Eternal Recycle of Being

Rodney Billingsley’s life ended in a bar fight. At twenty-seven, an astrophysicist engineer with dreams of finally marrying his high school sweetheart and having a family.

“Beatrice, I took these pictures last night of Andromeda and Sirius from my Celestron spectral telescope, aren’t they wonderful? I wish we could go there for our honeymoon”

“I just want to go anywhere with you darling. You have worked so hard, now we can finally get married! God, I love this song, Die with a Smile (by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars)

Out celebrating his new promotion with his fiancé Beatrice, his young life was suddenly cut short and taken away. He was caught in the crossfire between two rival gangs in a drug deal gone bad. Wrong place wrong time. The choices we make, drive our past and possibly end our future.

Rodney had been scrolling through photos of distant galaxies on his phone, showing Beatrice fabulous and extraordinary worlds. When suddenly there was no pain, just a final gasp—a swift plunge into darkness. Falling into an abyss. Then…an inexplicable lightness. Rodney’s consciousness didn't fade. He could hear Beatrice screaming and crying. It was a wail he couldn’t soothe and only endure. He was becoming detached, becoming an ethereal essence. The pain of losing his physical connection to her. Her screams were becoming more distant, but no less hurtful. Then silent. He was expanding and dissolving into the cosmos. Like a bellow, breathing in and exhaling out, his very being was fanning a coal fire trying not to be extinguished. He was becoming untethered from the frail vessel that had housed his humanity. Stars blurred by as streaks of light hurtled through the blackness, the void, the nothingness. He was guided by some unseen force. That light became stars, then planets whirled by— gas giants, red dwarfs, yellow dwarfs everything he had studied his whole life and knew. He was both fascinated and overwhelmed.

He so desperately wanted to share this wonder with Beatrice. Why wasn’t she on this wonderous trip? If only she was with him to see these swirling storms and barren rocks scorched by alien suns.

Time became irrelevant, he was now alone—until he arrived at a world unlike any other, he could have ever imagined in human astronomy. The planet, which Rodney would later think of as Dardis, was a verdant phosphorescent lime jewel orbiting a dim red star. Lush blue forests of bioluminescent trees that stretched out endlessly on jagged hills. Their dangerous asbestos and fiberglass like leaves pulsed with an ethereal unnatural glow. As his spirit descended, Rodney realized his physical body had followed, reconstituted somehow in this cosmic journey. He laid prone on a rock altar rising above a bed of glowing blue moss in a clearing. He was still bound by his body; he was still attached but now as an observer in his own afterlife. He could not move his limbs or feel anything. But he could still feel and remember her.

That's when they came. The aliens. They were tiny, no taller than a human hand, their bodies sleek and insectoid, with iridescent exoskeletons that shimmered like oil on water. They moved in vast swarms, like an army of ants numbering in the thousands, chittering in a language of clicks and hums. To them, Rodney’s body was a colossal windfall—a mountain of organic matter crashing into their ecosystem. They needed it desperately; their world was harsh, resources scarce, and the arrival of such a bounty meant survival for generations. The swarm descended upon him with meticulous efficiency. They worked in coordinated waves, their mandibles and tiny tools slicing into flesh with surgical precision. In this alien forest, under the canopy of glowing fronds, they dismantled his limbs first. Skin peeled away like bark; muscles harvested for protein to sustain their workers. Bones were ground into calcium-rich powder to fortify their hexagonal hives he could see in the distance. The organs somehow held a special worth. They were portioned out: the heart's robust tissue to fuel their elders, the liver's enzymes to purify their sticky water sources. It was a symphony of recycling; every part repurposed to keep their fragile society alive.

Rodney watched it all, his consciousness trying not to focus on the horror. He felt no physical pain—his body was merely a shell now—but the sight was surreal, a violation of his earthly form. The aliens paused at his pituitary gland, extracting a viscous fluid with reverent care. This elixir, rich in hormones, was vital for their young. It was essential. They funneled it with proboscis-like chins into glowing triangular pods where their larvae writhed like maggots, drinking deeply to grow as fast as they could in this toxic world. "Sustenance from the giant," echoed in his ear. He seemed to understand what they were saying in some cosmic translation. It grew deafening as it seemed to be a ritual chant echoing through the blue misty forest. But they hungered for more.

As the swarm finally reached his brain, their intent shifted. It grew more aggressive and more intense. This was no mere organ; it pulsed with residual energy, a nexus of thoughts and memories. He struggled to maintain his identity of who he was. He was an individual with a past, a love he shared with his fiancé with whose future was stolen, a future never guaranteed. He tensed and started to panic as he tried to recall her name. Beatrice? Yes Beatrice! My Beatrice. Oh my Beatrice, he repeatedly said over and over, determined never ever to forget his true love. Sworn to remember her name, to remember her loving face and touch. His self was starting to fade. The aliens encircled it. The IT. His brain, probed with tendrils of bio-luminescent energy, they attempted to absorb its essence. It’s soul. They sought to integrate his consciousness into their collective hive mind, to glean knowledge from Earth—technologies, emotions, the very spark of human ingenuity—to evolve their species.

Rodney resisted. From his ethereal vantage, he felt their pull, a psychic tide, back and forth trying to erode his sense of self. Memories flashed: childhood laughter in the park, going to the carnival fair, cotton candy, the thrill of seeing lightning bugs and fireflies on the 4th of July. The warmth of Beatrice’s embrace. "No," he thought, his will steadfast, manifesting as a barrier of light against the impending dark corral. He fought not with fists but with the core of his being—dignity, identity, the unyielding "I" that defined him. The aliens pushed harder, their swarm buzzing in frustration, but Rodney held firm. His consciousness was inviolable, a flame they could not extinguish or consume. “Leave me” he said in a telepathic conversation. “You have taken all that you need and all I can give. I have given to you, so you may live”

After his final exaltation, they relented, leaving the brain untouched amid the remnants of his form. The swarm dispersed, carrying away the last usable scraps to their underground lairs. Rodney’s body was gone, recycled into the lifeblood of this alien world, sustaining creatures who would never know his name.

Sometimes, he observed the aliens thriving, their young growing strong on the fluid from his glands, their society building wonders from his repurposed parts. There was a strange peace in this cosmic recycling, a second life in observation. Rodney had transcended death, his essence woven into the stars. And in the quiet glow of that alien world, he wondered if this was the universe's way of saying nothing truly ends. He endured. Eternal, bodiless, he drifted through Dardis’s forests, a wandering spirit with memories intact. He recalled Earth's sunsets, the taste of coffee, the sound of children’s laughter and of driving his car. But mostly he remembered the smile and the love that was Beatrice.