{ Sol Date : 291008311746.9.24-00 }
I’ve got this little Sol-Luna hologram sitting on the dashboard of my ship’s bridge to tell me when to be awake at the controls, and when to slide into my bunk to sleep. In deep space, time is way past being relative: it slips into the realm of irrelevant for a little mortal like me, a flesh-and-blood creature that should never have left the rock that spawned them.
There I go with my flippant sense of humour again.
A solitary journey through space will do that to a person, you know.
This is a small ship, a ship built for one person, with a virtual reality headset to alleviate cabin fever when you feel it coming on, and a miniature hydroponic garden to viscerally connect you to Home; my pets and conversation partners are the insects that keep my garden pollinated. You’d be surprised at how well a handful of honeybees can listen. It would have been impossible to bring anything larger on-board without drastically increasing the resources initially supplied to the ship, along with its size.
That, and a non-human animal can’t consent to a life in space.
I suppose the plants and insects I brought with me couldn’t either, but our Terran Charter of Rights is still a work in progress on that front.
Time.
It’s a strange resource out here, measured out artificially, just so, with my Sol-Luna hologram, with tickmarks in a file on my datapad. I don’t actually need to check off each day as it happens; there is an automatic log file running in the background to record all the temporal data a nerd like me could ever possibly want, and then some. No, I just do it to feel a sense of normalcy—to imitate the way I used to cross days off my digital calendar leading up to birthdays, exam days, holidays. It gives me a menial task to look forward to each artificial waking cycle, instead of just a mass of data to look at.
Though if you were to ask me to count all the tickmarks I’ve made on the page, I would roll my eyes at you and pull up the mass of data instead. I know my count isn’t perfect.
I have off-days where I forget, or can’t bring myself to think about time, much less get out of my bunk.
I’m only human.
Sometimes I can’t bring myself to think about that, either.
Today, on this particular waking cycle, I find myself sitting in my captain’s chair, taking readings so that I can adjust my heading, the way I do whenever I get the sense that something is, for lack of a better term, off.
Just to be clear: I’m not actually a captain, but given that I am the only crew member aboard the ship, there is no one around to oppose my self-appointment. No one with a vote that might actually hold up in Terran courts, that is… I’d like to think my honeybees would support me, given the chance. We have done a stellar job at keeping a miniature pear tree alive and fruiting despite all the odds out here. You ask me, that’s worth a little vote of confidence.
I don’t think I could get away with calling myself a pilot, an astronaut, a botanist, or a physicist either, though I can wear all four caps to some degree, in a pinch. Mainly because I have to. A politically-correct Terran would be likely to call me a ‘pilgrim’. Someone uncouth would jump straight into branding me as being ‘mentally unstable’. I suppose I wouldn’t be able to fault either for accuracy.
In clinical terms, what I and a bunch of other Terrans have is referred to as Zhur’s Syndrome, a so-called affliction named after the clinician who discovered it some 50-odd years ago. That’s its name in print. On the streets, and among the stars, we’re told we have Phantom Hearts. It’s not literal. Our real hearts are perfectly material little organs that maintain blood circulation in our bodies. In the same way that a person might continue to feel phantom sensations even after a limb has been completely amputated, someone with Zhur’s Syndrome feels a constant, restless pull toward a missing part of themselves. These are people that are incapable of fully inhabiting the present, that constantly have their head in the clouds, and that deal with a laundry list of mental disorders. In my case, like in many others’, depression is a fun little side effect that I deal with regularly, even all the way out here.
Especially all the way out here, I should say.
If a Zhurrite is lucky, they just need to wander around the continent a bit until they feel a deep sense of connection and relief. If they’re fortunate, they take a shuttle to Luna, a ship to Mars, or suit up for an expedition to the outer or inner reaches of the Sol system in order to finally feel a sense of peace or a renewed sense of purpose. For some people, though, even the outermost reaches of the system we call home isn’t enough.
As I said, I’m in deep space.
Have been for a long time.
I’ve heard the syndrome explained in all sorts of ways, by all sorts of doctors, because my case is one of the few on the complicated end of the spectrum. My personal favourite, and what makes the most sense to me, is the explanation that makes use of quantum entanglement—which I won’t get into here because chances are you’ve already read a website, watched a documentary, or seen it on one of those shitty morning talk shows that turn people like me into tragic stories.
Which is awkward, because I don’t feel like my life or my situation is all that tragic.
Being in motion makes me feel better than when I was living, relatively inert, on Terra. Some seasons sat more easily on my shoulders than others — probably had something to do with Terran orbit constantly bringing me slightly closer and then looping just out of reach from wherever it is I’m supposed to be.
You know the ancient sayings ‘let your heart lead the way’ and ‘use your inner compass’?
That’s exactly what I’m doing.
Trying my best, anyway.
Well, I’d better go pick some pea shoots from the garden for my dinner.
The Captain — out.
{ Ship’s Log : End Recording }
.
September 01, 2021.
The 63rd episode of The Side B Anthology podcast, which includes a lengthy afterword.
An original short story by Janique EA Bruneau (Jea).
This standalone, science fiction short story is part of the jumble that has been stowed haphazardly in The Glove Compartment sub-anthology, as it doesn’t yet fit with another narrative.
If you feel so inclined, I would gladly welcome a comment below, or a tip.