Cheilin Saga ~ 12

 

 Cheilin Saga ~ 12 The Abbey at Samishaan 2

By Len Morgan 

The Reverend Father Abbot was amused when Sister Constance confessed and begged to be relieved of the responsibility for her charge.   When questioned she freely confessed what had transpired including her perceived misconduct.  

“Correct me if I am wrong.  You were charged to see to all of his physical needs?”

She nodded demurely. 

 “Physical needs would include correct bodily functions, respiration, elimination, providing him with food, water, and exercising his limbs?”

Again she nodded, unsure where this was leading.

“And other functions of a more intimate nature?”

She reddened visibly.

“Sister Constance, we are not prudes or a chaste order.   That you have resisted making a personal liaison, with a Brother, for so long does you credit but I can see no fault in your handling of this matter.   Sex is merely a bodily function.  I cannot authorise your transfer for fulfilling your allotted task.   Your request is denied, now I have work to complete, and you have your charge to attend too.   We are pleased with your care and concern and recommend that you continue seeing to his welfare.   Continue to experiment with his regime and try to encourage him to do more on his own behalf…”

At which point her emotions got the better of her and she expressed a flood of tears, he supposed in gratitude, but who can say?   His eyes left her at that moment, he began to shuffle papers to appear busy and signify the discussion was at an end.   When he looked up she was gone, he smiled only just managed to stifle a fit of amused laughter.   But her commitment was admirable.

Brother Ignatius had also taken his responsibilities very seriously.   Of late he had taken to sleeping alongside the orb, in the covered garden, beneath the stars.   He recounted his dreams, in the guise of his charge, as a person with great responsibility on his shoulders he acted, always in the best interests of the people.   He communed with an off worlder, a strange man-like creature.   He did not know what it was but knew it to be a power for good.   When he relayed these dream images to the reverend Father Abbot, he was told they were probably just the machinations of an over inventive mind.   Fanciful images conjured up in his efforts to make sense of the strange state in between dream and reality.   Briefly, he toyed with the idea of removing Brother Ignatius from the orb, but decided against it and instead ordered him to sleep in his own room in future, away from the influence of the orb.   As he had expected, the dreams ceased.   He had considered sleeping next to the orb himself, to test its potency.   But, after assurances from the good Brother that he had spoken to nobody, he resolved to assign Sister Constance to a night in silent vigil within touching distance of the orb.   She was instructed to reflect on and resolve her inner turmoil.   It would be an act of penance for her imagined wrongdoing.   If he had really expected this to resolve the situation, he was sadly mistaken.

  Brother Ignatius watched from the cell door as the empty shell of Aldor performed a complicated Kata designed to sharpen his reflexes, exercise every muscle and sinew in order to keep the body in peak condition.  After a short while his movements became a blur, he was moving so fast the watcher became disorientated, certain it was an illusion.   He shook his head in disbelief when his gaze returned to Aldor all movement had ceased.   The pale blue eyes were directed at him, passive and unblinking.   He opened the door and stepped in.   The gaze was disconcerting, so he momentarily glanced away, to give himself respite or he would wilt.   When he looked back the cell was empty.

   Sister Constance gazed at the orb, into those unwavering eyes that mirrored her own.   Such a pale ice blue she thought, not cold, but warm and welcoming; the pupils of her own hazel eyes grew large.   She felt drowsy and after only moments she succumbed.   She slept, dreaming of a boy groomed to rule, who discovered the decapitated body of a young woman he loved.   He was accused of the crime and left staked out in the desert to die.   In the morning she awoke, cheeks crusted with her own dried tears.   His words in her mind…

‘It was not your fault, your family died because bad men attacked your farm.   Had you barred the door, as you were told, they would simply have broken it down.   It was your parent's time to return to the wheel of life and yours to survive!’

She shook her head and smiled, ‘It was not my fault’ she repeated to herself.   For ten long years, she had subconsciously held herself responsible for the deaths of her two older brothers and her parents, slain in a bandit attack. 

 When she was ten, her responsibilities were milking and husbandry; she loved the animals they were her friends.   The last words her father said, as she slipped out the kitchen door to feed an orphaned calf that was off its feed, were…

“Be sure to bar the door when you return Emmiline.”

Hand rearing required a high degree of patience, perseverance, and above all time.   She fell asleep with the calf draped across her knees and was awakened by unfamiliar shouts and the smell of burning.   She hid in the hay until things went quiet but when the Barn caught fire she herded its occupants out, hiding amongst them.   The raiders had gone, the house was burned to the ground, and she had survived and, thanks to her, so had the animals.   Her family all perished, but what hurt her most was their refusal to show her the bodies.

Neighbours took her in, together with her animals, treating her as an unpaid servant.   At the next conjunction, they selected many of her cattle, including her calf, to provide the blood sacrifice for Bedelacq.   Their cries of pain unlocked something in her mind. Emmiline was suddenly able to read the thoughts of animals and people.   She was able to read the minds of the family that had taken her in, and what she discovered of their intentions determined her to leave.  She stowed away on a boat travelling upriver, from Tain Point in Bluttland to Freeport in the Meyam kingdom.   She had nothing but the clothes she stood up in, so she begged on the streets of Freeport using her wits and talent to gain sympathy from passers-by.   Gauging their reaction she would smile, cry or plead for help, whatever it took, she would survive.  

   After a few months alone on the streets, she realised it would be advantageous to join with others, so she beguiled one of the many orphan gangs that roamed the streets around the port area.   They were just a band of undernourished ragamuffins who worked together because they were too small or too weak to survive alone. Their leader was a spineless bully, who preyed on the younger ones, claiming to be their protector.  She got into his mind and controlled him.   She took on the role of parent, almost by default, years of husbandry had partitioned her mind and taught her to think logically.   She organised them into three groups of four and sent them out to opposite sides of the city, to increase their shared income.   Several times they were attacked by other groups who considered a particular area was their exclusive preserve.   Finally, they took to attacking drunks leaving the riverside taverns but often, they had already spent their money.   Then she discovered travellers were often just seeking something.   Usually, it was the gratification of an immediate need such as a bed for the night, somewhere to eat and drink, or the company of a pliant young woman.   She would identify that need and, on the pretext of fulfilling it, would lead her mark to where the gang lay in wait.   As far as the others were concerned, she displayed an uncanny ability to select and lure easy victims to their ambush.   For two years it worked just fine.   Nobody was suspicious of her talent.  The band of misfits prospered and grew.   She never needed to get involved in the messy business of robbing, and bruising their victims, she was the lure.   She never waited around to see what they did to him.   Then, one day she entered the mind of a street trader, a purveyor of charms trinkets, and potions but when she tried to leave she found herself trapped.

   She recalled being in a dark place for an indefinite period, like sleeping but in a non-dream state.   Moreover, she found she was unable to sleep, which meant she was forced to occupy her mind, controlling and directing her own thoughts.   Her mind was separated from her body, but she had no way of knowing that, she began to feel hot; the temperature increased and she started to perspire.   She began to itch as though ants were crawling all over her.   She tried to scratch but was unable to make physical contact.   She started to scream and cry out in terror.   She cried for help but there was no response.   She tried to use her talent but the only mind she found was her own.   She ranged the totality of her short life, but in particular the last two years.   She reflected on the tricks she had used to entice gullible men to a place of her choosing.   She remembered the illusion of power this gave her.   At first, she was smug and self-congratulatory.   Then she began to wonder how they fared with the others; some of whom were downright evil.   She began to feel regret, then guilt.   Just because she had not been in at the kill, as they so vividly called it, did not mean she was absolved of blame.   She was as guilty as they were.   She began to recall the faces of her victims, one by one. They looked accusingly at her mouthing the word 'guilty'.   The good the kind, the lonely and considerate, the vicious and malevolent, all had wound up as her victims.   All had motives for following her.  All were viciously attacked and robbed and some almost certainly died.  

She was separated from her body for just four weeks, during which time she relived her life over and over, going through a whole gamut of emotions until finally settling for an uneasy acceptance that things had happened and she had to live with the consequences.  Now her eyes were open she resolved to conduct her life differently in future.   When her mind and body were reunited she became a novice in the Samishaan order of Geoffe.   

There were between five and eight new conscripts each year.   At her joining ceremony, she was renamed Sister Constance, after one of the founder members of the order.   A new name was appropriate and even desirable considering her conversion.   In a sense, she was reborn, and from that moment she would be a new person.   Sister Constance embraced the order wholeheartedly and for the next four years worked tirelessly to erase the shame of her past, and to assimilate their teachings.   Then finally her devotion was rewarded, and she received her first charge.   She was determined not to ruin this opportunity simply because of her physical attraction to the man.  Then she was charged with observing the orb.  

She had expected him to be self-centered and selfish like all the others she had come into contact with.  He was not, and now, after four years, she felt truly reborn.

His words still rang in her ears.  ‘It was not your fault.’

This man was no simple criminal of that, she was assured.   He was sent by Geoffe.  He was the one!  As she thought on this matter a strong pair of hands reached past her, she recognised that wholesome clean presence immediately.   She watched him take the orb in his sure hands and raise it above his head.   She took a sharp intake of breath and came to her feet.   Even as she did so she knew it was too late.

(to be Continued)

Copyright Len Morgan

 RUNESTONES 6

Peter Woodgate

Shapes and angles should unlock

The future of life’s ticking clock

So Pete had thought, when catching sight

Of mystic stones, they’d shed a light

On his dull and miserable life

And a hard graft job full of strife.

There should be better things ahead,

A girlfriend who would share his bed,

A better job with better pay,

These stones, he thought, would show the way.

Instructions too were found within,

The silken pouch so soft and thin.

Well Pete, quite rightly, thought he ought

To read the message, then he’d be taught

On how to read each ancient stone,

His future then, it would be shown.

So, he read them, through and through

But poor Pete, he had no clue.

For each stone studied, caught him out,

He got frustrated then he’d shout.

Was it acute? Maybe obtuse,

He couldn’t tell, it was no use.

Pete asked his mum, she was nice

And gave poor Pete some good advice.

“You know that woman, three doors down

She will help,” Pete gave a frown.

Despite his lack of trust, he went

To see the women, then he spent

His last ten quid to gain her knowledge

But she just sat and ate her porridge.

Pete looked at her, thought what’s your angle

She showed her wrist, twisted the bangle.

Eventually, she did ask Pete

To take his gear off, show his feet,

Then threw the stones upon the floor

Asked Pete to dance, and a whole lot more.

Pete, it seemed had got his wish,

Although the women was no dish.

Excitement dawned from that day on

They were a team and made a bomb

By casting stones for simple folk

This is the truth it aint no joke.

Although the readings were just trash

They made an awful lot of cash,

Produced an advert “EXPERT READINGS”

Phone us now to start proceedings.

So Pete and “her” from three doors down

Are millionaires, they bought the town,

So, should you come across some runes

Whistle and hum some happy tunes,

For you could make a fortune too

And have a future you won’t rue.

 

Copyright Peter Woodgate

 MUSIC

By Rosemary Clarke

     How can we recommend music when every note is so personal? 

     Music is our first cry and our last gasp, it's the beating of our hearts in love and in fear.  In times of great grief, a song can lift our souls like nothing else, and musicians are the magicians of the world speaking the world's languages without learning any other.

     Musicians capture all of nature and play it for us to understand; they connect us to our thoughts and wishes, with the earth and sky itself.
     If the beat is loud enough and near enough the deaf can feel it, the blind can 'see' the sounds, and no disability is excluded; we can all dream.

     Music is like air, we all breathe it but some special ones can turn it into something else by knowing its compound.  With musician's experiments no creatures are harmed; a cure that we can all share no matter who.

     We celebrate with music, we say goodbye with music and we mourn with music.  Music is all our lives and will be forever.  So, no matter what music you love we're all part of the same family with all musicians at the head to show us the way.

From Rosemary Clarke

 RUNESTONES 5/3  

by Richard Banks

 “The man’s a monster. He put a gun to Roy’s head.”

         Roy?” I say.

         “My dog, I have a dog called Roy. Parry said he would shoot him and me too if he had to, that it meant nothing to him because he couldn’t be called to account. Some people, he said, are above the law and he’s one of them.”

         “So, what’s all this about then? Surely there’s more to it than what they found on my land?”

         Jones looks around him as though he thinks we’re being watched, but there’s no one in sight. “It’s not the first one, you know.”

         “First what?” I say.

         “The first skeleton. There’s been others. At first it was thought they were some kind of missing link but when the bones were carbon dated they turned out to be no more than fourteen hundred years old. The scientists wanted to tell the world but the Government said no, that it all had to be kept under wraps until we knew exactly what they were. Then DNA testing became possible and we found out what had long been suspected, that the creatures were neither man or ape, or any other Earthly thing. Then the Americans got hands on; there had been strange lights over the Western Seaboard and the whole country was well and truly spooked. The last thing their Government wanted was proof of alien life, and that’s when they insisted that our own Government ramp up the news blackout that had already been imposed. Since then everyone who knows the least little thing about the skeletons has been interviewed and anyone thought likely to spill the beans assigned to classified projects in the Mojave Dessert. The press is now under Government control and any published information unacceptable to the Americans has either been changed or refuted. It’s like 1984, the book I mean, and to top it all MI5 have recruited nearly a thousand spies to check up on their fellow citizens.”

         “How do you know all this?”

         “Professor Henderson,” he says, putting his hand to his mouth. “We’re friends from university. He’s in charge of the skeletons and a member of a committee advising the Government. He’s also working with the linguists and code breakers trying to work out what the gravestone says.”

         “And have they?”

         “Yes, almost. They’re runes, you see, but not like the ones the Vikings had. These are older, much older, some of the words we know and from them we’ve worked out most of the rest. What we have found is more than an obituary, it’s a prophesy of things to come, dreadful things.” He begins to hyperventilate, and I fear he’s going to have a heart attack but he manages to steady himself.  “They’re coming back, the descendants of those who were here before. We call them the Runes, and they mean to destroy every last one of us. That’s what the stone says, and who’s to say they can’t do it – they’re light years ahead of us. And that’s not all the stone says; there’s a date when all this will happen and the date is now, they’re coming now, this year, any day in the hundred and twelve still left. They may already be in Russia, that’s what the Americans think. With the internet down who knows what’s going on. It’s utter madness, any day could be our last!”

         I tell him to quieten down before he’s overheard. “Where’s the evidence for all this - some skeletons, a gravestone, lights in the sky, is that all there is?”

         Jones shakes his head, “there’s more,” he says, but a man in a suit comes towards us and sits down on the next bench. I continue speaking in a whisper but Jones won’t say another word. He gets up and heads off along the path that goes round the edge of the park. I stay where I am. Whatever happens now I need to retrieve the recorder from Jones’ briefcase, but to my surprise he’s one step ahead of me. He’s on the other side of the shrubbery where he put it. If I can glimpse him through the bushes so might the man on the bench. I slide off my wrist watch and ask him for the time and when he tells me it’s half past one I keep him looking at me by saying how nice the weather is. By the time he says a few words in response I see Jones, replete with briefcase, walking across the grass towards the exit. He waits for me outside the gate and when I catch-up with him tries to hand back the recorder. 

         “Are you sure this is mine?” I whisper. He isn’t, and as they look the same neither am I; if we don’t get this right it’s not just the Runes we have to fear.

         He looks flustered, his lips quiver, but he’s managing not to panic. “Give me five minutes and go to the back door of the museum.” He strides off and five minutes later, almost to the second, I’m there. The door’s ajar and|Jones is waiting for me on the other side. He peers out, and satisfied that no one has seen me enter, closes and locks the door. I follow him up a flight of stairs into his office. We are fortunate, he says, the museum’s closed for the day, we will not be disturbed. He has taken both recorders from his briefcase and put them on his desk which he appears to have cleared by pushing everything on it to the floor. We search in vain for some small mark or blemish that we might recognise but there are none. Jones returns them to his briefcase.

         “We will have to take a chance,” I say, “either that or spoil the tape inside, but if we do that nothing could be more obvious that we have been talking together off the record.”

         “And maybe doing more than talking.” There’s someone behind me. He sweeps by and sits down beside Jones.

         “Henderson,” I gasp, “what are you doing here?”

[To be continued]

 

Copyright Richard Banks

 Space Junkers ~ Scrap One

By Len Morgan

You’d have thought a joint 1^st in Cosmology, Space Design & Innovation from Oxford would lead me to a dazzling career in the space industry?  Well so did I, but I have a few fatal character flaws, I am completely devoid of drive, ambition and I’m lacking the necessary interpersonal skills which in the 22^nd century makes me a pariah!  Which is just one step above being a psychopath. 

So, with ‘the Universe as my oyster’, to coin an arcane phrase, I went from job to job, dropping a rung on the ladder with each move.

Five years after graduation I’d been rejected or let go by every major aerospace company.  "Not a team player" they said. A loner, by choice, that’s me.  A few centuries ago I might have become a ‘Lighthouse Keeper’ but sadly there are no lighthouses left.  So I guess that’s why I settled for the modern-day equivalent.

I’m a space jockey cruising the junkyard that encircles the Earth. In a purpose-built spacecraft that hangs out permanently on the borders of space.  I’m what you might call the modern day equivalent of a ‘bag-lady’ I haul a magnetized net around just beyond the thermosphere.  I go round and round like the ‘Circle line’ did in London before the big quake swallowed it together with half a million hapless Londoners and most of the square mile.  I live in Manchester now, the new Capital.

I’m not disgruntled with my lot, I do twenty trips (half a year) returning via the shuttle, for a six-month furlough, It’s a necessary job so my pay is commensurate.   I get paid at the end of each trip by The Magnetite Company.  They have/had a contract with the ISC (International Space Council).  Then of course I also had a sideline that earned me three times my regular salary, tax-free. 

The job was, to net space junk and shoot it towards the sun; where it presumably sank down to the core.  But, on my third trip out, I miscalculated the slingshot and sent it towards the moon.  I fully expected to be fired or at least reprimanded when the moon authorities reported my mistake.  But, nothing happened; like throwing a rock into a lake (no splash?).   The other 19 dumps on that trip all hit the target without a hitch, so maybe that errant dump landed undetected in some remote area? 

I returned home to Earth on the shuttle, looking forward to my 6 monthly furlough.  My mail system had messages from Moonbase 3, and a large denomination ‘bearer bond’, informing me that I would receive a similar sum for every load I could drop on the moon at approximately the same location.   I made some rapid calculations and discovered that I would save a third on fuel by dumping metal junk on the moon and I was fairly certain I could hit that spot on Mare Vaporum (sea of vapors).  It was approximately 80 Kilometers from Moonbase 3.  I could make 30 drops with the same fuel. The question is, was a moon dump legal?  What happened when other refuse collectors missed the Sun?  The answer was ‘zilch’ the Company was paid to remove space debris from near-Earth orbit; the safest destination was the Sun, but if Moonbase 3, can make use of it, why shouldn’t they have it?

So, I set up a few ‘Bitcoin Accounts’, and converted my bearer bonds; it just made sense!  Three years on The Company went 'tits up' they were making losses and would not be renewing their contract. 

The Company employed six refuse collectors, but there was always a high turnover in the other five posts, not many space jocks can stand the boredom month in month out…  There’s a learning curve, and accidents do happen when a jock's concentration wanes.  That’s why there have been 9 units Mag 01 is mine, The others still in commission are Mag03 04 06 & 08.  Mags 02 to 05 were all written off by inattentive ex-jocks.  While Mag 07 & 09 were down for routine maintenance.

Apparently, because of the hazardous work, the insurance rates had become astronomical (was that a pun?).  So for a further year, the debris began to build up.  Several commercial craft including a shuttle were damaged by collisions with debris. Yet still, nobody wanted to take on the ‘Junkyard’ contract.

Moonbase 3 made me an offer.  They would take 50% of the contract if I could persuade another Company to take on the other 50%.  So, I sold my Bitcoins and purchased four units 01, 03, 06 & 08, at a little over scrap value.  Then, we made a fair offer for the contract which, in the absence of competition, was accepted. 

We named the Company Scrap One.  For a year I worked without furlough, until I finally, located four other intelligent jocks, devoid of drive and ambition.  I trained them.  If they didn’t damage their Craft they were promised a generous bonus, at year end which they all earned.  Meantime there were two serviceable junkers 07 & 09 for sale with no takers so I snapped them up for a song, hired two more ‘lighthouse keepers’ on the same terms and the rest is history. 

You’d think that with all my riches I would retire and employ others to do the work.  Not a bit of it, I love my work.  We now have a dozen refuse collectors and six craft supplying Moon bases 1 to 5 with scrap.  Yet I still have absolutely no ambition!

Copyright Len Morgan

SUNSET 02

 SUNSET

By Rosemary Clarke

After the accident was the sunset of my dreams
I couldn’t work again it was the end of all my schemes.
I thought it was all over, I’d never make amends
But I forgot the main thing, the loveliness of friends.
Jane helps by coming over and tidying up my life
And Sis she listens to my woes and all the pain and strife.
Len, he works our things to write as I think little more
Without all of my friends I know
My life would be so poor.
My Bookworms buoy me up always
None of my friends are shirking.
And with my niece and her friends too, this remedy is working!
From being silent and cut down I really feel I’m growing
And all because of these fine friends
It’s such a pleasure knowing.

Copyright Rosemary Clarke

SUNSET 01

 Shades of grey

Janet Baldey

Until he arrived at this Godforsaken place, Gerry hadn’t realised there were so many shades of grey.  To while away the creeping hours, he has formed the habit of counting them. To date, he has reached thirteen.  His eyes track from the silver-grey sheen of the ice covering the permafrost, to the steely grey shadows etched on its surface by the bristle of aerials, the purpose of which he hasn’t yet deciphered. Not surprising.   After all he’s not a scientist or a geologist, just a grunt employed to service them.  He returns to his count - there is the dense charcoal bulk of the station itself and also the cosmos is not always entirely black. Sometimes it’s covered with swirling, frosted grey clouds of meteoroids which appear only to vanish within minutes.  But mostly it’s a ghost of a landscape. A negative that drains one’s spirits.  No wonder there is a resident psychologist with a plentiful supply of medication.

         As he turns away from the triple-glazed windows, he wonders whether strands of the same colour have appeared in her hair. Sooner or later, its glory will lose its vibrancy and she will get older like everyone else but he’s sure that, unlike others, she will never be anything other than beautiful.  He imagines her hair as a shining silver bob framing a face with skin as fragile as a rose petal.  He jerks his thoughts away. He mustn’t do this - although he is getting better.  Yesterday, he only thought of her three times.

         He glances at the atomic clock set into the wall. His shift is due to start in thirty minutes and he must focus.  Like, he imagines, all the other crew members, he has to press gang his body to leave the relative comfort of his quarters for the howling cold of the planet’s surface.  What a fool he’d been to sign up for this. But at the time he’d been desperate; he’d wanted to get away, far away and for as long as possible.  A familiar pain squeezes his chest, causing him to gasp for air.  It shouldn’t be this way. He’s been here for eight years already and he’d counted on the fact that the body renews itself every seven.  By now, he should be a new man and thoughts of her should have disappeared.

         She’d been so lovely.  He thought back to when he first noticed her. It was at school, in the sixth form. She wasn’t a newbie but he’d seen her through fresh eyes.  Miss Rother, the games mistress, who doubled for a man with her hairy chin and muscular legs, had chosen them as partners in a tennis double.  After a long, hard battle, they’d won and overcome, she’d flung her arms around him and kissed him full on the mouth. He remembered his senses swimming as he breathed in her perfume, a mixture of ‘Mon Paris,’ sweat and something he couldn’t put a name to.

         After that, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.  Slim and golden haired, she slipped in and out of his line of vision like a ray of sunshine but it was a long time before he plucked up enough courage to ask her out.  He would remember that evening for the rest of his life.  He took her to the cinema and they’d sat watching ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League,’ his arm lying across the back of her seat like a dusty snake, slowly inching down before finally dropping over her shoulders.  After that, they were an item and went everywhere together.  They talked about marriage, she laughed but not unkindly, and he thought it was forever.

         That long ago summer was filled with hot, lazy days and cooling dips in river water from which they emerged with a sparkle of poor man’s diamonds decorating their bodies.  But he remembered the sunsets best.  Drunk from the heat, they would sprawl in deckchairs and watch that great, glowing orb first kiss and then sink behind the horizon leaving behind a landscape full of ash.

         But that was pre-Edward, post Edward it was quite different.  He’d adored his brother, still did really.  Edward was his elder by six years and when he was little, he was his satellite.  But Ed had been away travelling for two years and was not expected home before Christmas, so one evening it was a complete surprise to first hear the click of the latch and then see him bounding down the path towards them.

         “Hiya Bonzo”.  He’d felt his brother’s hand clout his head and he’d grinned with delight.  Bonzo was his childhood nickname and no-one but Ed called him that.

         “What are you doing back?” he yelped.  “Been deported?  ‘Spose it was only a matter of time.”

         They hugged, and he’d felt complete for the first time since his brother left.  Then he remembered his manners.

         “Leonie, this is my brother Edward.  Ed, this is Leonie.”

         He’d seen her eyes widen as she looked at his brother but had paid it no heed.  Later, he thought that if he had been paying full attention, he might have heard the sizzle of electricity as they shook hands.  It took him some months to cotton on. They tried to be kind but eventually it was obvious they had eyes for no-one else.  Heartbroken, he took his misery off to Uni.  He stayed away for three years but it was no better when he returned.  In desperation, he scoured the newspapers for jobs set in far-away continents.  An extra-terrestrial base was even better. He’d always been interested in astronomy, but with no qualifications in that field, he plumped for maintenance work on the Lox containers, waiting for the healing balm of time.  Surely, by the time his tour of duty ended he would be cured.  He’d imagined himself, freshly minted, watching the sun’s ostentatious farewell with a different girl by his side. 

         But that was before and now everything has changed. If only, he hadn’t been so desperate. If only he’d read the small print.  It seems that when it comes to contracts time is elastic.  Yesterday, the maintenance crews were summoned to a meeting. They were nearing the end of their tour so all thought it was routine.  But when he entered, the captain was not the captain.  This was a different man from the one who had welcomed them on board. Gone was the twinkly eyes and genial smile, instead a slab of granite had taken his place.  As he watched the man and saw similar hulks surrounding him, a feeling of foreboding hit him with the force of a meteorite.

         “Men,” rapped the captain.  “I have some grave news to impart….”

It seems they weren’t going home. Planet Earth was now defunct. A shell of a world ravaged both by flood and fire.  To prove it, a wall behind the captain exploded into lurid colour, showing cities blazing while others toppled into the sea.  The legacy of greed and neglect, their planet which had once been so lush and teeming with natural life was now virtually inhabitable.  And now they were learning the true purpose of their mission. They were to search the universe for a substitute planet capable of supporting human life. That had always been the aim and everything else they’d been told was a smokescreen of lies.  With difficulty, he’d dragged his mind back to what the captain was saying.

“Despite our best efforts, this planet had been deemed unsuitable.  So tomorrow, we begin another mission.  Our journey will be long and arduous but it is every man’s duty to endure any hardships that may be thrown our way.”

          His eyes scoured the group of no-hopers daring any to blink, let alone voice an objection.  There was none and Gerry knew they’d all guessed the penalty for dissent.

         As he pulls on layer after layer of clothing, Gerry suddenly realises that eventually memories of his previous life on Earth will become insubstantial, as if they'd never been.  Instead, this will be his life, cruising the universe. A space gypsy in search of a home.  Brooding thoughts of Leonie will fade and maybe he will also forget the evening sky slashed with lemon and rose as it darkens into night.  The colour grey will be the new normal and maybe he will learn to love its negativity.        

Copyright Janet Baldey