This is Tranquility Base

“Tranquility Base. Tranquility Base.  Do you read me, over?”

[No, but I do like to read in order to feel connected.  I guess that’s a joke of some sort.  Maybe a pun.  I’ve found this shelter pod and I am reluctant to acknowledge my presence here.]

“You are in terrible danger.  Do you copy, over?”

[So much drama from those so invested in this waking world.  I have given myself over to the certainty of death and the freedom from that inevitability is not so easily attained.]

“Tranquility Base.  Moon Proper has been overrun.  Do you require assistance, over?”

[They will eventually give up on me and that is my hope.  I have accumulated so many disappointments, but now I am fully in control because I have no illusion of control.]

“This is your last chance to reply, over.”

[They are promising silence.  Maybe they feel sorry for me, but I have come to terms with the surety of my physical demise while their world has shrunk to the size of a body’s border.]

“Tranquility Base.  Listen.  We do not want to give up on you.”

[Nobly put but naively understood.  I see an impossible light breaking on the horizon to engulf me in mere moments and so I draw in a deep breath.] “This is Tranquility Base, over and out.”

***