Isolation Part 1 (Chapter 1 of 4)

Isolation Part 1

By Ashton Macaulay

    Around me is nothing but the black void of space. The crew is missing; communications are down, the inky blackness stares at me with the closest thing I have known to compassion in years. Somewhere behind me a blue planet continues to turn. It does not know about me, it is ambivalent. That is the way I like to think of the world: ignorant to the things happening on its surface, yet continuing to support them all the same.

     The grey hallways that were once filled with promise are now empty and hold nothing. The engines whirr around me as they slowly jet off into the distance. I think of the people I will never see again. Comfort is not to be found aboard the ship. My room is small and grey, much like everything else. On one wall there is a four by six inch LED screen with which I can look at messages or images sent from home.

     It blinks a welcoming green light at me, indicating that it is indeed working. Next to the green there is an orange, solid light, indicating that even so, it has nothing to show me. When we are young we make decisions that are rash and adventurous. Sometimes the world doesn’t take notice of them, no matter how earth shattering they may seem to us.

     I left home three months ago, part of a first voyage that was set to shatter the way people thought about the universe. Praxis had held a lottery, thirty people would board a ship, thirty people would go to mars, and thirty people would stay there for the rest of their lives. I can still see the day that I was picked. All of my problems vanished in an instant. I was to be the savior of the human race; a pioneer - one of thirty - vanishing into the cosmos in search of a better life.

     In school I had never been popular. I had not been the smartest, I was not athletic, and creativity had never been a strong suit. In short: I was invisible. I always tried to do the right thing and somehow was never noticed for it. It’s funny how these things work out. One minute I’m in my bedroom contemplating blowing my brains out, the next I’m on a ship headed into the last great unknown.

     That day I had set home from school with a plan. Months earlier I had bought a revolver. For a time I had thought to turn it on those who had so long ignored me, but that day I had something different in mind. I walked down the dusty paths of my hometown, looking at the various shops and gas stations as I passed.

     Everyone seemed to have someone to talk to. Even the guy pumping gas could make small talk with the patrons - everyone -but me. A ghost walked through the streets that day, unknown to everyone but himself. I would make them notice. No one would care until it was a tragedy, but they would know my name one way or another. When it was too late, and only then, people would be sad. They would remember the kid no one talked to, and maybe next time they would say something. Apathy breeds toxicity for those who don’t have a voice.

     Under my bed was a brown, cardboard box. In it was the six-shooter from the local hunting store. I doubt they even remember selling it to me. I remember him though. He was a short man, stalky and with a big, bushy, brown beard. He looked like the atypical hunter and even had the plaid to match. There wasn’t even a waiting period. I went in and that afternoon I walked out with the means for creating mass destruction. I don’t mean to preach, but that’s more than a little screwed.

     Coming from the man sitting high above the earth in a tin can, it might sound a little crazy. Being locked in these chambers does something. It makes me think. Think about what got me here. Think about where I started. Think about what would have happened if rather than being a martyr I had just pulled the damned trigger.

     That night I sat on my bed, staring at the box in my hands. My mother had gone off to work the early shift at the diner down the street and my father was passed out drunk in his lounge chair. He wouldn’t hear the gunshot, and even if he did, he wouldn’t come up to check. My parents had taken a sort of “hands off” parenting style in my teenage years. A part of me gets it: Why fight when you can just ignore?

     When I held the gun in my hands it was cold. I can remember thinking: This is the last time I will feel cold. I should try and remember what that feels like. It was the strangest thought, but that is legitimately what went through my head. In that thought there was a fundamental truth that I couldn’t get out of my head. Death is very final, and it’s a hell of a gambit just to get someone to notice you. Not as big as strapping myself to a rocket for attention, but it’s up there.

     In any case, that end, or finality, stopped me. I walked over to my computer and started to surf the net. Funny how quickly emotions can change from suicidal to apathetic. I stumbled upon what I initially thought to be spam. It stated simply: “Have you ever wanted to go to Mars?” So simple that I thought there was no way it could be true. It didn’t matter. I clicked it anyway and found myself on the Praxis website.

     I had never heard of the company, but I had heard about space privatization on the internet. Essentially, it meant that anyone with enough money to build a rocket could potentially shoot themselves into space and make their fortune. No one was entirely sure what they would find there, but they must have been sure that it was better than what was on the ground.

     Even after examining the company’s website I still didn’t believe it was legit. I almost left until a blinking red light at the bottom of the screen caught my attention. It said “LOTTERY” in big, bold letters. There is no way this is for real. They can’t just send people into space based on a lottery system. That’s exactly what they did.

     Long story short I filled out my information and submitted my application to the program. That was the end of it for that night. I buried the revolver under my bed and printed a small paper ticket with my number on it. The drawing was two weeks from that night. It gave me the hope I needed to push on for the final leg. I knew that if my name didn’t get pulled, and it was likely that it wouldn’t have, that I always had the gun buried beneath my mattress. There was comfort in having an exit strategy.

     Up here there is no such exit. If I decide one day to go on a hunger strike until I can no longer eat, there is a robot that will come to force-feed me. Believe me, I can land a few punches to try and stop it, but those mechanical arms are strong, and zero-gravity makes you weak. I was told that I will start to regain my normal weight when we land, but for now I look like one of the starving kids on TV.

     God I miss TV. Even the crappy stuff. Being able to sit and just zone out in front of a screen without being bombarded by intellectual information. I miss books. I miss talking. I miss earth. There is nothing here. No one to talk to, no worlds to escape to. Granted there wasn’t much talking back on earth either, but at least it was something. I never thought that I would yearn for the drab conversations I used to have with gas station attendants as they rang up my candy bars. Even the smallest human interactions have an effect, it’s just hard to see them until they are missing.

This ship goes one place, and one place only, Mars. It’s a three month journey, and after only a few cycles I can tell it’s going to be a long one. Day and night pass like shadows of each other. It’s impossible to tell when they have come and gone, but to remain sane I find ways of keeping track of the time and entertaining myself.

     I pass the time by telling the holocorder my stories, not that anyone will ever see them. Unless the ship crashes and they are needed for evidence, everything stays confidential. Lucky me – just another way to remain unnoticed. Here I thought a rocket was the flashiest sendoff I could have had. I wonder if anyone even watched…

     The day of the drawing I went to my closet and took out everything I owned. It wasn’t much, a couple of collared shirts and two pairs of pants, a pair of boots, and a baseball cap that I had gotten one Christmas long before I can remember. On the front of that cap was a faded ‘A’. I don’t remember what it stood for, but I wish they had let me keep it.

     I threw all of my things into a duffel bag, leaving the revolver under the bed, just in case. I stepped out the door and never heard so much as a question from my parents. The bus I took cost me fourteen dollars, and it was almost I had. My bank account was non-existent and my assets consisted of my duffel and a twenty dollar bill I had swiped off the old man before leaving.

     The bus ride was a long one - seven hours across the countryside until we were in the heartland. There, erected amongst the cornfields stood a massive white building, adorned with crisscrossing grey pipes. Next to it was a launch-pad. Around it was gathered a large group of people, all no doubt holding their own little slips of paper.

     I stepped off the bus and into my ‘great adventure’.