Her Name is Cassandra

Her name is Cassandra.

They speak about her in words and and think about her in thoughts that we will never understand, set so far apart from us within the bounds of time, but they do know her name. It has not changed. I daresay it will not, though that is quite the presumptuous claim to make. All of our tongues have faded into scripts that their archaeologists pore over, emblazoned carelessly on the plastic remnants that circle the earth. I’m fairly sure that they think our plastic water bottles were statues of some god, one that everybody hated, so that they could be squished and beaten out of shape whenever something irked us. The sturdier water bottles were, of course, more respectable gods. Some cultures may have believed that they brought luck to the devotee, which their archaeologists discover while excavating ancient ruins of what must be a temple. We would have called it a department store. The future left the present behind a long time ago. It is hidden underneath a screen of wars and rumors of wars. Whatever may belong to our past is buried endlessly far beneath that. They do not know of our old ways, of our old gods, or of one particular extremely unlucky priestess.

Upon rejecting her own god, he gave her the beautiful evil of prophecies that no one would ever believe. It did not turn out well for the city of Troy. These future archaeologists learn nothing of that great epic, save for some Trojan-themed school memorabilia. I’m not sure what they think that was about. None of it mentions that priestess.

Her name is Cassandra. She is a prophet.

She no longer exists in the forgotten human flesh, nor the stories that have resigned themselves to ashes. Though the god that cursed her with blessings is long laid to the abyss, she holds tightly to the web of their one sided agreement. No one would ever believe her. Now, her towers have become comets. The dust of her precious city is far away, with oceans of ink betwixt them, and her ritual laurel leaves are solar flares. The armies which once ran hither and thither like leaves scattered by the wind that used to whip through her hair in manic frenzy are now the ocean of stars looking back up at her. Her skin is made of intensity. The fists which would beat her chest in grief are curled up next to her sides as the continues to watch, just like before. The frenzy has died into some kind of steady ember. Her splendid raiment of light has kindled the memory of ragged royal garments into dust, and the new fire she tends within herself has voraciously obliterated the Fall of Troy. Whatever may have happened there, whatever fingerprints may cloud the surface of her spirit’s brilliant gloss, are the very definition of gone.

Her name is Cassandra. She is a sun.

Horribly ironic, isn’t it? She participates in the dance that her little planets try to drag her into, though never staying still for long. She continues to watch. She is no less separated from humanity than she was prior, and observes with the same detachment that being a sun earns while humankind recovers, then learns, then regains the curiosity that we have always had. While their archaeologists aren’t great, their astronauts certainly are. A short trip, though a challenging one, is all that separates starfarers from what they consider to be a goddess of some kind. We would call it a black hole, I think. When all the stars are within reach and yet infinitely unattainable, even the shiniest of spacecraft will remember something of us and search for what they cannot find in whatever they cannot have.

Her name is Cassandra. She is all that stands between this little ship and that very large point of infinite infinity.

It’s only little by comparison to a star. We would see it as a city, held aloft in the sky by a magic that they refer to as physics and quite ridiculous in its expansiveness. Steel panels, ceramic plates, and things that no one would recognize on our own spacecraft are all suspended together. The outside looks like you are imagining it right now. The inside is made of lives. Hundreds of people, weaving together out of stories. Their dramas paint the interior of the ship in little ways- a cracked plate, blue curtains brought from home, echoes of an argument which still hang in the air like the blinking warning signs everywhere. Plants from gardens. New friends made over a cup of something. Someone is happy. Someone is lonely. Someone is both and neither at the same time and yet, they are all humans.

Her name is Cassandra. She is telling them to turn around.

They are all humans, but they are also a split faction from one of the peoples who have remembered the old ways of religion. They have done it in a very human fashion, in too many kaleidoscopic extremes and far too quickly. Someone important to them had a drink too many, a prophecy made of excuses and finances and alcohol, and now they wish to join their infinite goddess in the sky. It is not impossible to orbit around a black hole, but it is rather unwise to continue doing when things go wrong. They don’t know that, yet, and they can’t listen, even though they have the instruments to hear the sound waves that Cassandra now hurls at them without relent. The fancy buttons on equally fancy monitors beep loudly to get their attention, the words alight upon the screen, Cassandra and her warnings are carefully measured. They are discussed by elated scientists. They are watched by people standing at the windows of the ship, staring at this fire in the night. A young woman is ignoring everything, curled up with her book. A younger man is staring out of his own window, at Cassandra, while his parents prepare their own ritual laurels for whatever their religion entails. An older couple have a conversation about how they can’t really make small talk about the weather in space. None of them hear Cassandra, save for those who crowd around confused instruments and pretend to know why the readings are so bizarre. The tones of Cassandra’s voice are lit up plainly on screens with their files and their numbers.

It is very unfortunate that no one really speaks ancient Greek anymore.