Personal
The Thing About Space Is
Julie moved her hands as if gripping a dinner plate, and a swirling miasma of bright lines and shapes mimicked her movements. She stared into the colourful chaos with a face full of determination, but the pattern, if there was one, eluded her.
“Doesn’t make sense” she mumbled to herself. She moved her hands, adjusting the miasma, for a minute more before waving the display off with a gesture any observer would have recognized as extreme frustration.
She unbuckled the straps that held her to the chair and kicked her desk, propelling herself out of the chair, out of the room, and down the corridor. She clipped three things between her chair and corridor’s end, two with her toes and one with her shoulder.
She considered her injuries. “That’s progress” she said aloud. “Another six weeks and I’ll…” she trailed off. “Fuck.” she finished quietly.
“Fuck fuck fuck.” She floated into the hygiene room, peeled off her paper space jammies, and tucked herself into the shower bag. She ran the zipper up, sealed the collar around her neck, and pushed a button on the panel inside the bag. It filled with air, confirmed a solid seal with a green light, and water started spraying into the bag.
She scrubbed and cleaned as best she could in the small bag while water jetted against her skin and was sucked out a drain near her feet. “Fucking space showers,” she said. “Give me gravity any day.”
She stopped scrubbing, staring at nothing, her eyes wide. “The gravity…” Sensors logged her heart rate increase for no one to read later.
An alarm chided her for trying to open the bag before the drying cycle was complete. “Come on come on!” she shouted. “Stupid fucking space bag! Fuck!” Warm air flowed through the bag, moisture was pulled out of the drain, until finally another light turned green and she yanked the collar off and unzipped the bag. She flew down the hallway, space jammies forgotten, and slammed into some bit of space cargo strapped to a wall. Two days from now she’ll wonder how she got that bruise.
She thumped into her chair and strapped in so she didn’t float off with excitement. She pulled up the miasma display, raised it above her screen, and pulled out a keyboard tray. She stared at the model of her core for a moment before her fingers started moving across the keyboard.
Several hours later she stopped typing, saved her code to the servers and another copy to a portable drive, and looked around the small room in wonder.
She called Adrian, who answered immediately. “Still nothing,” he said. “Are you naked?”
“Adrian, shut up. I’ve figured it out. It’s the gravity.”
“What? Figured what out? The core?” He shouted at the screen. “You solved the core?”
“It’s the gravity!”
“Don’t even try,” he waved off her explanation. “Just tell me it works.”
“I don’t know, yes, no, of course it will work. I haven’t tried it yet. I need to sleep and review the code before I fire it up, but it will work.”
Adrian stared at her for a long moment.
“Being stuck in space wasn’t so bad, then.”
“Fuck you” Julie smiled. “Get me out of here.”
--NFG
[ Jun 2 2025 ]
| Navigation | Previous Post |
|---|
Name:
Email:
Website: