This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
HEA 10.24.406
I guess I settled in.
Should I start from the beginning? Yeah, let’s do that.
I thought flying sucked, but that’s only two hours of cramped space with a stranger. Try 4 weeks in a chemical sleep by yourself. You’ll take no armrests next to the tall guy any day. They didn’t tell me I could have headaches for a week.
So you finally wake up for the last time, you get your bags together and you’re ready to go, and then they totally make you wait for 2 hours while they inspect and disinfect every. single. pod. All 80 of them. They put this powder around everything, so now I go out with my peacock powdered luggage, that is way too heavy for not having really walked in five weeks, and the air tastes like soap and metal. Apparently this is biodegradable and isn’t going to make me sick, but it doesn’t make up for the fact I haven’t showered in over a month. They probably lied. They probably put that powder on everyone to make sure that it doesn’t smell like ass. God, if I smelled as bad as I think I did, I can’t imagine how it smells to go out in the terminal without that powder. Oh wait, I can. I gagged a bit. Don’t imagine that.
You exit one at a time, because a good number of the people suffer from hyper-strain. I don’t know why it’s hyper. Probably something to do with physics or something stupid like that. They send you out one at a time in the hopes people don’t topple over each other, and that way it’s easy to figure out who’s going to take an hour to walk. Thank stars I could walk. I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to, so I would be a bumbling debutante. My mom had me wear this really nice dress with sheer layers on the trip, just in case I met some rich guy right at the terminal. I think when she looked around the terminal back at Earth she realized it was nothing but laborers and young graduates. Because she thought I would get engaged right away I got this powder streaking over my black and red dress with the sheer thingy. Mom says it looks good on me, but it didn’t anymore.
Georgia barely recognized me. Last time she saw me I didn’t even have tits, and I was half a foot shorter. Now I have heels and a fancy dress, blearily stumbling with a ton of luggage that looks like monsters eyes and all of it and me are covered in this forsaken powder. And she just breaks out laughing. She’s practically tearing up with how hilarious I look. I didn’t even realize it until shuttle back because I was on auto pilot. She sat across from me in the shuttle, and I finally wised up enough to ask why she was crying. She just said “The image of it all. What a reunion.” She started laughing again.
Garrison looks like what aliens would draw if they needed a stereotypical human male to describe us. If we ever do find other life out there I’ll point them his way. He’s medium; his build, coloring, height, even the tone of his voice is just average. I have never met someone who I would never be able to pick out of a crowd. It’s almost eerie to look at him. He doesn’t talk much either. He gave a bow and said “pleasure to meet you” and that was it. I don’t think he’s said a word to me since.
Georgia and Garrison kept their distance from me. They got really dressed up. Or I think they did, maybe they dress in fancy clothes all the time. I guess purple and green are fashionable on Titatnia because that’s what Georgia was wearing, with her hair pinned close to her face and her bracelets jingling along. Garrison had a nice suit on in an olive color. It looked like a bog puked him out. How’s he supposed to know though? He’s never seen a bog. He’s never seen nature.
I already miss tress. Every walkway here has high ceilings and bright lights and light colors. It’s not sterile white like some of the other colonies I’ve seen through vids. They have pale blues and pinks and purples as you walk along. There’s no graffiti. The walls are asking for something more but they just sit there, happy to be one color.
We weren’t on the walkways for long. Georgia and Garrison led me, the powdery embarrassment, to the El station. The cars go around above most of the colony, hence, “el” or elevated train. How original. Half the time you’re on the edge and you get a view of the planet outside. It’s totally desolate out there. Golden craters and recycling depots left outside civilization. In space no one can smell your funky trash, so there is sits. A faint atmosphere exist so that you an have a yellow tinge to the sky above. Apparently they thought there was enough H20 to help terraform this place years ago. That’s what Georgia told me. Who thought water was up in that sky? Especially enough to harness for people? You can still see every star when the sun is out.
Oh yeah, looking into the sun on earth is painful, but here it’ll make you puke. I almost did. The shades they put on the El help enough to give you time to turn your head if the sun is up. It’s tiny but it will kick your head out of your eyeballs if you try to look at it. Apparently it keeps the colony warm enough without any extra man-made heaters, considering what the biodome is made out of. Biodome is a weird name too, considering a lot of this isn’t strictly circular. It’s more triangular. Biotriad, however, is not as easy to say, so biodome it is.
The ride to Georgia’s neigborhood was only 30 minutes, so I got there fast. I was still carrying my own luggage when we walked to her building and took the lift up to the 31st floor, only 3 floors from the top. Apparently that means something. They have one of the two flats with a bay window out there. When I first walked in I’m introduced to all this earth art Geogia collects. It costs a fortune out here and Garrison is happy to buy her all of it. But the living room is kind of small. It has just enough space for a couch, a love seat, and a coffee table. Not much else going on but the view, and of course the projector. they have a screen that drops down from the ceiling to project what’s on the net to watch. I guess Georgia can keep up with all her Bahn Estrada vids from years ago. Not like any of it is new.
My room is skinny. It feels like a long closet. The sheets are nice, but Georgia forced me to change in the bathroom before I got powder on anything. As soon as I did I went to the bed and slept like death. When I woke up breakfast was ready the next morning. Georgia had bots doing it for her. It was food, I guess. Still good. My eggs were a little too runny. They’re not really eggs anyway. Those you save for baking here. On Titania there’s a lot of synthetic food that looks and tastes pretty legit. The waffles were not so bad.
By the time you guys see this thing, I think I’ll been here a week. Don’t matter, I’ll definitely keep you updated. Let me know how life is back on Earth. Especially the weather. I’m thinking I’m going to miss seeing different weather out my window. It helped paint the day. Each one unique. Like a cloud or a snowflake.
Didn’t mean to get into preschool territory there. Anyway, when something exciting happens I’ll let you know. Let’s see if I can find me a rich husband, preferably one who knows how to dance.
VIRGINA
No comments:
Post a Comment