned a healthy portion of cosmic debris from the area, forming its iconic rings and pushing Jupiter back a bit, back toward its brilliant stellar parent, Sol.

         Bernese watched with trembling breath as fleshy beige and blood red colors burst out of the Great Red Spot – that hellacious storm that had just given birth to the four Jovian planets. The two colors poured out of the Great Red Spot and into Jupiter’s tremulous atmosphere, affecting it strangely. The heat of Sol began to boil the planet, but the fleshy beige and blood red colors refused to meld with the rest of the churning elements. As the bubbling cauldron of Jupiter inched toward Sol an unexpected calm spread across its surface. It stopped moving but continue to rotate. This centrifugal force separated that sick mixture into layers and made the planet bulge in the middle. The dispelling calm didn’t last long though, as the edges of the layered atmosphere began to swirl erratically. Suddenly, the bulge separated. It rippled out to the north and south poles, then back again to the equator.

         The result was the birth of five more small spheres from out of the Great Red Spot. They were birthed toward the warmth of Sol and more cosmic gases dispersed in all directions. As those chunks of matter, sediment, and other planetary afterbirth were trapped in the gravity-well that formed between Jupiter and the fifth sphere, the smallest of the five stopped closest to the blazing nuclear furnace of Sol. The four following spheres lined up in a balance from big to big to small to big before Jupiter.


         Suddenly, the view focused on the only gleaming sphere in the lineup. When the group drew near it, Bernese gasped as tiny dots flew off and away from it. The dots reminded her of roachos scattering when a light was turned on. Some of the dots landed on various spheres of the Sol Star System, while others continued flying out into Greater Outer Space.

         Bernese jumped when the 12 Masters made a collective guttural sound. She wanted to kick the nearest robe, but the view maneuvered outward and stopped her from doing so. It dawned on her that Jupiter was not yet done, and the gas giant birthed one more sphere from its Great Red Spot. A teeny tiny be-be compared to all the other spheres. But this be-be proved to be a tough little sphere! As it flew at a high speed, it crashed through the fifth sphere, fondly remembered as Tiamat, smashing it to pieces. Large chunks of Tiamat drifted until they found their designated spot as a meteor or a natural satellite orbiting one of the other spheres. The leftover debris stayed within the confines of the gravity-well now stretching between Mars and Jupiter, thus filling out the Van Allen asteroid belt, and adding a chaste touch to the dance of the celestial body.

         When the be-be crashed through Tiamat, its new trajectory put in on course for the red and blue sphere of Mars, fourth out from Sol. But the be-be only rained down Tiamat debris upon Mars as it passed. Fortunately, though, the be-be lost inertia from its violent path as it slowed to a stop and parked next to the shiny diamond marble, third out from Sol.

         In utter amazement, Bernese touched a hand up to her silently parted lips. This is simply incredible, she thought. It’s almost too much to believe!

         The halting pressure of the be-be shattered the diamond marble, knocking the planet hidden inside off of its axis and a bit closer to Sol. Chunks of diamond spun away into Outer Space while other pieces melted down onto the blue and green sphere left behind, creating an atmosphere filled with white swirls and smears, establishing the beloved planet of Old Earth. A glowing red smudge bubbled up from the colossal landmass that violently broke apart. The be-be itself hovered ominously above Earth as the shattered landmass directly below redistributed itself equally in a ring about the sphere, making Earth look like a frosted blue and green beach ball.


         The 12 Masters and their companion zoomed in on the third sphere but this time they did not stop. As the darkness of outer space fell away, the oxygen sustaining sky of Earth replaced it. For effect, the 12 Masters descended through a billowing stack of cumulonimbus clouds to tickle Bernese’s nose. Through the bottom of the cloud, a large brown-green smutch appeared. It stood out starkly from the shimmering blue ocean surrounding it.

         The details continued to expand until suddenly Bernese found herself confined inside of a cold dark chamber, which was nothing like the cold dark vastness of outer space. Impatient and scared, she was about to scream for help when, once again, the single voice of the 12 Masters whispered into her soul. It beckoned her to, “walk forward and push on the wall.... With some force.” Luckily, the wall was right in front of Bernese, so she found it easily enough and calmed down. Then she nearly broke a sweat pushing what felt like a ten-ton rock.

         After five minutes of extreme pushing, light finally broke through a crevasse and a breeze carried in the smells of jungle life and the delight of freedom. As soon as Bernese moved the rock enough to squeeze out into the sunlight she realized she did move, what appeared to be, a ten-ton stone. Actually, it was a carved stone door to an ancient step pyramid. Huffing and puffing, she stepped back to get a better view of the upper features of the structure. As she did so, two things happened. First, she realized there was no hexadome. And, second, she tripped over one of the 12 Masters, who didn’t even budge. Bernese regained her balance and thought, Humph, statues indeed! Then she apologized to the monk, who returned her apology with a humble guttural sigh.

         Bernese turned to get a better look at the pyramid and the hexadomeless sky, but instead she saw the shrinkwrapped emerald-eyed couple trotting around the bend of a familiar redwood tree. What the trike?! thought Bernese. With incredulous wonder, she looked around and found that she was in the very same wooded environment she was in before her head-trip into the cold dark starless abyss. She easily remembered the distant waterfall feeding the shimmering lake upstream from the little pond ringed by cattails. Isn’t this where I met the 12 Masters? And there they are, still sitting in their same spots!

         The shrink-wrapped couple stopped a respectful distance from the 12 Masters, bowed to them, bowed to Bernese, then said, “Satisfaction, oh Great High Masters?”

         The 12 Masters grunted, nodded and grunted again. Then commanded as one, “GO!”


         With business settled, the monks begun to chant in chorus a mantra of chirps, clicks, smirks, smooching sounds, bass tones, and the murmuring of strange lyrics amongst other audible babble. Bernese made no comment, but she was sure the monks could hear her thinking, Humph! This is the worst diatribe I’ve ever heard! It sounds like a bunch of cackling! Of course, the 12 Masters ignored her thoughts. Then, as before, the emerald eye couple did their bowing ritual before they led Bernese through the forest upon the same lightly hidden path they trod down before. When they entered the small triangular room, Bernese made sure to step out of the way of the opaque wall.

         A moment later, the three exited into a lime-green room with subdued lighting, a couch, a bed, and a chair that sat next to an ironing board looking thing, a couple of tables and a mini-bar. Built into the wall across from the couch were a holovision receiver and a UHF surround-sound refractor, both with Telepathic Sensing Capability. Bernese got the vibe that her two hosts were trying to make her feel comfortable. Their ghostly child-like smiles and perfectly unblemished faces neither added nor subtracted to her level of comfort. In all honesty, neither did their clear skintight flight suits. Yet, Bernese felt that they were ultimately trying to seduce her.

         This thought gained strength when the song Let's Get It On, by Marvin Gay, cued up on the Surround Sound Refractor, filling the room with the funky soul-sound of 1973. Then, through the opaque wall, trotted in a strapping young man around Bernese’s age. He had a brown mini-afro, a sly sparkling smile, and, like the couple, wore a clear, skintight flight suit.

         Nah, he’s totally naked, observed Bernese, twisting a forelock around a finger and beginning to feel amused.... More so than before.

         The young man stopped in front of the trio and bowed. The couple bowed to him, and Bernese nodded approvingly. The couple turned to her and made gestures suggesting that the young man, who possessed the same-looking droll but intense emerald eyes, was a gift to her. Bernese smiled and nodded again. Starburst, here I come!

         Then the three exo-Jovians simultaneously bowed to Bernese. The couple bowed to the young man, and he to them respectfully. Bernese coughed, and the couple bowed to her one last time, then spun around and disappeared through the opaque wall.

         Once alone, the handsome young man took notice that, as Bernese walked over to the mini-bar, she gingerly stepped out of her clothes and into a sly sparkling smile.

         I like the customs around here, she thought, whilst mixing two Long Island Iced Teas.