And miles to go before I sleep

A seasoned space pilot has spent twenty years drifting among distant suns, his ship a silent, humming coffin on a trajectory back to the tiny Kansas town where he grew up. As the craft glides toward Earth, he knows exactly how many minutes he has left—an alien illness has marked his final heartbeat. The promise he made to his aging parents—to return home—loomed over him like a beacon, even as the cold reality of his condition closes in.

Inside the vessel, he clutches a trembling letter from his mother, rereads the familiar verses of Frost, and wrestles with the weight of his last duty. With only moments before his body gives out, he prepares a final, unsettling arrangement that might let his promise be kept in a way he never imagined. The tension between love, obligation, and the inexorable pull of mortality drives every heartbeat of this haunting, introspective journey.