Launch Day
A flash science fiction story
“Hot chocolate.”
“Hot chocolate? It’s New Year's Eve and you’re drinking hot chocolate? Hell no!”
I sighed. “I don’t want anything else.”
“Not even tonight? Before launch?”
“Yeah, not even before that. Obviously. I just asked for hot chocolate.”
“Two rounds of Mar’s red cider!”
I shook my head and walked away from the bar.
“Tomorrow’s gonna be a hell of a ride!” My new friend shouted after me. “You’ll wish you’d stayed!”
I ignored him. I didn’t really want to. I don’t know why I kept walking. I was used to drinking. Hell, I used to drink as much as the rest of them, probably even more. Maybe it was just the boredom that kept me from stooping to getting shit faced.
“I hate the way there’s nothing else for us but the damned launch.”
I paused. It was her.
“Why are you even here? You’re not even going.”
“Yes, I am.”
I usually had something to say, but that time I didn’t.
“I got on last night. I made the… naughty list, I guess you could say.”
“You know that’s a good thing, right?”
“Yeah, it’s a good thing. Otherwise, I’d be dead in a week, just like everyone outside will be.”
I found myself at a loss for words once more, but she filled the awkward silence.
“Hell of a show they put on though, announcing it like that. Luckily everyone’s quarantined. You think anyone’s going to get out, spread the word?”
“No, they’ll either be killed or frozen until after we get to our destination.”
“You mean Liberation?”
“I refuse to call it that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a fucking stupid name for a new planet. You know how they came up with that name?”
“I don’t, but I’d like to know, seeing as you’re so keen on telling me.”
“The name comes from their sentiment of building a perfect world. Do you think any world populated by these shit heads around us is going to be perfect?”
She looked around and actually laughed, but kept drinking whatever liquid was sloshing around in her cup.
“I think you’re being a bit nihilistic. You shouldn’t so openly criticize them. They’re saving you.”
“They’re saving a lot of people who shouldn’t be saved.”
“That’s relative.”
“Yeah, they are saving a lot of their relatives, aren’t they?”
She just shook her head at me. “You’d do the same,” she said.
“No, I wouldn’t. Not when I know a lot of others that should be going.”
“You talk like you want to back out.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t want to back out. I just want a different solution.”
“And we’re not getting one. This is it. And it’s your job, as the chief historian, to record everything.”
“I know,” I said. I hated being reminded that I wasn’t supposed to be here.
“I got you here, you should drink with me,” she suddenly said, as if reading my mind.
I turned away. I dreaded leaving Earth. I dreaded time as it turned, slowly and quickly all at once. I dreaded the writing I would do in the early morning, writing down the scene of reveling and excitement. I wondered what I’d do in the morning if I’d go through with my plan.
In the midst of my thoughts, I didn’t tell her goodbye. It was New Year's Eve, I probably I should’ve kept talking to her. Maybe had a drink or two anyway and maybe kiss her at midnight. Instead, I walked away and she didn’t call after me.
Mark J. Force 2019
A scene from an upcoming novella about a dystopian space voyage from Earth and all that befalls the ship’s historian.
