Who would have guessed that when left to our own devices we would lose our minds. I can name a few dozen right off the top of my head.
The lights are flickering off and on and off and on and off again. They’ve been like this for years. A person gets used to stop motion movement. This is a lesson that you learn quickly in this kind of environment. There are others that come with more time and often pain.
I left the laboratory to visit the window today. Your fingerprints are still there. I stared out for a long while into the nothing. God damn it. What the fuck did you see out there? To me there is only frozen metal spinning around what is left of this miserable place where I am stuck without you.
How long has it been here since I’ve been lost inside of myself? We thought that things would be better in space but there aren’t even clocks now and there is no sun and the stars are too far away. I sit inside of my lab all day tending to the tube. It is a beautiful thing when you really think about it. All of the life inside of that space, even smaller than the space that I inhabit alone now and it is all living much more peacefully than me. It will continue to live without anyone doing anything to it for the rest of time. In this way watching the tube calms me, but it also makes me jealous. All of those microbes have company. Millions of friends to share their lives with and because they mate individually there are no lost lovers for them. God bless the micro-organisms. Each and every one.
Every day I try to rebuild our lives. I try to rebuild the life of our world. Organizing the memories that I have left in this way is comforting.
I get stuck often on memories that I can rebuild constantly as time washes what I build away again.
You. It is always you or you are always there. You. Sometimes I say this word to myself and I wonder if I am addressing you or God or this spaceship or me or nobody in particular. It is the only word that I can remember saying in years. Has it been years?
I remember when we decided to take this opportunity. We were sitting in your room. Sad music was playing. We’d just made love. We were drunk. I told you that the military had made me an offer. Every time I think of your face at that moment it makes me wince to think that I could have ignore the horror on your face. I knew you would do it. I should have never asked you. The war made an awful person out of me and I didn’t want to be on the planet anymore. The lights were low. You smoked a cigarette furiously not saying a word until I grabbed your arm and told you the same thing I always say in situations like these.
“Its all going to be ok. I promise.” Hubris. Every word of it. I should have seen it coming like you did but I wouldn’t let myself see it at the time. I promise you that this morning or whatever it was while I was staring out the window I saw it. Its almost like you knew this is where we would be. Stranded and alone, cold and losing our minds inside of an unnatural and repulsive place. I can’t remember whether it was romance or apathy that made me think this would ever be a good idea. I am so sorry for whatever it was.
You wanted to know what the offer was. I told you that I didn’t know the details. You gave me the look that lets me know I’m being “typical.” Then I told you that we could go to space so that we could be away from everything. We could populate a new planet. We had a golden ticket to start it all over and do it right. Then you asked me to leave. So I did. I left and I got a bottle of whiskey and I spent the whole night drinking and swearing at you out loud. How could you want to stay there amongst those insane creatures. I saw this as a ticket out of Hell. You knew the truth. Space is Hell. I just wouldn’t let myself see it.
I think now that it really should have seemed more ridiculous to me, this whole idea. To consider sending a sparsely manned rocket into space with one giant tube of organic life to act as a seed inside of a metal shell. Maybe it would make sense to send the tube with all of its goop, but did we really have to come? We were selected as prime mating material with good biological and genetic resources to draw upon but now look what we’ve become. You’re frozen in space outside of the window of the laboratory and I walk up and down these halls every day doing my best to not lose my mind while nursing every memory that my mind has left to fondle. A real good fit for the job.
There are so many ifs. If we had stayed. If the other people on this ship hadn’t gone mad. If the engines had held out a little longer. If our love was a little stronger. If I had paid more attention to you when you were obviously wanting it. If we’d never fucked up our planet in the first place. Too many ifs.
The lights flicker off then on then off again and they stay like that for a long while so I just sit here wincing away the impact of all of these memories and folding and unfolding the letter that you left me here at the desk which I have never gathered the strength to read.
The Paper Trail 