Cobra

Epitaph
By Frank Viñas




Now, I feel as nothing matters. The constant strolls on the main deck are displeasing to my crew. They know. It’s nerve racking to them. They are aware of my state. I hear it louder and see it clearer than ever, magnified a thousand times over. I see, each officer staring at each other, from every angle. After living for years and years together and navigating in this gigantic-sized city, slaloming and skidding deadly events in the darkest confines of my dreams, they know me better than I know myself.

I hate being predictable but love the moments of anticipation that my officers attended my peccadilloes, a crude and harsh task my crew despised. In my quarters, resting on my hovering bed, I stare the infinite darkest skies and think what would of happen if I had been less selfish and given up my life in the military. Maybe it would of turned out differently. Maybe I would have been loved the way I wanted. “ …no that’s selfish; I can’t think like that.” Everybody looks at me as if I’m not there. I still feel that sense of replacement. I whish I was invisible then.

Checking the main engine room without my favorite red suit; scaring them with tickles, pinches and thumps; making facial caricature gestures to the officers; dancing in their faces, releasing anger—I hate them all now. As I float through the labyrinth-like halls of the ship searching for reasons I hear wry laughs from a small corner. I can hear the engineers mocking me, turning their responsibility away and playing a game of chance in time of war. “I want to break this thin layer of universe and grab them by their elastic suits and choke them with it! “Telling my faults as a Captain, ha.” Prattling what they would of done if they were in my place. God! It feels so good no to be alive. It most be “a real heaven” like they used to say a thousand years ago. But knowing the truth now makes it unbearable for me.

I, homeless, timeless, like a still image in the universe, is hell. The only insignificant and smallest trivial Artemian in my non-existent life was the only thing I should of cherished. My Goddamn pride and ambition is the final result of my destiny. Always like an idiot chasing my on tale, “Cobra the conquering hero.” I must look like an idiot talking to myself. I keep reviewing that time in my quarters thinking what I know now and the pain of myself watching it over and over and it pleases me more than the actual reality. A thousand years anchored in this contract, and I’m ready to be reborn again.