Scribblings Found on the Padded Wall

Another Moment of Hell

2007-09-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

This was apparently for the crew of Columbia. Still being transcribed is another earlier one for Challenger, which seems to be titled Hell for a Moment

--Another Moment of Hell--

We have lost another crew of heroes today.
We have watched another smoky flower bloom,
Leaving behind a trail of pollen that will engender questioning and lies,
That will bring fear, sadness, distrust, and horror.
How many of you already feel betrayal, by god or by fellow man?
Or just by fickle fate that whimsically reminds us of our fragility?
The things that insulate us from the source of our fire sometimes break us,
burn us with that fire to leave nothing but streaks of ash and bits of broken shell.
But out of that fire, from that broken shell, *always* another phoenix must arise.
Never can we let ourselves be frightened from our path,
Washed from it by tears of grief or heat of anger--
To be kept by accident from filling the empty void with our dreams and our lives.

It is a tragedy of proportions, not an epidemic of disasters.
Because there are so few flights and machines do we take such sad note,
Yet, if we compare to the number of cars or even planes, it is not such a great amount of destruction and loss of these things.
But it *is* a great amount of destruction of our hopes, and loss of our dreams.
But *because* there are so few flights, machines, people to do this daring thing
--of exiting the air and diving again back into it's fire--
it *is* a tragedy, of human proportions.

--Michael Elliott
Saturday, February 01, 2003 4:00 PM

This is dedicated to those who died for Columbia's phoenix, this first day of the second month of the third year of our new millennium:
-Shuttle commander Rick D. Husband
-Pilot William C. McCool
-Payload Commander Michael P. Anderson
-Mission Specialist David M. Brown
-Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla
-Mission Specialist Laurel Clark
-Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon

September 13th, a day of remembrance

2007-09-14T16:03:00.001-07:00

This was found as part of a palimpsest of many writings. It took a bit to decipher.

Eight years ago today, we lost the moon.

It may have been the single largest tragedy ever in the history of the planet, having caused the destruction of much of our civilization, as well as the disappearance of many species, some through direct catastrophe, many others by disrupting the cycles by which they bred and reproduced. There hasn't been as much sickness from the radioactive materials scattered in orbit from Farside Dump as we thought there would, but it has been bad enough--a thousand Chernobyls, covering much of the planet. It will be centuries before we know the true costs.

There's nothing in the sky at night anymore except the plain old stars and planets, just specks of light. No inspiring romantic glow filling the darkness of the night, no waning tiny sliver to just peek over the shoulder of the not-quite-dark sky.

No stepping-stone to the stars, either. Without the inspiration of the moon, few have cared to continue what we started. Even many of the Martians have come home, because they cannot yet feed themselves completely for so many there, and some came back to be with their families for what felt like the end of the world here on Earth.

Lastly, a dedication to those who were lost with Luna, at least some of whom were known to still be alive when we last had contact, but without supplies, without the sanity-preserving contact with home, cannot be expected to last indefinitely, and will likely not last even a generation. Yet some here feel the Lunatics are better off than we are, as they will not have to watch so much of their home die, to be reborn as a world alien to us as generations progress.

Michael Elliott
Phoenix, Arizona
September 13th, 2007

The Scribblings Archive

2007-09-14T15:57:00.000-07:00

These are transcriptions of the scribblings found on the walls of the old sanatorium, in room 147 down near the end of the hall. More interesting and cohesive than most of the bloodblacked palimpsest of gory writings typical of the building's inhabitants, they are recorded here for perusal by those interested in the viewpoints of the less-deranged bits of humanity often incarcerated in these locations.