I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles

Transmission from Aurora; protocol 089321 -phobos - sector 21:



Lucie Bentley, only child of John and Sarah is seated on the floor of her bedroom it is the same bedroom floor she has known for the 16 years of her life, she is surrounded by photos of her family and friends. She likes to take time to look at the pictures of holidays, birthdays and all the good times that have so far joined the dots of her short existence. She prefers the printed format to other media as she loves to hold and feel the glossy surface between her fingers – this somehow helps her to feel closer to the scenes portrayed in these snapshots. Her bedroom contains everything a teenager requires to survive the modern world, TV, DVD player, on demand viewing, music, laptop, clothes, makeup even an en suite bathroom that her parents added by knocking through into a spare bedroom after she relentlessly harangued them for months, she finally clinched the deal by playing the ‘only child card’. Lucie is an expert at this, she understands the guilt some parents of single children have for not providing a sibling and she uses this to unlock the bank of mum and dad whenever she sees fit.

However this talent is of absolutely no use to her now –



Imagine this if you can.
A translucent bubble – the bubble hangs in the darkness of space somewhere beyond this galaxy, (and for I know beyond this time) suspended in a permanent flux trapped and beyond recovery. The sphere silently drifts through space gliding past an ever changing background of stars, planets, supernova and all the other stuff that is the cosmos. To a casual observer (of which there are non) this gossamer bubble would appear to be barely moving but in reality it is hurtling through space and time at a speed beyond comprehension its very being defying all the laws of physics, looping further and further out into the void.

So who created this mystical 8 metre globe and for what purpose?
As yet its origins are unknown – as for its purpose that is simple to answer, it is a prison and the current and only resident is one Lucie Bentley her bedroom and all of its contents.

Lucie stands by the window of her bedroom and looks out to where once there was a view of her garden and beyond that the river Ouse, she stops herself from reflecting on home as she knows this only leads to further melancholy and emptiness.
There is no night or day in space and therefore she has no way of knowing how long she has be cast adrift, her laptop like everything within her room is still functioning as normal and the calendar on igoogle is telling her that the date is 20th April 2089, this makes Lucie the grand old age of 97 but when she looks in the mirror she is still a pale and frightened 16 year old. Time after time Lucie has gone over exactly what did happen on the 28th of July 2007.

At 09-02 she was soundly asleep in bed, she had not set the alarm on her phone as she had no plans for the day and so was annoyed that at 09-03 her alarm had woken her, she stumbled to her desk from her bed to find her phone then realized that the alarm was coming from her laptop, she had as usual left her laptop on due to some late night chatting and now it appeared that she had a new message from someone and this was the source of the alarm. She was being ‘nudged’. Not recognizing the name Tavis Parks she dragged her pointer over the message box and clicked on the conversation area, she typed in the words ‘please just go a way and die’ and punched down on the mouse to send.
A two letter reply came, ‘Ok’
Lucie was just about to send a sarcastic ‘Thanks a lot’, - when her world literally disappeared. Her vision blurred, her ears boomed and she and her bedroom separated from planet earth. Lucie vaguely remembers seeing the earth disappear from view as she lay unable to move on the floor of her room pined down by the shear pressure generated by the enormous acceleration. Planets shooting past in quick succession as she reached the outer limits of our solar system traveling further and further away from home with the sun becoming ever more dim. Just for a terrifying few seconds she got extremely cold and had difficulty breathing but then the bubble appeared to adjust her environment stabilizing the temperature and pressure so that she could again move as if on earth. Since that moment Lucie has gone through all the scenarios of ‘this is a dream’ – ‘has someone drugged me’ – or ‘wow Disney sure got this ride right’, but for all the analysis and self probing she can only reach the one true conclusion – that she and her entire bedroom are indeed trapped in a bubble and are traveling through time and space and the only possible person who may have any clue as to why this is happening is someone called Tavis Parks.

She has tried messaging Tavis Parks but there is no reply (yes she still has connection with the internet, don’t know why - don’t know how – I just know that connections can be very random and inconsistent). She has searched the social networks and found a few entries for Tavis Parks – one in particular that in the attached blog just had one word ‘Help’. She is continuing to monitor this particular individual between stargazing and watching TV (mainly Hollyoaks), who at channel 4 would believe they had such a distant viewer and why the hell if she can watch TV is there no service to her phone on this side of the galaxy? Lucie makes a mental note to e-mail the phone company with a further complaint……… Are they getting the mails she ponders or is it just crap customer service?

Transmission end: