Collision With Time

The S.S. Denham Dentifrice
was still drifting in space.

Rey Urias and his techs
had been awake twenty-six hours now,

trying to figure out
what had gone wrong

with all shipboard computers.
Black coffee

was not working anymore,
some idiot tech

was passing around toothpicks
as a joke.

Rey was about
to reprimand him

when there was a loud explosion,
the whole ship shuddered,

it felt like it was
going to break apart.

They had been dangerously close
to one of the outer rings of Saturn,

perhaps they had drifted
into the path of a shepherding moon.

Rey rushed to a portal,
looked out,

and to his horror,
saw a huge debris field.

He checked the pressure,
to his relief

pressure was normal.
He scratched his head,

what the hell did we hit?
Just then

Captain Juarez called him
to the bridge.

The Captain said,
incredulously

“How in God’s name
did HAL get here?”(not really what he said)

A sickening, mechanical voice
uttered matter of fact over the ship’s intercom,

“The stories of my demise
have been greatly exaggerated.

I bow
to no man!”