October Flasher - All You Need is Love by Steve

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
“It’s moving at the speed of light!”
Okay, so maybe I should have thought of something more poetic for such an historic moment, but gravitas has never been my strong point.
I did attempt a degree of solemnity, leaning against the bulkhead with my eyes resting, unfocused, on the vidiot, in a pose I imagined resembled Noah, highlighted by lightning at the prow of the Ark as the storm raged round him. Not that there was any storm or much of anything to see. Black mostly filled the screen, with the odd, ghostly flicker of electrical discharge on the rapidly disappearing horizon.
“The speed of light!” I said again, for dramatic effect. Ray looked interested.
Ray has an advantage when it comes to looking interested. His long, sad face hints at great depth of spirit. His aquiline nose speaks of intelligence and dignity. His delicate, almost feminine mouth tells of sensitivity and understanding. His soulful, mismatched brown and black eyes reveal infinite tenderness and compassion.
“Great,” he nodded, “now can we get back to Endport? There’s some hot mushy there I’d like to get moving at lightspeed, if you know what I mean.” Looks can be deceptive.
I bit my lip.
“What’s the matter with you?” I said, “Don’t you understand how momentous this discovery is? I sometimes wonder why you came along.”
“You said it would help score chicks, that’s why. What else is there?”
Ray has one overwhelming interest in life. Some see it as an outrage, a few as a redeeming feature. He has an unswerving dedication to the act of procreation no matter what the prevailing circumstances. Considering how far the human race has come, it shows steely determination in the face of increasingly negative public opinion. Still he worships at the shrine of the sleazy bar and the easy lay. He’s charmed his way from Andromeda to Abell 1835 IR1916, and scattered his seed freely along the way. Ray would happily populate the universe until it burst.
It was beginning to look like he had a point, though. The universe wasn’t going to burst any time soon. Still, something inside rebelled at his tunnel vision, especially when we’d reached such a pinnacle. The ultimate dream of every explorer since the idea of seeing what lay over the next hill first popped into some grunting hominid’s mind.
“Could you tear your mind away from the pleasures of the flesh for just a minute? Doesn’t it mean anything to you that we’re seeing something that nobody, not one person in the history of the universe, has ever seen before?”
“I don’t see nothing.”
“Yeah, well not at the moment, but that’s because it’s receding at the speed of light like I said.”
Ray twitched his nose like he smelt something odd, “Then lets go after it sharpish so we can get back to booty town.”
I stared at him. He looked back with his soulful, sensitive face.
“Didn’t you ever do relativity two?” I asked, “Or are you just deaf? I told you, it’s going at the speed of light.”
He sighed heavily and pushed himself back on the lounger. Heavy feet clunked on the instrument panel. “Yeah, well we can do that too, so let’s haul ass my friend. Time’s a-wasting.”
I spun on my heel and resisted the urge to smack my head against the wall a couple of times. “Let me spell it out once more,” I said, breathing deep, “it’s running away from us at the speed of light. Our top speed is the speed of light. Ergo we can never catch up.”
His forehead creased briefly, and he laughed. “You’re pulling my chain, ain’t ya, Bezo? Just bang in the clutch, shift her down into hyperdrive and come out the other side. What’s new there? It ain’t rocket science.”
I could feel my face redden with frustration. I paced to the back of the cabin, then returned. I began to speak, then stopped as he peered at me innocently. I did another lap before finally beginning again. I spoke slowly and clearly to make sure something would stick in that virtual bordello he called a brain.
“This is no ordinary circumstance. We can’t just go into hyperdrive and jump somewhere past it. There is no somewhere past it.”
The frown made another momentary appearance, then he shrugged, “It’s not the end of the universe. Come on, we can get back in time for happy hour.”
I couldn’t control myself any longer. I screamed, “But that’s exactly what it is! It is the end of the universe you fool! We’re here at the very edge. The first people ever to come near it. The first people to see how it’s behaving, and all you can think about are your carnal urges.
He relaxed back into the lounger and closed his eyes, “Whaddya gonna do?” he said.
I took several hurried breaths, and held tight to the guard rail as I counted to fifty. My eyeballs felt as though their individual veins had begun to pop one by one. Slowly, my heart slowed its thunder, and I prepared to reason once more with my cosmic idiot friend.
“Look, Ray, this is important. If the edge of the universe is expanding away at the speed of light, no light can escape, and it will be impossible ever to see what’s outside. Given that, it seems reasonable to assume that it isn’t the edge of the universe that’s travelling at the speed of light, but the speed of light is defined by the speed the edge of the universe is moving. This is sensational! Don’t you see? We’ve discovered something enormous.”
He leaned on one elbow and fixed me with his doleful stare, “Yeah? Great. Now let me see if I got this right. Bear with me a moment. This edge is moving out faster than we can catch up. Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“The universe will keep on getting bigger and no matter what we do, we’ll never keep up, right?”
“Right.”
A tiny smile crossed his lean features. He pushed himself up out of the lounger, stretched his arms above his head, then cracked his fingers.
“So there’ll always be more room. And where there’s more room, there’s more girls.”
“Well . . .”
“Well? What are we waiting for. We got work to do. Let’s partay!”