Home When I Think of You

July 15

Dear Hank,

I miss you man. I wish we could see each other soon. But until then, I’ll have your back from way out here. I hope Uncle Teddy and Aunt Mara are well. Tell them hey for me.

Since you told me a little about your schedule and your life in San Francisco, I thought I’d fill you in on mine here.

After we eat breakfast around 06:00, Uncle Zeke and our neighbor Mick and the others who work outside The Bravery hop on the smaller craft and go inland. They’re water miners, as I will likely be one day. It’s a bit of a difficult thing for some people to grasp, but our ship harvests ice and turns it into potable water for the masses. The Bravery houses a treatment plant and bottling facility, so when Zeke’s crew returns with drums of sludge (they call it), it means we can keep on living. “There is no life without water.” Heck of a motto for Oasis Enterprises, wouldn’t you say?

My school is on a schedule so that I can do different chores around the ship later in the day. I start at 09:00 and end at 12:00. School is strange here on The Bravery. Do you know I read the other day that students used to physically depart their homes and meet together in some sort of community-owned building? It was common all over the world! Before the third strain of Malforia that came through in the 2040s from Indonesia and wiped out half the population, it was the most common way for children to learn. Many of the “schools” were even government-funded! Here, obviously, we access most of our lessons on the screens in our cabin walls.

So far this month I’ve already completed the coursework for Japanese 1A and I’m getting ready to start Japanese 1B (remember I told you about my friend Akari? I want to be able to speak Japanese with her). The A.I. teacher (her name is QuAI) also taught me an abbreviated course in art history from 1500s Europe through the 2110s NeoClassical Abolitionist Arts movement. Those guys were wacky.

Every day except Sunday from 13:00 to 15:00 I work cleaning up the cafeteria and surrounding hallways from the three lunch shifts. It’s nice because I’m normally on garbage duty (which means I don’t get wet doing dishes and I don’t have to talk to anyone).

Zeke doesn’t get back from the mines until 17:30, so I spend some of my afternoon napping, reading, playing games, or seeing Akari or another friend or two, but then right at 17:00 I start cooking. I’ve learned to cook quite a few things, but none of them really taste that great! Zeke always acts like it’s good, though. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s polite or because his taste buds don’t work.

There’s not enough room in any one of our cabins to hold more than three or four people at a time, which is why we normally don’t eat in the cafeteria unless it’s a special occasion. Mostly it’s just Zeke and me by ourselves, or Mick and his wife Elena have us over (Mick actually really likes to cook, but Elena is much better at it).

I like my friends okay, but none of them make me laugh like you do in your letters. Maybe if being an international do-gooder doesn’t work out for you, you could try comedy or screenwriting! They’ve talked about getting us the M2 q-fi enhancer installed on board to strengthen our signal. It would be great if I could actually video chat you sometime instead of just writing back and forth. It’s been so long since I’ve actually heard your voice.

We’ve become tight-knit here on this little vessel, and even though Zeke’s job is dangerous (there have been four deaths over the last two years down in the mines), he’s entrusted his life to those around us. Mick won’t let him out of his sight. He and Elena are a lot older, and they treat me and Zeke like their own kids.

As a fifteen-year-old, though, I’m being told I need to figure out “what I’m doing with my life.” At least that’s what all the school videos I’ve watched say. ‘This is the time of life to decide who you are, what you want, and where you’re headed!’ Man, Oasis Enterprises really lays it on thick. They’ve probably already indoctrinated me into being some kind of cyborg for the company without my knowing it!

When I’m not with Zeke, Elena and Mick, or my friends, I spend most of my time on The Bravery’s topmost observation deck. I stare for hours out into the dark sky through my flare goggles, thinking. At night, I sometimes feel like I’m looking through the stars and into the future.

About the future... if land is less important than water because ‘there is no life without water,’ I wonder if life is less meaningful (or something) without the future. The past is a given, you know… fixed. It’s all over. I can’t change the fact I’m out here on this ship, floating along in the emptiness, breathing treated air, wearing tons of gear, drinking rationed water and foodstuffs that are prepackaged and sent to us in barrels (or the rare foods that are actually grown aboard the vessel). You can’t change the fact that your present is in the trash heap that S.F. has become. But the future is uncertain, pliable. If there’s one thing I know about it, though, it’s that the future feels like a lifeline of sorts, like the miners use. It lets me know that something or someone will pull me forward and outward if I get frozen stiff, or buried in the sludge of the now.

I wish we could see it together, Hank. The future, I mean. Seems you’re trying to make your way back in San Francisco, helping with the cleanup effort from the August Event fourteen years ago. I can just imagine you there, living with Uncle Teddy and Aunt Mara, working to make a difference, being so positive like always. I’m so proud of you. I can almost see your face. It’s a bit of a blur, but it’s from the memory I have of us swinging at the industrial park. I can just faintly make out your eyes smiling at me through your toxin shield.

Thanks for sending the picture of the Bay. It looks better than I remember. Especially the sky! What a beautiful sunset! Uncle Zeke brought me here when I was only three to get away from the pollution in the Bay Area, so you know I don’t have any memories of that place. Thanks for the other picture too, the one of you. I printed it out and have it taped to the wall in my sleeping pod. You look like you’ve been lifting weights since the last time you wrote! If we ever see each other again, I want to wrestle you to see who’s stronger. I’ve been lifting with some buddies here, too (there are only five teenage boys on board), but we have a limited amount of space and even less equipment, so I have to slip into the facility when no one’s in there, or it takes hours waiting for the right machines.

Last time you wrote me you asked if I missed home. I honestly don’t know how to answer you. Mom and Dad both passed when we were only kids from breathing in the toxic fumes around San Fran. I get sad about it sometimes, because I wish I missed them, but I was only one year old when it happened. I guess I do miss them, in a way, or maybe the idea of them, but I have Zeke. He is pretty much the only dad I’ve ever known, and he takes care of me. As do the others.

Four fifths of my life have been aboard The Bravery. And I don’t know San Francisco like you do. It’s not really home anymore. You were older when we lost our parents, so you remember them and our house in Fisherman's Wharf better than I do, and you also never left where we were born. Since I’ve been gone, you’ve, well, you’ve become a man. You were ten when I left, which makes you… you just turned twenty-two last week! Happy birthday, Hank! I’ll have to figure out a way to wire you some sort of surprise!

I don’t miss home the way I think you’re asking me. The Bravery is a sort of home, I guess, so I don’t miss it because I’m here. But also, Zeke is here. Elena is here. Mick is here. There’s Ralph (we call him Robot) and Mike, Celeste, Sylvie and Mel… they’re not family, but they are family, you know? Which is like a home.

And there’s you. I see glimpses of you in my own face sometimes when I look in the mirror. I mean, you are my brother. I see you in Zeke’s face too. He always talks about how Mom said you looked more like him than you did like her! I think it’s true. Zeke is handsome, and so are you. But don’t let it get to your head. Zeke’s been seeing this lady on The Bravery who works in communications, by the way. Her name is Gina. She’s really sweet. Oh! Whatever happened to that Luciana girl you wrote about a few times back? She sounded great!

Anyway, I don’t miss home because I think I am home. Not really on The Bravery, but — what if home isn’t a place, you know? What if home is the letters you write to me, or the bear hugs Zeke gives before he goes to the mines, telling me he promises not to die? What if it’s the way elderly couples like Mick and Elena nag each other?

What if the future we talked about, like a lifeline — what if that’s a kind of home too? I don’t belong in the past, because it’s over... but I belong now, and I belong with them, and with you, and I belong to the future. That’s my real home — in the stars, among the people, and swirling in a universe brimming with life and possibilities… It makes me wonder if there’s more out there, you know, other than what we can see, and whether or not I’d like to know about it.

I decided I’ll go into an engineering program when I turn eighteen, then go into the Pan-American military, then get my own ship. I’ve already picked out a name for it: The Tomorrow. I’ll tape pictures of you and your wife (don’t tell me you never thought about marrying Luciana!) and kids on the wall in my control room, and you can do the same with mine.

Even though I’ll be sailing around Jupiter, mining water from Europa for the colonists, I’ll always be home when I think of you.

Love you man,

Tyler

_______________

STAMP / 切手

July 15, 2448 / 2448年7月15日 / 21:09:53.17

M.S.T.K. PAID / Oasis Enterprises / *オアシス*

For immediate q-fi transfer / 即時のq-fi転送用

LOC. / ロケーション

Tyler Hawkins (1172B)

Water mining community - 52 // 水鉱山コミュニティ- 52

The Bravery (Cpt. D. Petrov) // 勇敢な船（Cpt。D.Petrov）

Europa - Jovial A.C. 44 // エウロパ衛星 - Jovial A.C。44

Jupiter / 56.b16.8e7 // 木星 / 56.b16.8e7

TO / と

Hank Hawkins

1630 B Grant Ave

San Francisco, CA 94133

Earth / 56.b22.9h1 // 地球 / 56.b22.9h1