One Last Carnival Before Landfall
It begins when the holos flare to life.
Ancestors glitch in and out, shouting
blessings, curses, jokes half-remembered.
In thirteen days, the moment three generations
have journeyed towards will finally arrive; tradition
born in the launch-year corridors erupts again tonight.
Children tear through the gravity rings, shrieks ricocheting
like loose metal. Each department has prepared a dance,
a riotous flash mob with dazzling projections. The gardeners
in hydroponics wear neon vines in their hair, throw fistfuls
of edible petals up, engineers hack the ration printers
to blast out spiced fritters and caramel spirals.
We surge through the ship like a pulse, through the festooned hallways,
Past the algae wells that fed our grandparents, past the hull that
micrometeorites once drummed on like impatient fingers.
We parade past the bridge, past the clattering vents,
past the dorms we lived and made lives in, while Gen1 spirits
flicker, multiply, distort, faces overlapping like blurred starmaps.
Old folks dance with reckless hips, young ones swing
like they’re shaking off zero-G, and the babies spin
their heads around wildly, stunned at this last party
on the only place they’ve ever known as home.
At midnight we launch the lanterns, bioluminescent orbs
that swarm toward the ceiling, swirling into a storm of
invented constellations, a sky we built out of longing.
Even the most intoxicated quiet for a heartbeat, aware
of bidding farewell to the only heavens they’ve ever prayed to.
A hush in the last carnival before gravity, before soil,
before real wind in our hair.
And then, the music fades back in.
Soon, the engines will grind us into descent.
Soon, a new world will claim us, and the planet grows
ever larger in every viewport.
But tonight, the ship is a wild creature of light and revelery,
and we are its heartbeat. One lineage, one long breath,
celebrating the nothingness that carried us here.
Jayasri Sridhar is a filmmaker, designer, musician and writer from India whose work has found homes in film festivals, international conferences and several publications including Kyoorius Designyatra, Insubordinate Vitalities (Writing Natures Vol 02), Bilori Journal and Heartlines Spec. Explore her projects at jayasrisridhar.com.
