Do my children insist on trying to communicate with me at the pitch of a whiney tea kettle. A stream of unending vowels and consonants imitating the squealed peel of an agitated dolphin. To my hearing lossed ears it’s just a pointless whistle that contains no information at all. Like a fire alarm in a high C monotone in which I am requested to decipher both the meaning and an action plan remedy. Followed, obviously by tears, flailing and shouting from the other sibling in response. And it happens constantly no matter how many times I tell them that I don’t speak tea kettle, dolphin, or whistle languages fluently. The Joy’s of parenthood I suppose. Blessed.
Tag: humour
How do my children have this inexhaustible…
Supply of energy, all day every day? I’ve gone so far as to supply them with multiple outdoor play dates this whole week and it makes nary a dent in the ear piercing shriek of delight levels of play that they engage in. Seems like wailing at the top of their lungs in our small cozy home is the order for the day, each and every time. It can be infuriating! Adorable at first and then grating on those self same nerves. The constant refrain of “bring it down a notch or two!”, or “Separate if you can’t handle sitting together”, are met with blank stares and renewed vigor on the auditory front. I swear their vocal cords should waiver and shred apart at these levels of noise, but they only get stronger, louder and more sustained. It’s a whole thing. Feel our pain, and know it isn’t just your house, or your kids that are driving you a little mad some days. If I thought strapping them into a treadmill for a few hours a day would drain some of the fight out of them, rest assured I’d have them harnessed in immediately. But I fear it would just help them to build their stamina so that they could be overly dramatic for much longer. Ah kids. The apple of my eye. I love my kids, I love my kids…
“I’m absolutely amazed that you’ve managed to get away with that…
For so long, I mean, it’s kind of disgusting… the smut that you write.” Barks the stout middle aged man whilst walking around in the garden of the slovenly seated man. He is sat slumped in a deck chair, bent low over his dirty keyboard, the man looks up from his cracked screen and blinks rapidly in the glare of the hot overhead sun. Both to moisten his eyes after staring for a long period of time, and to give himself an excuse to cultivate a scathing rebuttal. “It isn’t smut, fuck you very much, it’s romance. And I do not apologize for my romantic bent having a thoroughly sexual vein running through it. If you pardon my phallic pun of sorts.” Quips the pudgy gentleman from his rustic looking deck chair. “Who the fuck asked you in the first place? As I recall, Benji, I pay you to look after my gardens not to interrupt me when my pages are finally starting to come together!” Leaning back now in his cruddy wicker deck chair, stretching until his spine pops loudly between his shoulder blades the pudgy writer smiles and waves lazily at a mosquito buzzing by his ear. The garden isn’t huge, but it’s quiet and secluded with massive rhododendrons and lilac bushes, surrounded by forsythia and Russian Olive trees. The garden smells divine on this late spring afternoon. A big proponent of hostas and day lilies and all manner of shrubs, the writer is slowly rising from his chair. “What do you care anyway Benji? I didn’t think you even read my stuff.” Standing a few steps away, half buried in the overgrowth of a gargantuan rhododendron Benji quips “I fucking well don’t, but I caught Gary reading one in the tub last night and I could hear his breath catch in his throat. He moans ever so softly to himself when he reads anything racy. So I picked up the book to peruse the chapter he was reading and it was all about throbbing this, and heaving that, with glistening chests and wetness and moisture. Oh god! It’s so hackey, it’s like every tainted soft core porno trope wrapped up in a bow. I couldn’t believe Gary was so turned on by it!” Benji is sweating profusely under the partial cover of the shrub, not only because it’s thirty some odd degrees in the cloudless heat. “Gary reads my stuff? I’m touched. People keep buying it, so I’ll continue to write it. Also, as a side note, my mother wants you to deadhead my roses again this year, she likes to see the bushes in full bloom from her bedroom window.” Both men turn away from the rhododendron to face across the yard to the next house over, where a tiny ancient woman sits smiling and waving from her modest porch overlooking the garden. “Damn straight Benji!, my little Julian wants me to be able to see those roses in bloom! From my bed!” Benji’s face contorts between a smirk and a grimace. “Oh of course my dearie, any thing for you – you shrivelled hag” he mutters under his breath. “Come at me you bitch!” Blurts the elderly woman while waving both arthritic middle fingers around in a figure eight pattern. “You leave my lovely boys alone, you know how much my Gary and Julian mean to me!”
“That is quite the bruise you’ve developed there…
Kelvin, perhaps you need to visit a med pod down in the sick bay?” Croons the orange EDU bot I’ve nick named Ed. I know, I know, not exactly the most original thing I could have come up with, but Cunty Mc Cuntface or Sir ShitTeeth just don’t slide off the tongue so gracefully. “Oh this?” I say pointing down to the purple and yellow cluster that rings my left elbow just below the bicep. “It’s just an artefact of the reattachment surgery. I set it to leave a noticeable scar so I would know that the accident had actually happened and I didn’t dream it up one night. I suppose part of leaving a scar meant leaving some issues in the blood vessels or capillaries or some shit. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. Doesn’t hurt though, so that’s nice.” We are currently in the massive and wide open commissary. The scrubbers keep this whole ship immaculately clean. Plus with no other people alive on board besides me and the Educational tutor bot Ed, it doesn’t gather up much dirt. A vast white walled room with massive round tables bolted to the floors with permanent stools surrounding them. Spartan and very utilitarian, designed to keep servicemen moving, so they don’t linger after eating. A place to rest your backside long enough to gorge on a meal, but not something you want to hang on to for hours on end for social calls. The outer most portion has a bank of floor to ceiling windows that look out to the stars, with a portion of the vessel splayed out below it in a rather grand vista. Dotted with blinking running lights, and radar dishes and a few other observation domes. Just at the very edge of visibility is a massive grey bulge. Nothing beyond that point can be seen from this vantage point. Part of my daily routine is coming in here to eat and chat with Ed as I float in front of the enormous air vent with the output set to maximum. Imagine floating on the edge of some bluffs as you are perpetually buffeted by gale force winds rushing in off of the coast. Makes me feel like I’m back on earth. Although it makes carrying on a meaningful conversation with Ed a challenge. It’s starting to feel like a residual habit from an earlier, and less successful coping mechanism. As an early attempt at escapism, bury my face in a windy vent sounds fairly stupid, but it was the best thing I could come up with that offered me even a sliver of comfort. Drinking was what got me a long, arduous crawl into the sick bay while carrying my severed arm in my teeth in the first place, so I cut way back on the booze. Seemed like a prudent thing to do. It was a total fluke that I discovered Ed in the science departments largest lab. Gaining access was, and still is a disquieting and upsetting task. My collection of ‘helping hands’ has grown over the years. As new needs and requirements made themselves known. For example, as I wore out my slippers from three years of walking all over the ship, and doing extensive maintenance tasks across all of the various departments. I had to gain access to the procurement depot and upgrade my footwear, harnesses, jumpsuit, the inner body sock, oh, oh and I even switched over to the new fangled Nanoparticles that removes the need for a colostomy bag, and catheter for urine collection. That was an amazing day, let me tell you. Removing the catheter for the last time was a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life. The technological upgrades that materialized in my wrist communicator and biometrics was nothing short of dazzling. Like it now has the ability to project a three dimensional holographic display. My eyes can adjust to near total darkness, and I just don’t feel cold or hot anymore. I feel like a god. It’s truly remarkable.
With the sound of drive wheels whirling, and the harsh patter of tank treads hitting the metal grating on the floor, I’m pulled out of my reverie by Ed moving to position himself directly below me, and closer to the exhaust port of the central commissary fan. Opening my eyes makes them water in the down draft, so I pull away from the stainless steel vent hood, and float back down to the floor. Once I make contact the magnetic locks contained in my jumpsuit keeps me firmly planted on the ground, but free to move about without too much lag. “Hey Ed, i have a strange question. One i wouldn’t really have ever thought much about.” Standing face to face with the EDU bot, or what I approximate as a face for Ed. A plate at chest height, that can extend upwards on a neck like column, full of lights, lenses, a speaker and various sensor arrays. “I’d expect no less from you Kelvin, the lack of questions that is.” Blurts out the bot. “Gee, thanks Ed. My question is… what the fuck is the name of this ship anyway?” I ask in as casual a manner as I can muster, seeing as how I’ve been employed, and deployed on this vessel for little more than three years now. “Well, Kelvin. We are on The Company research vessel The Lark Song. How does that make you feel?” Chirps the lump of orange tech on tank treads. It is rather disjointed how such a formerly stuffy grad student science tutor has started to look so drab and beaten up around the edges after two years of being my daily companion. I’ve put him through his paces helping me run maintenance jobs around the ship. “The Lark Song huh? That’s not anything like what I thought you’d say. Not even close. Ha.” I chuckle to myself. Thank god for the BOTKEY and the command codes that I discovered only months ago. Being able to trigger real time conversation in psychiatric mode has really brought me out of my shell. Though, I prefer being introverted on a busy ship, and not being extroverted with a machine because I have no other choice. See the difference there? It’s subtle, but meaningful. “Ed, I’ve been thinking. I have looked through every deck on this ship and I can not for the life of me figure out where, or what that massive blister is that you can see from the commissary windows at the very edge of visibility.” Pointing back through the brilliant white room to the black empty windows. “I would have to observe it for myself, and I could extrapolate approximate coordinates from the schematics I downloaded when I hard wired to the ship. Since I don’t have GPS, I will have to guess rather than give you a definitive answer.” Ed turns about on a zero radius, a space saving feature thanks to his tank treads. A neat feature we didn’t initially know was that he has a two tonne towing capacity. Would have come in very handy when stacking the bodies of the dead, but I digress. Taking the forty or so paces from the central vent out to the windows we stand motionless shoulder to orange coloured chest cube. “Kelvin, that particular portion of the ship is not listed under any directory I have seen or accessed. But I estimate it to be about twenty one hundred meters forward of us, and possibly eight to ten decks below. Near the waste water treatment sector, on top of the sanitation department faring.” Turning to look at each other Ed speaks before I have the chance. “Kelvin, not to be morbid but we might need to go aft to dig up an extra ‘helping hand’ to gain access.” His low tone is somber. Snapping my fingers I say “Beat me to it. Yeah, but who do we borrow from? Sanitation? Water works? Engineering?” I say with a shrug of my shoulders. “Might I suggest we use the commanding officer, and bypass any extraneous jury rigged surgery.” Beeps Ed in response. “Good call, nice to know that at least one of us is on the ball.” I chuckled, to which Ed whistles in rapid succession. “Well Ed, we don’t have any scheduled maintenance tasks for ninety six hours, so let’s bag some food, and go-go juice, and have ourselves an adventure!” Looking back to the boundless void beyond the windows I guffaw wistfully while I clap my hands once, loudly.
PART THREE of The Company : Chronicles of Kelvin.
Overview of March
Bit of a strange month as you all can imagine. I didn’t do anywhere near as much writing, but I turned to sculpting and painting for a spell. Needed to do something less mentally taxing, since a lot of my waking hours have been spent in one form or another worrying about the global pandemic COVID-19 / Coronavirus. But, I did do a few bits of writing once a story caught my eye, and I turned to a subject that I know well. Being socially isolated, feeling lonely, stir crazy and just being desperate to talk to someone. All things I had a fair bit of experience with in my last year of High School, then working a full calendar year prior to college, my initial Sheridan college experience, then later on, as a freelancer working from home. But I’m more introverted than ever, so it doesn’t bother me as much now that I’m into my forties. With age comes some sort of wisdom I suppose. Ha. Plus I felt as though that twenty one chapters to my interconnected series was enough, and i didn’t want to write anything too topical, so I had to sit, wait and ruminate on a few ideas I had jotted down in the last few weeks, and let those ideas percolate through my brain. I decided to use the same universe, but all new characters, a new ship, and I steered clear of the large scale war building up in the background, that I tried to cover in one or two extra stories, but ultimately gave up on. I’m not good with writing scenes of that scale. I prefer to have two or three characters who do most of the talking, maybe one peripheral character to add exposition, if i don’t feel as though I have set the plot up well enough. But yeah, character heavy, dialogue and only a little bit of action, even if it tends towards large sweeping events that kill lots of people. Broad strokes here people, I’m aiming for quick, decisive broad strokes. I also like the format of trying to stay between six hundred and three thousand words. Short fiction. Evocative, if missing a few pieces of finer detail around the edges. Keep the story moving, if that’s what it calls for. Though I do like to linger in the quiet spaces between major events. Hurry up and wait, right? Something huge is on the horizon, but you have to wade through the usual tedium of your every day life to get there. The stuff often behind the scenes in a major movie. Boring to watch, but interesting to explore in writing. Since most of us read in isolation, or to ourselves even in public. Anyway, to those who have read any of my stuff, thanks! To those who might find it in the coming months, thank you too! I wish you all the best during these awkward and trying times. Stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope to keep writing more until we make it on to the other side.
You know, I’ve been down into
The deepest depths of the ocean on a year long solo mission, I’ve been left stranded on a rocky out cropping of an island somewhere in the south Pacific for what I later learned was nearly three years, and now I work hauling minerals and ore for The Company out in deep space on an immense refinery freighter. Do you know what these three things all have in common? Isolation, misery and a total lack of any kind of quality amenities. Put those locations together with a vivid and increasing sense of impending doom and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster. You know it’s kind of funny how we always assumed that our salvation would come in the form of a generational colony starship that could shuttle humanity off deep into the cosmos. But, as a species, humans we aren’t very well equipped to deal with the dread and despair associated with the isolation that accompanies deep space exploration, and trans generational travel. It takes a certain type of psychopathy to be able to deal with those particular stressors found during extreme cases of isolation. I for one, am just the right kind of crazy to pursue those types of careers where these issues are present. I’m as close to a recluse as you can get. Like a full on level ninety nine introvert. Nothing makes me happier than to spend time alone working on all sorts of shit. I also have little concern over tight spaces, like those found in the void between a star ships double hulls. To perform such pleasures required of me during regular maintenance I get to play BDSM dress up in various harnesses and tight fitting gear over top of my jumpsuit and poke around in these labyrinthine crawl spaces that criss cross these massive vessels in a lattice work of dead ends, bolt holes and conduits full of cabling and pipes. Deep, dark and for the most part endured in entire radio silence. The captain of my last vessel said that when his ship runs out of coolant they will ask me for a blood transfusion so that my life blood could keep the transport running ice cold. My nick name is Zero K, the K is for Kelvin. People who don’t like me much call me absolute zero, but eh, fuck them. I enjoy hard labour away from crowds of people. I’m the guy who volunteers for shite details so I can work off peak hours, and all alone. Or at least with minimal supervision. I have one friend. An angry, short & hirsute fella who doesn’t know how to speak in anything other than a yell, or monotone. We usually sit in silence and drink until one of us slinks off to bed without saying good bye or goodnight. A lot of guttural grunts and groans pass between us as a kind of idiosyncratic language. He’s great. Likes the same beer, works similar shifts doing the same work as I do. We have matching burns and scars. We’d have made an excellent couple if either of us were gay. Well, you know we would have if he hadn’t of gotten killed during an ammonia leak from a pierced pipe. What do you know, done in by a random sharp edge on our industrial strength PPE. You see, technically we’re considered to be inside the ship, even if we are actually between the inner and outer hull plates where all the majestic inner workings of the ship are contained. That means we don’t qualify for the over the head fully encased respirators with individual environmental controls. We just get an over the mouth and nose mask with change out pads for dust, debris and moderate airborne contaminants. He stood no chance against that leak. It blew aerosolized ammonia right over his face at point blank range. Hell, at 8 PPM, that shit kills, let alone a full jet stream dumped over the back of your head. After that I filed down every hook, link and carabiner on my tattered, dusty red jumpsuit. No point in repeating the sins of my only friend. Crawling in there after him and having to drag his cold lifeless body through the darkest reaches of the ship was not something I ever wish to do again. As it would happen, I would never have to. As all of them, the whole crew that is, all seven hundred of them just up and died while I was doing maintenance on the main bus panel wiring underneath the bridge several months ago. A fucking dick of a job too. The sort of job that requires about sixteen hours of crawling, bending and twisting to contort my body through the minimum sized access ports that are located around a massive water bladder just to get to the appropriate junction, then only needs forty minutes of upkeep performed on it. Like, what a piece of shit. Then you guessed it, another sixteen hours to extricate myself. All told – with food breaks, sleep and an abominable amount of crawling, that job was fifty two hours on. I went in and everything was hunky dory, I come out to a ghost ship with nothing but the dead bodies of the crew laying around. Mysteriously, with no known reason that was readily apparent. And just like that, I find myself in isolation again. For what it’s worth, our course through the stars was predetermined, and we will come home after our five year mission is completed. I have enough resources for seven hundred people over a five year term, so I shall not starve, nor will I be dehydrated. I just have to remain sane, and do my scheduled tasks, and pray. In the sage words of the twentieth century philosopher Jean-Luc Picard “You can do everything right and still lose. This is not a personal failing, but a fact of life.” I read that quote every day at the start and end of each shift. I have it etched into the bulkhead over my bunk in my crew quarters. Really makes you think – huh.
The loud hum of the air vent is echoing deep in my ears as I float, eyes closed, with the gale force breeze blowing into my face. The ship as a whole gets very quiet these days, and the loudness of the moving air makes me forget the ominous lack of activity aboard. I can almost imagine the sound of passing cars, birds or the far off indistinct muffle of an overhead conversation. When you spend years alone you learn to developed methods of finding inner peace and forgetting the banal repetition of your average day. My current trick is to crank up the lights, close my eyes tightly, and bury my face in the central air vent in the commissary. It moves the most air, and offers me enough room to just float in place while my imagination runs wild. Auditory hallucinations abound. Sometimes I can even feel the sensation of my communicator buzzing or hear an alarm sound. As I while away my time, face buried in the vent, the ship continues to perform the vast majority of it’s automated tasks. I keep to my work schedule, and eat the same things on the same decks as before. I know all too well the dangers of getting trapped somewhere strange by myself. That is not something I wish to repeat. I made a tough decision that weekend, and I still have the scars and emotional baggage associated with my extrication. Crawling three kilometers through the bowels of the ship to reattach my left arm at the elbow in the med-bay medical pods is not something I will likely ever forget. The trail of blood was gone by the time I felt well enough to leave that pristine white pod. The ai infused scrubbers had removed all trace of my nightmare. I kept the scar so that I know it really happened and I didn’t just dream it up. I do that a lot these days. I leave notes and etchings and drawings so that I remember having been there, and not run around the whole ship thinking I’m not actually here alone. When I am. Entirely alone. Isolated. With another three years and eight months left to go. In the cool cacophonous hum of the air vent I almost feel normal.
******
And for something different in these odd times, you can listen to me narrate this short story.
“Some jobs are hard no matter where you work…
Like for instance take my job. I shovel stuff; rocks, dirt, faeces you name it. It’s hot and sweaty and not least of all it gets really dirty. Now I used to work landscaping back on earth, and I was a real model employee. Ten hours a day, inclement weather not withstanding, I’d be on a job site shoveling whatever my boss asked me too. Big heavy steel shovels, to tackle river rock, or top soil or straight up horse shit. I didn’t care. I’d turn up at seven am sharp, grab my trusty tool and fuck off down some massive hole and shovel. All gods be damned day long. I don’t love it, but it means I don’t have to talk to anyone, and I can listen to whatever I want while I work. I can move close to twenty five yards of regolith on an average day. Yeah, my hands and back don’t like me much. But it pays good. The boss man sends me cold drinks and a decent sandwich every couple of hours for my trouble. He doesn’t do that for everybody, just little old me.
So, as it turns out the union guys up on Torus station are taking on apprentices in the new year and my supervisor signed me up, unbeknownst to me. Well he captured some candid video of the big boss man singing my praises and attached it to my application. Turns out, boss man has a very powerful aunt in HR up on the Torus station. She snagged me out of a pile of fifteen thousand applicants. Now I’m headed to the moon, or some such to shovel shit for the sanitation union guys. I looked over the job offer, and holy shit does The Company pay out the nose for this sort of thing. Like a mother fucker. I’ll be swimming in cash or credits, slugs, dollars or ingots or whatever currency the station uses. I get private accommodations onboard the station too. Plus these brown coveralls, or a jumpsuit, or a body sock or some shit. I don’t know, I skimmed everything after the job description and the salary expectations. The packet that came in the mail also had a small leaflet regarding the orientation at the launch site, and that I’d have to undergo some psych evaluations, and run some safety simulations at an accredited testing location somewhere nearby here, in Arizona. I guess the big boss man likes me because I bitch while I work, and only to myself. With everything else it’s all yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir. Smiles, a can do attitude and firm hand shakes all around. Get them while they’re hot! But I digress. Not much can be found regarding the orientation, just the location and a notice not to eat six hours prior. That’s kind of weird. I have an induction day scheduled several months from now, so in between shifts I have to go meet my company organized psychiatrist for screening tests and interviews. That’s going to suck the sweat off a hot horse’s balls. Also will have to log some hours in a zero g simulator. That could be interesting. Oh, the info packet says that the entertainment hub has grown from three decks to ten or more. I wonder what it’ll be like to cut a rug in space, but I’m day dreaming. “Hey, Stevo! – what’s with the shit eating grin? Here’s a sandwich, egg and cheese with mock bacon. You think you’ll have this pool floor flattened out by end of day today?” Says the big boss man. He’s over six foot six, and gotta be near to two hundred seventy pounds. He’s a looker, if you’re of that persuasion. I’m not, but you do you. I like tits, I’d do a lot of stupid shit for access to titties. Mm mm delicious. But the big boss man is named Roger Taylor, and his aunt is the illustrious Catherine Taylor, senior HR director aboard Torus station. She’s got quite the reputation, even down here on earth. “Yeah, yeah – no problem sir. I can have this all squared away for you by about six pm today.” He smiles down at me from up on the mound of dirt next to the newly excavated pool I’m standing ten feet down in. I’m of modest height, and weight. I’m not ugly, but I ain’t no looker neither, you know what I mean. I like to make music, and can shovel dirt like I was built by god to do so. The ladies aren’t so hot on the state of my hands, you know? calluses and manual labour and shit. I keep those finger nails clean and trimmed though, eh! Wink wink, nudge nudge. Coming from a lower class family as I do, I love to moonlight as a DJ, makes me feel loved, adored even. A real rush compared to digging ditches and working in enormous holes. I hope my less than stellar academic prowess won’t keep me from all that cool hard cash The Company has on offer. I’ve got five months to impress Ms. Taylor, and keep the big boss man happy so I don’t wind up homeless before that life boat ships out to space on Christmas Eve. Jesus, I hope they don’t want to go over my school transcripts, I passed by the skin of my teeth.
Those psych evals are super fucking strange, with word games and shit. Nosey bastards too, poking around in my personal life. Awful interested in my thirteen siblings, and my geriatric parents. No I don’t see them anymore. No I don’t care to “divulge” the reasons surrounding my departure from my family home. No I don’t care to refute any rumors of any sort. Fuck them and fuck you too. Hell, I told some of my best jokes and the lady never even chuckled. That doesn’t exactly bode well. Bitch.
Zero g simulations are the fucking shit! Man that stuff is fucking fun as hell. Bounce and float, use your arms to crawl. Being weightless is a real trip. Not a big fan of all the other folks puking their guts out though. Could do without that. Ha. Losers!
So the psychiatrist keeps asking me about how I feel about isolation, and “the void” or some shit. Who cares! Space mother fuckers! Like do I care about asphyxiation, or hard vacuum, or wearing a catheter, being alone for days on end. Can I handle being far below decks working with human waste. Why do I like shoveling so much. I do realize that I’ll have a much larger shovel and equal weight to move when in the sanitation department? Why manual labour jobs with no responsibility? Why no advancement in the eight years I worked for the big boss man? What are my coping mechanisms? Do I have any friends, a girlfriend, family connections of any sort. How will I cope with a vastly increased salary. So many god damned questions, my head hurts. I gotta go lay down.
So it looks as though I’ve been delayed, again. Not going to ship out for Christmas. The psychiatrist thinks I need more therapy or some shit. Turns out my humor tripped some red flags or they want more info on my background. God, don’t let this take my money! Oh, all that glorious money. I could afford to send most of my younger brothers and sisters to vocational school with all that dough. Get them out of that shit hole. There’s a reason I like to dig and shovel all alone in one hundred twenty degree heat. Pure heaven compared to my childhood. Ain’t nobody ever stubbed out a cigar on my balls when I’m running a fucking shovel in a pit.
I finally have a provisional offer to go up to work on the Torus. I just have to go through with induction and get my ass to the Torus station. That’s a cinch.
Well – fuck me. That was a process. They underplayed that spectacularly. I demanded they unstrap me from the gurney and I walked my ass that three kilometers to my coffin sized berth. You want to know why? Because fuck them, that’s why. Should have seen the medical technicians faces. That’s a look I’ll not soon forget. Lock that look into the ole spank bank for future reference.
“Welcome aboard the Torus station ladies and gentlemen.” Announces some HR flunky dressed head to toe in a bright yellow jumpsuit. A real Curious George looking goofball. The banana man and his troupe of minions is redirecting a sea of cyan blue jump suits, this way and that. Separating the students, from the security trainees, and apprentices from support staff. Finally after two hours in the massive receiving chamber, I’m the last one left floating against a bare wall. With a last glance the man in yellow looks through the room and pauses when he sees me. “Hello, can I help you? Mr…?” His soft lilting voice rising with the question. “Steve… erm… Stephen James Ortiz, sir. A new sanitation apprentice.” I say it quietly. No need to yell, he’s only inches from me at this point. “Oh. Well they know better than to bring you people in through the main gates. The service entrance is back down the hall, six flights down the stairwell, and where ever the fuck it is you guys conduct your business. Tell Terry that I don’t appreciate any browns up here on my flight deck. Fucking asshole. Shit shovellers in my reception hall. What the fuck. Wait until I tell everybody about this bullshit. Why you still here dickhead, go down into the bowels of the station with all the other half brained dipshits. Go on, fuck off then!” He makes as if you punch me. I stare at him, unmoved. Turning on my heel, I head for the stairwell located back down the hall. After a few minutes of float walking, gliding i come to a deep pit in the floor. A long deep dark corridor covered in netting that looks to go deep into the depths of the station. Taped one floor down is a simple note that says. “Normies stay away. Only the floaters are welcome here!” Nice – a shit joke, just what i was hoping for. What the hell have i done. As i head deeper down the shaft, a soft green light can be seen. As i pull myself, hand over hand towards the sixth floor of the sub basement i pull into a small anteroom with a round pressure door, equipped with a red circular wheel to open the seal. As it glides open soundlessly a flash of light temporarily blinds me. A loud whistle sounds, and I’m hit with the smell of astringent cleaners and sanitizer spray. The inner room is crowded with hundreds of brown uniformed workers and Curious George himself. “Surprise!” They shriek in well organized unison. Floating towards me banana man says. “Welcome aboard Stevo! Sorry for the harsh hazing, we play a trick on all newbies, we use you as a prop to maintain a certain level of distance between the upper deckers and us. Welcome to the best years of your life!” Turning to float beside me, facing the crowd, he takes my hand raising my arm like the champ in a boxing match. The group erupts into chants of Stevo! Stevo! Stevo! A grin begins to creep across my face. “Oh, you mother fuckers.” I half choke it out. Terry, the banana man, strips off his yellow costume to reveal his solid brown jumpsuit, and a union rep insignia on his chest. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you squared away and sorted out sharpish. You’ve got three days to acclimate, we’ll put you through our training programme, then you’ll be all set to do your designated service task. You’re going to be scraping down and shoveling shit in the huge containment tanks that are positioned under each sector. It’s lonely work, but it pays well. You’ll be trained on the respirator units we use, and will get your own magnetic levitating cart for tools and moving bagged waste materials between the enormous tanks and the recycler or incinerators. We have a party scheduled for tonight, as an ice breaker. I understand you moonlight as a DJ, if you’d care to share your music with us, we’d love to hear it!” Terry leads me to a gigantic lobby, with hallways leading off in every direction. “This is the dormitory, you can find your room by using your wrist communicator. It’ll key you into your rooms, and can dispense food from our commissary. You’ve got your own private bathroom, and you will get your actual uniform after the safety programme is completed. No exceptions, no exemptions!” With a quick hand shake, he leaves me to my own thoughts. The lobby is silent, well lit, with pristine gel couches arranged in a circle with a display in the center. There is so much room, I can’t believe my eyes. Tears well up on my face, and cluster on the bridge of my nose. I could get used to this.
Three bleary eyed days later my alarm buzzed at eleven pm. I had an hour to dress, eat and get over to sector two’s waste containment tank to meet my supervisor and start to learn the ropes. I was so anxious I ate on the trip, and good thing too, as sector two was a fair distance from the main dormitory I was lodged in. The huge Warren of tunnels, pipes, chambers, dials and vents was spotless, and repeated in a pattern every three hundred meters or so. Rounding a band I found Terry and a smaller woman, both dressed in brown standing beside a floating cart full of equipment. “Hey Stevo, glad to see you are as punctual as your references suggested. This is sector two’s smallest waste containment tank, and Jordie here will lead you through your hoops to get in and out alive, and accomplish your required tasks.” Terry was beaming, and cheerful. Hard not to be when everything is spotless and shining, and smells of lemons or berries. “I thought I had to undertake a safety programme or something?” I sputter. “Yeah, you do. But it’s on the job training here bud. You’re in the shit now, as it were. Ha! So listen close, don’t die, and Jordie will make a fully functional member of the team out of you in no time flat!” With that he left us alone, at the mouth of a huge airlock type chamber. The small red haired woman looked me over before she spoke. “They vet us types pretty good eh? Want people who don’t need to be babysat, and can do shit work with a grin on our face. Terry likes to find us underprivileged types and lift us out of poverty, if we’ve shown we got the goods. Out of the frying pan and into the potty. Ha!” The sudden burst of laughter seems to be a common affectation among Terry’s crew leaders. “So couple of tips. Always use your PE. It gets hot in there, but you worked in Arizona so the ninety five degrees won’t bother you much. Use the respirator at all times when in the airlock or inside the container. Never, ever remove it, the methane will gravely injure you. Not to mention the bacterial load inside these things. Yeesh. Wash your hands as often as you can. Your cart comes equipped with a fresh water recycler so you won’t run dry. We don’t shake hands much until out of our gear and showered. Elbow bumps if you must, but don’t touch anyone in uniform if you can help it. I’ll show you how to suit up, and in what order. I’ll test you on it as we go. I’ll leave a checklist you’ll want to memorize over time, but no harm if you use it forever more. I do. Any questions?” I nod that I’m ready to rock and roll.
After three hours, I’m left to scrape and shovel massive loads of shit. It’s hot, and this stuff gets heavy. But I’d much rather be here in a chemical toilet storage tank than back on earth that’s for damn sure. With sweat stinging my eyes, I use my magnetic boots to walk up the walls of the fifty meter tall tank, the fifteen meter diameter makes it seem like the most wide open space on the ship. I am amazed that this is a small tertiary tank. The big ones must be mental.
PART XXI
The porch door opens with a gentle squeal…
Masked in part by the large crowd of gathered children playing road hockey in the street right out front of the house. The shadows are slowly growing long along the front yard. Birds are chirping, and a subtle wind is rustling the leaves of the two large maple trees obscuring the view of the street from the porch. Stepping out of the house onto the wooden deck, she carries a glass of red wine, a cold beer in her manicured hands, and a box of crackers under one arm. Seated in a wicker chair, her husband is engrossed in the game going on with the children. “What’s the score?” She asks. “I have no idea, but you just missed an epic collision. More of a pile-on really. The girls are watching the ball and their sticks instead of where they are running. Going to have quite the knot on their heads tomorrow. Ha.” He says it nonchalantly, we’ve always given the girls the space to play, and ultimately hurt themselves with the pride of knowledge gained in the disaster. Reaching over his shoulder he takes the proffered beer. Sitting down gingerly, her glass held in her finger tips so as to not spill she pulls up the matching worn white wicker chair. The cushions are well weathered, and covered in maple keys and pollen. She’ll have to dust off her bum when she heads inside later. “Cracker? – no. Suit yourself.” The children are running about, it is semi organized chaos. Children strip the ball from teammates, kids run into one another. Tired kids fall over on the curb and wrestle on the manicured lawns. “So, can we talk about this now – or?” The question left to hang in the hot humid air between them. “Yeah, I guess so. Not like the girls will be able to hear us from here. Look at those muppets, it’s pure melee combat out there! Keep your head up! Look around you! See who’s open.” He shouts in a sudden lively burst. The girls, red faced, continue to battle it out on the street vying for the ball. The neighbourhood kids are all in a giant tangle of limbs and hockey sticks. “So, what’s the deal then. What do her teachers say?” He blurts out the question. Angst writ large across his creased forehead, his greying hair cut short at the temples, with a longer mop on top. “That’s just it, they love her. Say she’s just lovely, a real helper, a good listener, and she’s one of the better students academically.” She says it with a huge rush of outward breath, as though deflating with the sentiment. “Well – fuck. So we get the asshole at night, everyone else gets a lovely child. That’s just perfect.” He says it with a hint of a hysterical laugh underneath. “According to what I’ve read, it means they’re just really comfortable at home with us. They feel our unconditional love, and can drop the goody goody act and be more natural. Or so some child psychiatrists said. I don’t know.” Swishing her red wine around the glass, she looks down the front lawn to the two menacing, but beautiful daughters playing hockey, for keeps. “Good thing they’re cute. I could just strangle those two some times.” “Eh? You fucking think! You saw me, last summer trying to teach her her letters and numbers. Like pulling her god damned teeth out of her head. What a pain in the ass. Then she gets tired at night, cuddles up next me and says she loves me. I melt. Adorable. I love her so much, but what an asshole.” The last part is said in unison. A common refrain among the two parents. “Ok, girls. Ten minutes then you gotta come in to wash up for dinner, ok!” More of a statement than a question. The girls bark back in answer. “Was that a yes?” She asks. “Fuck if I know. They’re still growing, so we must be doing something right. It’s tacos tonight, so I don’t foresee a huge fight to get the youngest one to eat.” Standing up, he dusts off his beige cargo shorts, slips on his berks, and wanders down to the curb. His white plain t-shirt almost amber in the waning sun.The late afternoon sky is a lovely rich blue. Squirrels can be heard chattering in the large fir tree beside the driveway.
“There are – certain harsh truths one has to come up against…
Before they can truly learn what it means to be an adult. Although, we may find some individuals who believe that they have this whole thing down pat. That just isn’t true. However, you know, ignorance is bliss. Sometimes not knowing what it is you don’t know can be sort of freeing. The truth is, we’re all floating together on a rock, specks of carbon in a vast, unyielding and uncaring universe. Fairness, equality, equity… these things are not real. Much like time – memory, or love at first sight. Constructs we built that we choose to live in. The sun does not care. Clouds do not care. No one knows how this thing called life plays out. Existential dread is just the human body coming to terms with how loose a collection of things, and stuff, our lives are made from. We have fooled ourselves into believing in order, and goodness, and the basic underlying tenets of a civil society. But you pull out one stitch, and more often than not the whole thing crumbles.” The sky in the park is vast, and open. The velvety blackness dotted with hundreds of thousands of stars. From their position, lying in the grass upon a gentle rolling hill, the slight breeze sends ripples through the tall grasses surrounding them. The evening is cool, but not cold. The soft call of crickets can be heard in the distance across the wide, and sprawling park. Fire flies have gathered in the low spots between the hill and the plateau where the soccer fields are. Puffs of smoke can be seen weaving lazy trails on the breeze above the teens heads. For the neighbours who back onto the park, the heavy sent of marijuana, and the carried sound of voices is common place. “You know what, Gina… I have to disagree with you on that. I… I think. Gah!” A hearty cough, harsh enough to bring tears to her eyes. “Oh man, I think I just swallowed a bug!” Coughing fit. Scurried fingers scraping at a tongue. “What – what were we even talking about again? I lost track.” Says the younger of the two prone girls, laying head first down the hill, while watching the stars between their feet. “Can you feel the world spinning right now. I think I can feel the world spinning right now. How awesome is that, eh?” “Dude, now that you say it, I kinda do.” “That’s, like… fucked up and shit.” From down the street, laughter can be heard. The lone street light in the park flickers, but never actually manages to come on. Clouds form to cover the moon low in the night sky.
“Ugh, good god, was that you?”
She says sitting up from her lounged position on the soft brown leather couch. Her face ashen, with just a tinge of green around the edges. “Of course not.” I laugh. “It’s the damn dog. You know your mother feeds him raw hamburger all the time.” Getting up from the couch quickly, the stench wafting through the air between them. To avoid a second breaths worth of horrific stink, I bounce over to the fridge to grab a cold drink. The door jingles as the jars inside clink together with the motion. “Jesus, Dog! that’s rotten! You foul little beastie.” Waving both arms about, moving foul jetties of air about the adjoining kitchen. It’s enough to make the nostrils sting, and your eyes water. “Babe – do you need a refill on your drink while I’m up?” Peeling her eyes from her novel, she waves off the question with a limp flap of her hand. “No, I’m good. I have a glass of water over here that I haven’t touched yet, from earlier.” The hour is late, the hall lights are off and only a few sparse beams from headlights can be seen playing down the walls of the living room. The trailing red fading off the tiles in the kitchen as the cars pull down the street. The house is small but cozy, settled on the corner of an intersection. Outside the moon is large overhead, and the street lights have been on for awhile. The sounds of kids playing in the street has long since stopped. Called in for dinner by harried mothers and rushed fathers. Now the muffled shouts of teenagers takes it’s place. It’s a Tuesday night, and our show is about to come on. With a soft whimper, the dog fidgets and shakes as though chasing prey in his sleep. A soft hiss, a subtle wag of a tail, and another wave of the dogs gut rot permeates the couch and its occupants. Suburban bliss at its finest.
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