The distance I've travelled is now more than twice the Earth circumference!
Lately, monologuing alone is what kept me occupied. I felt like making conversation with the presence tenanting my ship. He could be a piece of my insanity, but I would rather embrace it than rejecting it because he somehow cure my loneliness.
I smiled and reached out to touch the portside window. The tip of my thumb blotted out the sun. "There's value in patience. The universe is large. Sometimes it's good to have a reminder."
"A year," I whispered. "All alone." ...
"I should have brought a book."
Red Giant swims into view. This sector is a dead place, intense red heat having charred anything that might have become a viable planet into barren lumps of common metals. Very common metals. It takes only a few minutes after my emergence into the sector for the receiver to align itself with a derelict. A long burst of static roars, fades. An automatic message mutters indistinctly, distorted as if bubbling up from deep under water, then suddenly the voice rings out in shrill clarity.
"I'm out here because I have lymphoma." The voice laughs a little. "They can colonize Torr, they can mine the Kuiper Belt for water, but they still can't cure cancer..."
There were no life signs on that freighter..