Euphoria and the Man From the Moon

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. They also say that time bends and warps, like the molecules of my face bending and stretching as I plummeted to impossible depths. ‘Depths? Is there depth in space?’ I remember vaguely speculating before it went dark.



I woke up with my face in the dust. My helmet had shattered, but I had somehow hit the jackpot and landed on a planet where I had not been sucked into a bubbling, molten fireball, or even worse, a planet where the pressure would have sucked the brains from my nose. I rubbed the back of my head where there was a lump gleefully growing.



Where was I? I spun in a circle, tall fingers of rock pointed to the purple-grey sky from where I had come from, mocking me to return. Strange silver fronds splayed by my feet, desert ferns; where was I?



The mission had started fine; actually, it had been one hell of a morning. The Captain had been in a rage about the state of the furnace and how it had cooled his morning cup of roco-coffee to something: “colder than ice-bear snot.” 
Ice bears were mythical beasts of our forefathers' time, before the Great Global Warming. Shivering I thought I wouldn’t mind a bit of global warming right now. In fact it would be great. I kicked a rock and wondered if Earth once looked like this. It was crazy we couldn’t return to our ‘Planet of Origin’ and instead we were forced to float in giant Junk Ships, navigating space. So consumed by greed and the seemingly unstoppable forces of their leaders, 'The Politicians,' humans had managed to eat their planet alive. Then there came a night, the scripts said, where a tidal wave of a magnitude so great grew from the flesh of the ocean and slammed its mighty hand down upon the world.



My ancestors lived in Coober Pedy, rock country in the middle of a nation that was called Australia; they fled to high ground when a river suddenly bled through their town. More people came: caught in the water, fleeing in their boats, holding onto for dear life to the scraps that kept them afloat, all fleeing from nowhere to nothing. The population swelled and resources began to run dry…



Water, I thought, my mouth like sand. Patting the sides of my space suit I felt for the vacu-flask, thankfully it had not shattered. I took a large swig of the eternally recycled liquid and took note of my stock: One space helmet, shattered… three vacu-feeds, one medi-pen…



I guess people may have thought that the space travel of the future would have been furnished in elegance and the advancements of technology. Truth is, when my ancestors pooled together their resources and built whatever they could with whatever they had, the end result was less...refined. Yet we were resourceful folk nonetheless, I thought to myself, nodding in approval as I jammed one part of a wire I found in my medi-pen into the missing signal launcher I held in my hand. Above me lilac sky began to bruise with hungry clouds that seemed to swallow whatever frequencies I was punching into space. There was a slight crackle: “Astrid?” I hollered into it. Crackle - muffled fucking crackle, I sighed; this was not good.



How had I even ended up here? That's right: the Captain bitching about his roco-coffee and us cadets running around the ship to get all the gear organised for the mission. It was quite a simple job; land on OBERON 44, the meteor surrounding Jupiter, to pluck the precious ‘space daisies,’ long, glowing strands of radioactive nuclear fibres perfect for our thrusters, named space daisies for their big, fat, smiling luminescent heads.



I was out there, doing my business, now upgraded to Cadet A Squad, I was one of the most competent of the bunch. Then Milly Meyers said something that made me laugh; it wasn’t her joke, or the fact I threw my head back to laugh, it was the bulky mini-roid I spotted too late, heading my way. Worse than an asteroid, a mini-roid was a rock strong enough to smack you into the gulfs of space, yet small enough to be undetectable until the last minute. Like now.



“Boof” the mini-roid punched me in the stomach and I went hurtling. Everyone's faces turned towards me but, out in the open seas of anti-gravity, everything worked in slow motion. They barely had time to fumble when my tether to OBERON 44 suddenly ripped: “Poxy fucking space rope,” I yelled in anger: “Astrid!” I screamed. His face turned to me. We locked eyes, his widening in comprehension when he saw I was being drawn towards a vacuum. “I love you” I mouthed and then I was just another atom blinking in the endless space of infinity.



_________




Astrid, the man from the Moon, I will never forget the day I re-met him. Walking down the ship’s hallways, just another day in space; then HE walks past me and fills the entire room. Flashbacks of the past, nights in places I have only seen pictures of in Earth class, him holding me close but knowing it could never be. Another name sits on my tongue, but I turn to him spinning around and he looks just as baffled and bedazzled as I do. I walk up to him: “Do I know you?” I ask. He shakes his head, then nods: “I think you do but we don’t?” Puzzled. My name comes calling from the hallway: “I have to go. But it was nice meeting you…?” “Astrid,” he replies, a small smile: “Euphoria” I reply, with a grin back.