Cross the dark to find a place where humanity can grow old — the only way home is to build a machine that carries their voice, one dead world at a time.
Power from nothing. He plays until the rock remembers how to be warm.
This is the Traveller.
This beacon is built out of mud and current and a little bit of hope, so — no promises on the fidelity. It's alive, this thing. It's got bacteria in it doing the work no wire could do out here.
Every time we get one working, we'll send a message home. Got time to build this radio back up as the wheel goes around. Wanna call you and sing to you what it costs everyday of emptiness — because nothing is sure, or free. The circuits reach back in time, back home. The transposition of age marks distance, makes the time condense to lonely thought. Wavering strings in the darkness, stretching the night, song of your touch; eases the thoughts behind the wildness, the eyes look for your blooming light. Mind's eye makes an eclipse on the starboard side, seems bright but pales to you. No foot steps in this vacuum. Stellar wind on a shadowed path. Same earth bound chemistry. Should sleep until we are a part of us somewhere new.
…still moving, still yours.
Traveller out.
— from the cold open, track one
Wake up groggy but optimistic, sliding in a dance that hasn't been seen since light decided it won't play nice. Spin a circle, a lot is on your mind. Throw some bacteria into the reconstitution-a-tor; that costs a few milliwatts out here. Warm food is a luxury; much like love, homes, promises of futures. Most of us out here understand, but the time in solitary confinement repurposes our thoughts. You gotta laugh at the situation. You don't even smell that bad when you haven't been awake for energy miles.
You might possibly run a simulation of yourself in a Porsche 911 at night like a wild animal driving in a moving shadow factory. Your mind sleeps, but look to the passenger seat, and the smiles of an unreal love materialize. Buckle up, baby. You know the drill. The faux winds and gravity excite her. It's the leg of a chip that pokes a few millivolts, causing a dump of neurotransmitters into your taxpayer head. The brain is behind the eyes. You ask her to buckle up because she's a chemically induced hallucination, but you talk like you do. Hoping the smile will transfer to her face, although the difference in reality is clinical.
Alarms and bells
We'll trade that energy for dirty clothes. Fuck it, waking up feels good! Wow, it's still space and empty. Don't get down. Slam a fist into the technology like an old TV. Breathe. Focus. Time for a brief, what's new? You woke up on a half-cycle and hate the world. Hopefully, there's danger or rock-n-roll or a goddamned spreadsheet on how to make more rock-n-roll. There's only so much time. There's only so much radiation and non-activity; Wren will let you sleep through it. Hit the snooze. CuredSounds programmed her to get you out of bed when it's been so long, slingshotting to a probabilistic determination where there's no promise of excitement. It's like being in prison over a timeline longer than a run-on sentence or a stale alarm clock. Read some books, don't think too hard. New worlds are bound to find us. The ship's creator allows Wren to monitor blood chemistry and analyze brain telemetry data. There's long-term solitude to account for, and there are no small towns out here… Wren may build a simulation to keep you healthy. Wren may micro-dose your mental health with molecules and compounds. There's a series of questions and blood reports. Though the Traveller may override the settings.
It's like an anechoic chamber of life stimulations, and the environment must be artificial and baked in a way to keep pushing forward. It's a stage, a padded cell, a picket fence, a novel, memory-tied song, and even the test of our evolutionary psychology. We're moving fast, but it takes so long. Wren can't let the mission detract too far.
Anesthetized
God damn! Not this shit again… nothing lies more than gravity and whiskey! Bite the skin off a busted knuckle. Replayed that a dozen times in the theater of the mind; seemed to work fine.
Radiation must have gotten to the bacteria and fungus in TV dinners. Should have stayed in cryo-sleep… Ahh, that's it, still in the deep sleep and dreaming. It's weird getting adjusted to strange gravity. That's why the mind's theater was slowing down and speeding up at key moments. Tearing the lid off the CuredSounds TV dinner was a hero's effort. Was the mind bored? Was it practice for a future scene? Who knows. It's all a hallucination these days; maybe they always were that, a slew of blurred dreams. Still, though, nothing lies more than gravity and whiskey.
Anesthetized to another dream
— from Sling Shot
The album releases as the story gets built — one call home at a time. Leave your frequency and we'll transmit when there's something to hear.
No noise. Just transmissions, when there's a reason to send one.