LJ Idol Season 9, Week 20 - Shibusa
This is an intersection with agirlnamedluna, see her part of the story here. (She suggests you read mine first - so do I, honestly.)
It’s the little things, you see. The colors of the leaves in fall as they turn to brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds. The smell of a freshly brewed cup of coffee. The feel of a warm summer rain on your face as the lightning spreads its’ light show across the sky and the thunder rolls. The warmth of the person you love in the bed next to you at night, and waking up to their face in the morning. A simple perfect flower in a plain glass vase. The unbridled laughter of a child.
These are the joys that make life worth living.
These are the things that I have been denied for the last ten years.
No interactions with other people. No coffee. No flora, nor fauna. Just me.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, of course. I wasn’t the only one on the team. There were six of us altogether, but things happen. An accident on the ship left John too messed up to repair, so it was only right to let him go. Sherry had an attack of the “space sillies” that went too far. That one took out her and Tonya; Tonya trying to save Sherry as only she would.
So we continued on with just three of us - Greg, Lisa, and I.
Greg was working aft of the jets, fixing a throttle nozzle when the avoidance system burst on. I don’t know what he was thinking, going out there to work without shutting all systems down first. I just know that he was so fried, we couldn’t even remove his suit because it started taking his skin with it. Mercifully, he didn’t last long.
And then we were two.
Lisa tried to make the best of it, despite having lost her partner John early on. I missed Tonya, but Lisa was good company and it got cold at night. It was just the two of us, after all, and no way to turn around. We figured we could at least make landfall and report back what we found, for those that followed.
After a while, we were both even happy.
When the tests confirmed that she was pregnant, we re-hydrated a glass of wine each, and celebrated. It didn’t matter that we were both supposed to be permanently sterilized for the mission. What mattered was that there was something to give us joy again. There was no way to know that the pregnancy was ectopic. No way to stop the bleeding when it burst the fallopian walls. The robo-doc wasn’t prepared for obstetric emergencies… we were all supposed to be sterile, right? All I could do was control her pain, hold her hand, and watch the life drain out of her face.
So now it’s just me.
I try to keep my mind alert and my body active. I tell myself that there are millions of people back home looking for a place to move to, a place with elbow room. I remind myself that if I don’t find a habitable planet, population pressure will destroy humankind as thoroughly as any “killer asteroid” would. Besides, I’ve got all the elbow room in the galaxy.
But I’d give it all up for a cup of coffee, a walk through crunching autumn leaves or a summer rain, the smell of a flower, or the touch - even the sound - of another human being.
It’s the little things, you see. The colors of the leaves in fall as they turn to brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds. The smell of a freshly brewed cup of coffee. The feel of a warm summer rain on your face as the lightning spreads its’ light show across the sky and the thunder rolls. The warmth of the person you love in the bed next to you at night, and waking up to their face in the morning. A simple perfect flower in a plain glass vase. The unbridled laughter of a child.
These are the joys that make life worth living.
These are the things that I have been denied for the last ten years.
No interactions with other people. No coffee. No flora, nor fauna. Just me.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, of course. I wasn’t the only one on the team. There were six of us altogether, but things happen. An accident on the ship left John too messed up to repair, so it was only right to let him go. Sherry had an attack of the “space sillies” that went too far. That one took out her and Tonya; Tonya trying to save Sherry as only she would.
So we continued on with just three of us - Greg, Lisa, and I.
Greg was working aft of the jets, fixing a throttle nozzle when the avoidance system burst on. I don’t know what he was thinking, going out there to work without shutting all systems down first. I just know that he was so fried, we couldn’t even remove his suit because it started taking his skin with it. Mercifully, he didn’t last long.
And then we were two.
Lisa tried to make the best of it, despite having lost her partner John early on. I missed Tonya, but Lisa was good company and it got cold at night. It was just the two of us, after all, and no way to turn around. We figured we could at least make landfall and report back what we found, for those that followed.
After a while, we were both even happy.
When the tests confirmed that she was pregnant, we re-hydrated a glass of wine each, and celebrated. It didn’t matter that we were both supposed to be permanently sterilized for the mission. What mattered was that there was something to give us joy again. There was no way to know that the pregnancy was ectopic. No way to stop the bleeding when it burst the fallopian walls. The robo-doc wasn’t prepared for obstetric emergencies… we were all supposed to be sterile, right? All I could do was control her pain, hold her hand, and watch the life drain out of her face.
So now it’s just me.
I try to keep my mind alert and my body active. I tell myself that there are millions of people back home looking for a place to move to, a place with elbow room. I remind myself that if I don’t find a habitable planet, population pressure will destroy humankind as thoroughly as any “killer asteroid” would. Besides, I’ve got all the elbow room in the galaxy.
But I’d give it all up for a cup of coffee, a walk through crunching autumn leaves or a summer rain, the smell of a flower, or the touch - even the sound - of another human being.