Alone

 Judgement by Will Tolkien

The chains felt heavy on his wrists. Heavy and cold. He had ceased struggling against them hours ago. It was no use. His strength was fading, and the night was growing steadily colder. It was very final, this fate. Very grave. They had all come to watch. Crept from their tents and shanties to stare at him as the men led him down the old gravel path to the pillars that stood like broken fingers in the field.

He glanced around. The other pillars still showed the remnants of chains—broken links hanging from rings driven in the stone. He wondered how it would end. Wondered if it would be painful. Did they cut the chains before they took you? Or were you simply wrenched away, arms and all? He would find out soon enough. No one ever lasted more than a night in the Field.

His mind wandered back…it had all been so sudden. The trial, the judgment. He had been sloppy. Too sloppy this time, and now it would be the death of him. Death. Yes, death for certain. He had avoided it for so long, danced the dance of risk and danger. All his life. And for what? To be chained to a pillar in the Field of Execution, awaiting the coming of those who would mete out justice upon him for his crimes.

Their justice was final. They had no mercy. No one escaped. But he was, after all, a killer, wasn’t he? How many men? Eight? Something pricked him, deep inside, and he spat on the ground, clenching his teeth. Eight, yes. Don’t coddle yourself, Joe. You remember them all. Their faces, their lives. You remember every throb of the blood that flowed in their veins as you choked the life from them, took from them the one thing that you had no right to take.

His eyes closed, and he could feel his heart beating hard in his chest, pounding in his temples.

For so long he had lived without thinking…for so long he had pushed it all aside. His life had been greed and the struggle to survive. But he had no right…now, at the end, he knew it. He deserved this. He deserved this fate. Here, alone. In the darkness. It was time to pay.

Suddenly he realized that the throbbing in his temples was not the throbbing of blood. It was a sound. Deep, rhythmic. It filled his ears and his mind, echoing across the Field.

His eyes opened slowly, and he raised his head. There was little light to see by now, but it was enough.

Above him, a shape loomed black against the sky. Thin and black and solemn.

It leaned forward, limbs reaching toward him, and he knew that the time had come.

His eyes closed his again.

He did not resist.

Alone by John 55555:

Just how he liked it. he sat alone, gazing out into space, sipping his drink. He'd made it carefully and it was perfect. He didn't mind the length of the trips, and never thought much about arrival or departure on his various drives through the void. He was not a man of action, he liked to just sit in the sunshine.

he reflected that unshielded by the Quartek Industries Space-Glass he would die in about five different ways if he sat in the sun, and thanked God in an absentminded fashion for the success and existence of that company. They had been started just to give the many inter-planetary "truckers" (archaic nickname) something to look at during their long flights, theorizing that this would cut down on the many mental breakdowns. Give a man a window to his prison cell and he'll have somewhere to exercise his mind.

He stirred his drink, not thinking about anything in particular, his brain as blank as he liked it to be.

After all he'd been through he was entitled to a little pace and quiet. His record as a pilot in System War I had easily gotten him this job as truckdriver, as his repuation for love of space and the sciences of space had gotten him his combat piloting job. He'd flown more missions than anyone in the force, and had more certified klls on his record than anyone.

The war had used all of his skills, it had shown him all that he had inside of him, all that he could become all the abilities at his disposal. He used all of them to the full on every mission, psyching himself up, training and going into battle in the perfect state of mind for victory. And he had always gotten it. He didn't exactl enjoy the fighting, but it seemed to fulfill him. Like a triathlon will use every muscle in your body, so did space-fighting use every skill in him. He aimed, fired and steered by instinct, timing his shot and steering with grace and efficiency. He would make moves instinctively, not always knowing how or why, his subconscious and his reflexes outpaced his conscious brain.

It was good to just sit still, flying slowly through space. He raised his to the stars.

In Writing by Grant

“My Grandfather gave me- say again?” the woman stumbled.

“That’s right,” the older man in a dress shirt and jacket replied, scribbling something down on the large file. “Your grandfather left behind a large number of books after he died. He was a collector or sorts, and his will stated he wanted to leave all of his books with you. He didn’t have much, and his wife and your father and mother are handling the finances. But the books, he stated as said here, was to go to his living grandchildren.”

She blinked, dumbfounded.

“That leaves you alone.”

Recomposing herself and sitting upright once again, she nodded. The young woman was in her early twenties and living on her own in a small one bedroom apartment. Where she was going to keep these books… and how many were there?

She wasn’t especially close to her grandfather, though she did love him, as one. He talked about himself often and often talked about her when they visited… but really, what did she truly know about him? She didn’t know who his parents were. What he was like when he was younger. She didn’t even know his exact age when he passed.

So why leave her, books?  Was it something he was interested in? Was he secretly a writer in his younger days?

Sighing, she couldn’t find it in her heart to simply throw them away, or donate them to anyone else, despite the fact that she’d never read any of it. Instead, she just asked for where she had to sign on the dotted line.

***

The three boxes that were brought to her house were filled with older books. She didn’t see anything she recognized and only as she sorted through them did she find some familiar in name. All the books were a little moldy and browner in the pages, but they were all in relatively good shape, she noted.

Finding a spot for them all in her place wouldn’t be easy either, but eventually she located a shelf that wasn’t being used for much anyway, and started taking things off and rearranging things. Until she could find a good home for these books, she’d leave them here.

Having the space on her shelves that she’d picked up months ago from Walmart or maybe Targets, she slowly placed one book after the other on the shelves. They stacked up together like a wall, each one fitting like a glove.

But it wasn’t until the last book, that she realized that it wouldn’t fit properly. All the shelves had been taken up with books, except for the top one. And this last book…

Reaching up high, she placed the book on the top shelf, where it stood against the side, all by itself.

Taking a few steps back, she looked at her work, finding all the books arranged properly quite satisfying. Maybe even tonight, she’d read some of her papa’s books. Find out what he thought was so wonderful about them, that he’d leave them for his only granddaughter.

With a smile on her face, her eyes slowly reached the top of that book shelf, where that lone book stood.

Her smile dimmed, and her eyes lowered a little. A new feeling of lamentation overcame her, as she resolved to move the book to her nightstand.