Perfection
Louis wiped his brow. He hated this frakking planet. This frakking planet and anyone who thought it would be a frakking good idea to live the primitive lifestyle. Louis stuck his self-crafted hoe into the ground, like he’d been doing all day, every single day.
Here they were, intelligent beings deprived of the opportunity to think. Stuck in the mindless rut of plow, plant, plow, plant, every single day, all hours of the day. All his years training, jumping battlestars- for this.
Mathematics was useless, calculus some distant memory; computers no longer existed; biology, chemistry, physics, all foreign words in a land where life just is. It was unsatisfying, unfulfilling, and unnerving to feel that his, anyone’s only purpose left in life was to plow, plant, plow, plant. Not think, just do.
“Frak this,” said Louis, driving his hoe into the ground and walking off.
Louis wandered off to a lonely tree, sat down and sighed. He closed his eyes, sighed, and let his mind wander towards the only thing he still had any thoughts on.
“Louis.”
Louis opened his eyes with a jolt. “Felix.” There stood Felix Gaeta, there in front of him, with two legs and a smile. Louis wondered if he had willed him here with the thoughts in his head. He sat down next to Louis and leaned against the tree.
“How are you baby?”
Louis sighed. “I wish I could say I was good. But. This place, this life, it’s just...”
Felix laughed and smiled. “Not the perfect world everyone believed it to be, is it?”
“It all looks so beautiful from afar. But living here... People are dying of diseases we’ve long thought extinct; scurvy, and rickets, and tuberculousis, and things that wouldn’t even be deadly if the fleet hadn’t sent our medicine hurdling into the sun. We don’t even have a doctor here. Cottle’s the only one left and he’s on another continent. Split us all up, sure that was such a great idea. We’ve been family for the five years and then once we find a home, they tear us apart.”
“Mm,” Felix nodded. “And you wonder why no one thinks anymore.”
“I-“ Felix was right. Gods, what had they done to themselves? “I don’t want to be a slave to the soil anymore Felix. I want to think again.”
Felix simply smiled. He leaned over and kissed Louis lightly on the lips, then disappeared into thin air.
Louis closed his eyes again, and leaned his head back against the tree. “But I guess that’s all just a dream, isn’t it?”
A few days later, Louis was lying on the ground, on a sheet of leaves he used to keep from getting dirt on himself at night. He couldn’t sleep. Louis couldn’t remember the last time he slept. He would’ve thought the endless backbreaking work would have exhausted him to the point of drowsiness, but having only the hard, cold ground to lie on kept him from falling into the deep sleep he desperately needed.
Louis gave up, and decided to stare at the stars. He hated the stars. He cursed them every night. They were nothing but a constant reminder of the life he once had, and the life he’d never see again.
Suddenly, a face appeared, blocking his view of the stars.
“Don’t look at them, baby, you know it only leaves you longing.”
“Felix. I can’t decide if it’s the lack of sleep or the desire for the past that has me seeing ghosts.”
“You’re not seeing ghosts, you’re seeing angels. Touch me Louis, I’m really here.” Louis didn’t. He couldn’t, knowing Felix wasn’t here to stay.
“I thought up something today. Can you believe that? A real thought.” Louis giggled, though he didn’t know what he was laughing for.
Felix settled himself down on top of Louis, like they had laid together in the racks so long ago. He smiled. “What was it?”
“I’ve thought of a name for this place, where I’m living now. I’ve decided to call it Chi-Na. It means house of vegetables in the ancient Canceran dialect. Isn't that appropriate?” Louis traced the characters of the name on Felix’s chest.
“It is. I’m glad you thought today.”
Louis’ face fell. “Well, even if just for a day at least. Maybe I’ll think up names for everything while I work. Even if there’s no point to it; nobody has any pencil and paper left to write anything down.”
Felix didn’t say anything. He simply looked at Louis with something in his eyes that Louis hadn’t seen in a long time, at least not in himself. Happiness, hope, love, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember what those emotions felt like.
Louis turned his head away. He couldn’t look at those eyes anymore. “Is this really what perfection is like?”
Felix ran a hand through Louis' hair. “No.”
Louis turned his head back to look at him again. “No?”
“Perfection isn’t something you can find on a planet Louis. Life- life, can never be perfect.”
“Does perfection even exist?” Louis asked.
Felix smiled. “Yes. It does.”
“Just not here,” Louis sighed. He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. “We’d been chasing it all those years...did we just decide to slap the word perfection on the first thing that looked good enough?”
There was no response. Louis opened his eyes again. Felix was gone.
Louis packed up his bag with what little he had, stuffing his clothes in violently. He was leaving this place. He didn’t know what he’d find. More of the same probably. Scenic landscapes, exotic wildlife, but life unfelt.
He tried to think, mathematical puzzles, religious conundrums, historical reflections, but there were no ideas left to be thought. There was no place for them here, on a planet where life just is. A bird flew by. A snake slithered through the trees. The animals were lucky. They didn’t have the capacity to think. They just were.
He walked and walked, his brain no longer caring where his feet took him. Anywhere but here, is where he wanted them to go. But here was everywhere.
Another set of footsteps joined him along the journey, a hand taking his.
“Seeing anything you like?”
“Just more of the same. It looks different, but it’s just my eyes fooling me. Beyond this..visible realm, it’s all the same.”
“You’re beginning to see this planet for what it really is.”
Louis stopped walking. He looked Felix in eye. “Is this really what humanity is destined for?”
Felix smiled again. “They’ll learn to think again, Louis. It will take them a while, but they will.”
“I hope they appreciate it. Even if they’re killing each other, and building cylons, and forcing themselves off this planet, I hope they realize how much better life is when you can think.”
“So do I, Louis. So do I.”
Louis felt something then. He wasn’t sure what to call it. Desperation maybe. “What am I going to do in the meantime Felix?”
Felix laughed. “Experience perfection Louis. Home. That’s where perfection exists. Come home. It’s been there all along.”
With that, Felix disappeared. Louis reached into his bag, shuffled through his clothes, and found what had been hiding in the bottom. His gun, the one he thought best to save, though he couldn’t remember why. Now he knew.
Something moved from behind a mix of brush and trees. It was large, cat like, orange with dark stripes. He had seen it before, not the animal itself, but the image. The thoughts came rushing back into his brain, all the thoughts that had been lost to this place. Perfection. Home. It had been there all along, waiting, just not in the place they had all thought to look.
Louis put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.