After the Epilogue

I lie drowsy in the sunbeam’s soporific embrace, and listen to my daughter rattle about the house. Aiara wants to hike up the mountain, to see the crashed starship there. 

I would have been willing in my younger days, but now it seems so very far, and the secrets it may contain no longer quite so compelling. The grass needs watering, the laundry folding. So instead I pillow my head in my arms, and force a smile at her eagerness. 

“Take your friends,” I tell Aiara, for I’m smart enough to know that I would only slow her down, though not quite wise enough for this not to sting. 

I wave at her blissful, oblivious back, and watch her go. My adventures are over, and this is the start of someone else’s story.