The Fugue

October 23, 2018·48 min·4 clips

A crew member fixated on Jupiter's constant presence reveals they are on humanity's first manned trip to Callisto.

Jupiter stays still. The narrator starts with that need: one fixed point in a life ruled by seasons, aging, and time slipping past. Then Callisto calls. Chosen for the first manned trip there, the narrator accepts the honor before the job title starts to feel strange. Peace officer sounds steady enough on Earth. Inside a sealed ship with twenty-four people, it begins to mean something else. Amanda screams first. She sees a person on the ceiling, turning around, running to the opposite wall, then walking down it. The figure has no face. No eyes, no mouth, no nose, no ears, just the outline of a human head with everything expected missing. Amanda is terrified, but she is also precise, and that precision bothers the narrator. Panic should smear the details. Hers does not. Then the figure sinks into the floor. For a moment, Amanda thinks she sees huge drawn-looking eyes on its torso, shoved away from where eyes should be. It is not the first sighting anymore. It is a pattern. The narrator reaches for the practical explanation: distance, fatigue, stress, the old pressure of people trapped far from home. Apollo seems to have helped by tracking needs and moods, keeping the crew cushioned from the worst of themselves. But that comfort starts to look suspect. Maybe people need boredom, dread, and ordinary misery to stay ready for fear. The horror is quiet, which makes it worse. The faceless visitor is frightening, but so is the thought that the crew has been protected into weakness.

As heard by us

A quiet space story where routine gives way to something impossible.

The Fugue is a slow, close voiced space story about a peace officer on the first manned trip to Callisto, where a crew of 24 scientists and engineers has to keep going on the long journey.

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Why you'd press play

For the long trip to Callisto, where Jupiter never seems to move.

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