Orbit 120 is a story about human interaction, and that no matter how much some people want to, we cannot thrive in total isolation. Enjoy!
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#34 Orbit 120
Michael and Sheila left me at Orbit 108 to go and fix a pressure leak on ARM 8. So I am on my own at ARM 5 and have been for 12 Orbits. That is not to say that I have not been busy. There are many jobs that require my attention. I have to take daily statistical readings: pressure, temperature, solar consumption and so on. On a normal day, with Michael and Sheila, these things might have taken close to an hour, but on my own it takes three times as long to work through the checklist, partly because I have to wash in between some tasks so as not to contaminate the mechanics. I also have to maintain the vegetable garden, check the radar, and note down in the ship diary, in extraordinary detail, the star patterns and other environmental phenomena.
The idea is to track every detail around us, day by day, to build a comprehensive picture of the patterns of this galaxy. Understand the impact of the environment on the things around us, their behaviours and characteristics.
All of that aside, I still have many hours in the day in which I am not doing anything at all. In those moments, I can read in the library. I am currently reading War & Peace, Leo Tolstoy. Have you heard of it? I figured, when else would I have the time? It’s very good, though there are many passages which I can only read early in the day because they send me to sleep. Boring, essay-like writing in between the scenes where things actually happen. What the hell was going through his mind?
Today is one of those days, where, despite my hardest efforts, one of those essays on the impact of history sends me into a restless sleep. I blink, blink, blink, and then my head lolls back and I snore aggressively. But then I choke on my own snore and it wakes me back up again.
Such is life.
I cough hysterically.
I put the book down and stand. I walk instinctively to the Memory Room. I’ve not been here since Orbit 89. That was a long time ago.
I input some details to The Machine. Name, DOB, Employee ID. A picture of mine from Orbit 00 appears on the screen. No beard then. A smile. Do I remember the last time I smiled? Not since I read The Ascent of Rum Doodle, W E Bowman, in Orbit 101. A pretty rare occurrence. Especially without Michael and Sheila.
The screens power up, one by one, and I follow them with my eyes, from right to left, until I am surrounded by screens. Three-Hundred-Sixty Degrees. The pipes roll out above me and the other various projectors and machinery jolt into sight.
I lift the nodes out of the tray, and attach one to each of my temples, two to the back of my neck, two to each of my pectoral muscles, and two on the backs of my hands.
I put my hands behind my back, close my eyes and fill my lungs with air. I hold the air there and then slowly exhale. Keeping my eyes closed, I think back, back, way back. It takes a moment for any memory to come to me. My mind is still clogged with the mechanics of ARM 5, the daily tasks I have to do, which I have done, but am still considering. That’s how I’ve been trained. To always be working, in my mind, on the things I do eventually with my hands.
But then, a kernel of a memory reveals itself. I see my mother when she was alive, assuming she is no longer, and our dog, Mikky. I’m only a small boy and I’m sat in a field by the river that leads out of the village where I grew up.
I open my eyes, and there it is. The vast expanse of the field, and the clouds that reach across the sun like fingers over eyes. Across the thirty-two screens in the room, wrapped around me, is the field, the river, sun and sky.
My mother calls out, ‘Jacob! Jacob!’
I turn to see Mikky, a black, shaggy little beast, sprinting past my mother and towards me. I reach out a hand to touch him, expecting to feel nothing, the softness of his coat feels so unexpectedly refreshing. I know how the room works and yet never expect it to.
Mikky disappears into the tall grass and I turn back to my mother. She reaches out a hand and I reach out a hand too. But instead of holding hands, a large raindrop, larger than I’ve ever seen, plants itself onto my palm. I look up and a drop brushes my cheek and then another, in quick succession, I feel seeping through my hair, and before I know it I’m looking up at the sky, pipes reaching through the gaps in the screens, which start to shoot rainwater out in every direction across the room.
Not everything about it is simulating. The water slaps against the steel tray where the nodes had been. But still, I often find my willingness to return to the moment is enough to take me past those things.
I look back towards my mother and she’s soaking wet, and laughing in the rain. She turns and runs towards a tree, looking back at me and shouting, ‘Come on! Come shelter under the tree.’ But I just continue to stand where I am.
A wind rushes through the rain (I hear the powering up of the fans), and pushes my hair back. The hairs on my arms stand up and I get goosebumps. A sort of electricity creeps up my arms as I stretch out to catch the raindrops.
I look over at my mother but she is no longer there. I run towards the tree, but she has gone. I’m still getting soaked through. Instead of my mother, all I see is a little brown bird, an innocent and knowing look on its face, as it sits on a branch of the tree, sheltered beneath the leaves.
Somehow, I know that little bird on the tree is my mother. And without opening its beak, without moving at all, other than to reach its wing out. It says to me, ‘Come under my wing, Jacob. Come under my wing.’
But I just stand there staring at the little bird. And then a tear streaks down my face. The bird returns its wing to its side, knowing that I won’t move, and then the skies clear immediately, almost artificially, and the bird leaps off the branch, darts over my head and disappears. The screens fade to black, and the lights flick on.
It’s always a little embarrassing at the end, to find yourself stood in an empty room, soaking wet and shivering, with tears rolling down your cheeks.
I sigh. There’s something so moving and yet draining about the Memory Room. For the first time since Michael and Sheila have left, I feel the chill of loneliness. I leave the Memory Room and go and lie on my bed, the only company being War & Peace, which I turn away from and opt instead to inspect the rivets in the cold wall. I fall asleep and run towards the next day.
The next Orbit.
Orbit 121.