Wayfarer's End

Tom Oak is kneeling in his garden, examining the melons that he planted in march. By all reasonable estimates, they should be producing fruit by now. They are not. The plants seem frail and discolored, and the only hint of a harvest grew to about the size of a grape before being devoured by the local fauna weeks ago. Tom Oak wonders if perhaps he is in the wrong climate for melons.

Tom Oak lives up north, in a small village by the sea. The population triples in the summer when the rich families from Massachusetts come up to vacation, and the natives spend the rest of the year persisting on the money the vacationers spend on lobster and handmade trinkets and boat tours to see the lighthouses and the whales. The town farms people, and Tom Oak farms melons.

Or he would, if he could get the damn things to grow.

Tom Oak makes it his mission to never grow the same crop twice in his garden. Last year was cucumbers, the year before strawberries. He’s never had a talent for gardening, but he is diligent and a good problem solver, and to him gardening is simply a good problem. The melons are worrying him, though. He can’t figure out what he did wrong.

Tom Oak stands up. It is an arduous process- he is tall, and getting on in years, and despite calling this place home for 15 years, he still has not fully adjusted to the conditions. He thinks that it might be best if he asks Mrs. Donahue at the garden store for her opinion.

He walks into his garage, past the smooth, silvery contraption that he came to town in, and opens the door to his old pickup. He presses the button that makes the garage door squeal open, grabs his keys from the shelf and stops when he feels eyes on him.

A small child, probably one of the vacationers, stares up at him from the end of his short driveway. It is standing on a scooter, and has a blocky helmet attached to its head. When it comes to children younger than a certain age, Tom Oak has trouble telling age or gender.

Hello, Tom Oak says. How are you today?

The child squints. “How did you do that?”

Do what?

“How did you say that?”

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

“You don’t have a mouth or anything but you’re saying words anyways.”

Tom Oak blinks. His perception filter must have malfunctioned. There is a moment where he and the child stare at each other.

I was born like this, Tom Oak says.

“Okay.”

The child waits for something to happen. When it doesn’t, it moves to scooter away

Wait, Tom Oak says. Do you know anything about melons?

“No. Why?”

I am trying to grow melons and it is not going over too well.

“Why don’t you look it up?”

Tom Oak’s brow furrows. Where? He asks.

The child looks at him funny. “The internet?” The child kicks the ground, and the scooter sends it disappearing down the street.

Later, Tom Oak is in his living room, hunched over the old laptop that he bought at the salvage store. It is slower than the computers are where he came from, but his time on this planet has made him patient. He moves the cursor to the search bar and types in ‘Melons not growing.’ The results load, and he clicks the top link.

A noise comes from the garage. A noise Tom Oak has not heard in 15 years. Someone is trying to contact him.

Tom Oak sits on the couch, motionless, computer in hand. He does not know what to do. The noise cries out again.

Tom Oak shuts the laptop, places it on his coffee table, and walks into the garage. His silver ship, usually dead and silent next to his pickup, is now projecting a hologram up into the dusty rafters.

The hologram is of a figure about the same size and shape as Tom Oak, but wearing the plain white uniform of the Xalibarian Navy. Outrider Third Class Tommock, the hologram says. You are being recalled back to Xalibar. The planet you occupy will soon be consumed by a solar flare, and everything and everyone upon it will be destroyed. Gather all pertinent research and report to the nearest outpost at your earliest convenience.

The hologram then restarts from the beginning. Tom Oak considers what it portends about the coming days. In a few short weeks, this town will be gone, the sea next to it boiled into vapor, every native and every vacationer and every child will feel their flesh melt and their bones crack. Tom Oak’s cottage will burn, and his pickup will explode, and if his garden decides to spit up a halfway decent melon between now and then, those too will cook from the inside until they crack and pop and turn to charcoal dust. Tom Oak will die. Slower than the rest, but eventually he too will succumb to the fire and the heat. The death will not be pleasant.

But Tom Oak does not know if he has another space trip left in him. He was old when he came to Earth, and it’s wet climate and strong gravity have not been kind to his body. If he leaves, he will live out the rest of his days as a cripple, surrounded by strangers, on a planet that hasn’t been his home for more than a decade.

Tom Oak returns to his living room and reopens his laptop.

That night, Tom Oak brings his ship out into the back yard. It is chilly, and the sky is cloudless. A perfect night for flying. Tom Oak almost can’t believe that a place this temperate would soon be on fire.

He opens a compartment on the vessel, exposing a delicate deposit of cranial foam. He dabs a bit on his forehead, turns a dial on the vessel, and waits as his knowledge of Earth flows into the pod. Soon, that will be all that remains of the planet.

When he is done, he wipes the foam from his head, replaces it into the vessel, and punches in the coordinates to the nearest Xalibarian outpost. For a moment, he considers entering the pod. Retirement in Xalibar might not be that bad. As a veteran of the Navy, his every need would be taken care of.

But the internet has told him that he needs to protect his melons from the salty wind coming off the sea, and if he is in space tomorrow he will not be able to go into town and buy the bricks he needs to solve his melon problem. If he is lucky, he might be able to enjoy a melon before it all ends.

Tom Oak hits the ignition on the pod, closes the cockpit door, and watches as the silver pod rockets into the night sky, becoming as small as a star before eventually blinking out of sight.

Tom Oak can sleep, but he does not need it. Tonight, he decides that he will stay up and watch the stars reflect off of the calm water.