Let's count the days till the rocketship takes off again. NINE involves picking at the black bones that lie in me like raisins in a plump loaf. SIX is for John Norman, the local boy made good. FOUR signifies less than a hundred more Earth-hours here. The light drills through the corrugated tin roofs and the wooden beams of the ceiling, through the earthen walls of the underground latrine and through the molten metal on which the planet's surface floats.
Gravity pulls the light into the center of the planet, where it bends in ever-shrinking spirals.
Just looks black from up here. I think they're trying to sell me to a green-grocer as fresh produce. Wallet and checkbook gone. Myself a moron. If only in the days of branded and stonings.