Why Is Dave In Space?

Why Is Dave In Space?

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

Of course, there are several ways to be ‘in space.’ First, you could be floating around in space without a space suit on. That would probably make you scream. And, yes, I doubt anyone would hear it. Alternatively, you could be floating around while wearing a space suit. Any screaming would be dependent on whether or not you were still attached to the spaceship. But there’s another way to be in space. When you wake up and find yourself in a spaceship traveling through the galaxy.

Which is what just happened to me.

I screamed, too. If someone had been near me, I’m pretty sure they would’ve heard it. I know where the saying comes from. Back in the day, the movie with lots of people being eaten by an alien. Lots of screaming. The alien definitely heard it. Assuming it had ears. That’s a point. Did it have ears?

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I know I’m rambling at the moment. You see, I’m a bit disorientated. Actually, I’m freaking out! Which is why I screamed. Rambling is like part two of the shock reaction; first the cry of utter terror and hopelessness, followed by the brain scrambling to make sense of the situation while verbalizing its confusion. In other words, I’m probably talking garbage.

How did I get here? The last thing I remember was coming home from the bar yesterday after playing pool with Jeff and Debbie for most of the evening. I walked home, made a sandwich, watched TV for a while, and then fell asleep in front of it.

When this happens, and you wake up on a spaceship hurtling through the cosmos, you normally assume you’re drunk. But I didn’t feel great last night, so I only had a couple. I could have had another, but it would have been my round, and then I would have had to buy one for Jeff and Debbie. Funds have been a bit low, lately. I might have had to buy one for Debbie’s slightly strange friend, Angela, too. I’m still not sure whether they were trying to set me up on some kind of blind date. Anyway, I didn’t fancy her. Not buying her a drink hopefully got the message across.

Another alternative is that all of this is a dream. But this isn’t a dream. I’ve walked around, pinched myself, looked out the window even. That’s how I know I’m in space, by the way. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking; why is there a window in a spaceship? To be honest, I have no idea either. Anyway, because of the window, I can see stars and… well, just stars. And we’re moving.

I say ‘we,’ as if there’s someone else with me. For now, ‘we’ will have to refer to me and the spaceship.

I’m walking around, and my feet are on the floor, so gravity is working here. I don’t have a space suit, but I seem able to breathe. I thought I would have been floating around, wearing a space suit, a bit like David Bowie in Space Oddity. I’m wearing my regular clothes. Same clothes I fell asleep in last night.

In this large room, I can see some doorways way off in the distance. The doorways aren’t going to come to me, so I better walk to where they are.

I feel better than I did in the bar last night. My headache has gone, and I feel far less nauseous. Just as well, as you don’t want to be walking around a strange spaceship while needing the bathroom. I don’t even know if there are bathrooms here. Maybe something’s happened to me so I don’t need to go to anymore.

It makes you think, though. Do aliens go to the bathroom? I can’t think of one movie I’ve ever seen when an alien needed to take a quick bathroom break. What would an alien toilet even look like? A bowl you sit on, with a cistern above it? I suppose it depends on the physical anatomy of the specific alien. It couldn’t be a one-size-fits-all system. You wouldn’t expect E.T. to have to try and climb up on a toilet two feet above the ground. Not with his little legs.

I reckon I’m going to meet someone here. After all, this is all pretty elaborate. No one falls asleep in front of the TV and wakes up on a spaceship by accident. There’s definitely some design to all this, some higher purpose.

Of course, it could be a huge prank or a nasty revenge act. You start to think who you might have upset. You not only have to consider that, but who also might have enough money and resources to drug you, kidnap you, put you on a spaceship, and launch you into space. I’ve whittled the options down to three: Richard Branson; Elon Musk; and the NASA space program. But I’ve racked my brains and I can’t think of anything I’ve done that might have annoyed them to this extent.

Maybe I’m just in a giant warehouse with what looks like a window, but is actually a TV screen showing stars whizzing by. One way to test if it really is a window would be to open it. But I have this nagging feeling that might be a bad idea, especially if I am in space.

As for now, I’m hurtling through the solar system; or maybe a different solar system; or a galaxy, or a constellation. To be honest, I don’t know the difference. I never studied astronomy.

I think it must be a quest. I hope it is, or I’m stuffed.

I’ve needed a quest. I think everyone needs a quest. That soul-searching journey that makes sense of who you are where you’ve come from and where you’re going. The answer to everything. The thing that gives meaning and significance and fulfillment.

Some of my previous quests have been pretty rubbish. My participation in a duathlon a few years back, and sprinting so hard at the end in order to avoid coming last. With less than 300 yards to go, I overtook the 75-year-old man who was clearly struggling. But coming second-last didn’t really give me any sense of life fulfillment. Nor did the trip along a small nine-mile river with Jeff, years ago. We took a Canadian canoe up it, because nobody else ever had done it. And no one else had done it, because no one else could be bothered. It wasn’t so much a river as a canal, and never more than 10 feet wide. We convinced ourselves it would be exciting to find the source of the river. We did find it. It wasn’t worth finding.

What do I need in life? A wife would be nice. Kids, perhaps? A better job. A sense of looking back at the end and saying, “Right, I now get what that was all about.”

I wonder if it’s one of those situations where you’re forced to examine yourself? You know, analyze all the things you could have done much better. Like being organized enough to have the money to buy your friends a drink. Or not breaking up with Lisa six months ago, and regretting it ever since.

So, this feels like a proper quest. Maybe it’s a kind of escape room? Maybe there will be clues? Maybe we’re going somewhere where I have to take on a challenge? I don’t think I want to marry an alien, though. If I am to get married, I’d like it to be with a human. And that won’t be easy, while I’m speeding past Alpha Centauri into the infinite unknown.

I need to keep walking around and find out where I am. That’s what happens in escape rooms, isn’t it? I only ask, because I’ve never been in one. But I’m pretty sure no one gets out of the room just by sitting there and hoping someone will walk up and hand them a key.

What might be a good idea is to find how this thing is being driven. I need to either get to the bridge, or cockpit, or whatever, to turn it around, or to ask whoever is driving if they could take me back home. That’s got me thinking; would a ship like this have a steering wheel? Did the Enterprise have a steering wheel? I seem to remember two of the crew ‘driving’ it. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much to steer around. Not much to crash into in space. I hope.

The room I’m in is like a big metal warehouse, more like what you’d imagine from the movie with the alien, rather than the bridge of the Enterprise. It’s less 2001, and more like the Vogon ship in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Hey, maybe I know more about this stuff than I thought I did? I knew watching endless sci-fi movies wasn’t a waste of time. Despite what Lisa used to say.

My initial scream didn’t seem to attract anyone, so the person could be right who said nobody hears you scream in space. But there are also different kinds of screaming. There’s the scream that says, “Hey, if anyone’s there, could you come and find me and help me understand what’s going on?” Then there’s the other type of scream which says, “Oh, I’m going to die a horrible, lonely, and meaningless death!”

I wish Jeff was here. He’d know what to do. He was always good at outward bound stuff, survival skills, that sort of thing. Except for the time we went camping in his tent, and he forgot to bring the tent poles. I mean, who doesn’t keep the tent poles with the tent? And there was the other time we set up a camp at night, in a nice field by a large house. We drove our car along the edge of the hedge, and put up the tent in the dark, with the idea that we’d get out of there early in the morning before anyone even knew we’d been there. Problem was, we overslept and were woken up by a thudding sound nearby. What were the chances of putting up a tent on the third green of a golf course? Still, Jeff was resourceful. I’ve never seen anyone take a tent down so fast, stuff it in the back of his car, and hightail it out of there before the police were called.

All of this makes Jeff sound a bit incompetent, but he really isn’t. He could survive in the wild. As long as they weren’t any snakes, of course. Snakes are his weakness. Anyway, enough about Jeff. He isn’t here and I may or may not be on my own.

Why am I here? Not much is making sense at the moment, so let’s start with reminding myself of some basics, to get some point of reference.

My name is Dave Woodbridge. I’m 28, single, I live in a small apartment, and I work as a legal proofreader. Legal proofreader makes me sound academic, but it’s just making sure that any amends a lawyer makes to a contract are inserted properly. See, I’m boring you already. It is boring work, there’s no doubt about it. What makes it worse is that I do it at night. My shift starts at five in the evening and I work through until 12:30 in the morning. I’d like to put some kind of positive spin on it, but I can’t. It really is that dull. But, it pays the rent, and we’re not always busy.

How come you were down the pub last night if you were supposed to be at work all evening? I hear you ask. Because it was my day off, OK?

Yes, I’m still rambling. I don’t know who ‘you’ are, or even if there is or will be any kind of ‘you.’ If you are the ‘you,’ sorry if I was a bit tetchy back then. You have to understand, this is all a bit stressful.

Good to remind myself of who I am. That gives me some small anchor in this sea of madness. What else do I know about myself? I’m not in the habit of being delusional, I have no history of weird mental health, I don’t do drugs. So, why am I here? Who would be the supreme architect who would engineer this whole quest for me?

I wonder if it’s aliens? You hear these stories about people being abducted by aliens. There are good abductions, like in Close Encounters… well, apart from families grieving for decades over the disappearance (and presumed death) of their loved ones. However, they did turn out to be nice aliens. And they did give everyone back again. Eventually.

Then there are bad abductions, like the poor guy in Independence Day. It feels like the quality of the abduction depends on how kind the aliens are. The Independence Day aliens weren’t too pleasant.

I remember watching a movie about a kid who was amazing at playing at video games. It turns out some aliens had planted these space war video games all over the earth. Their plan was to secretly recruit anyone who showed outstanding aptitude when playing these games. They then took the best players to fight against their real inter-galactic enemies. The video game was a kind of simulation for their actual war.

So, let’s think about this. What am I so good at that aliens need to abduct me to use my amazing powers? Could it be some interstellar legal documents need checking to make sure the amends have been inserted properly?

On one level, that would make sense; I read contracts and offering circulars of such mind-boggling gobbledygook that surely only aliens could have written them. I’ve been doing this job for five years and I don’t think I’ve ever understood one single document.

However, I doubt I’ve been abducted for that. There are far more proficient proofreaders than me. They would have been better off abducting James, the Canadian in our office. Incredibly pedantic proofreader, and misses hardly anything. Shame he’s such a miserable, insufferable bore, going through a marital split, with constant migraines. “Hey, James, why don’t you tell us again about your divorce and how much your head aches? Oh, wait, you already have done for the last two hours.” Good luck, aliens, if you’re ever considering abducting him.

All right, we have one option, that I’ve been abducted by aliens who may or may not want to harness my brilliance at something. What else could there be?

Maybe Debbie’s friend, Angela, is an alien? I told you she was strange. Plus, she had a motive. Me not fancying her or buying her a drink. That all makes perfect sense. She’s getting her own back by sending me to her home planet where all kinds of fiendish punishments await. Oh, why didn’t I just buy her a drink?

That’s a second option, a bit like the first but with more purpose to it. While I think of other options, I’m going to walk through the doorway I’ve just arrived at.

Here I go, walking… walking… entering into… a… oh, another huge room. Seems similar to the room I’ve just been in: large, mostly metal, not much in it, some lighting panels high above me, another window, same scene outside.

There is one significant difference, though. I can see someone on the far side of the room.

Hmm, last night’s nausea seems to be coming back. I suddenly feel very nervous. Now would be a good time to know where the bathrooms are.

Who is it? Have they seen me yet? Are they friendly? I’m walking closer, because it seems the only logical thing to do. Surely, they are going to know what’s going on. Should I shout out? What do you say in situations like this?

Do you start with, “Yoohoo, can you help me?” You never want to sound incompetent. Like when you’re driving around a strange town and you finally have to wind your window down to ask a local where you are, and you know they’re inwardly rolling their eyes at you for being another useless tourist.

Maybe I should take a more confident approach?

How about, “Hey, what’s the big idea? I want answers, and I want them now!”

When you meet a bear, aren’t you supposed to curl up in a ball and let them feel you’re no threat to them. Or do you make yourself as big as possible and shout at them? I can’t remember. Maybe that’s mountain lions?

These are the moments you wish you knew more about what to do on a spaceship when meeting potentially hostile aliens.

I’m getting closer. Should I cough, to get their attention? Should I walk louder, stomping my feet? That might be a good way to show my confidence without appearing too aggressive.

I can now see it’s a humanoid life form. Wow, I sound like Dr. McCoy when he beams down to a new planet. “It’s definitely life, Jim!”

OK, here we go, the humanoid has just seen me. It’s a woman. Late 30s, I guess.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

She just said that to me, by the way. Almost the exact thing I was going to say to her, but she beat me to it.