Colours
11 Apr 2021Prochaska
Olympus Village, Mars, 16.5.3297: Zoe woke up with a thick skull. First she had to get her bearings. She was lying on an old mattress in a bare room, graffiti was smeared on the walls, and the only furniture was an old sofa that stood in the middle of the room. Dim daylight fell into the room through a poorly closing blind, making its way through swaths of cold cigarette smoke. The house's old air conditioner was struggling to maintain the temperature in the room. On the floor were trash, several full ashtrays, and several acquaintances of hers. Next to her on the mattress was Fay, her best friend, still sound asleep. Zoe stood up cautiously, her balance not yet wanting to cooperate, due to alcohol and sleep drunkenness she had to brace herself along the wall. Feeling her way slowly, she worked her way to the door; once there, she still had to step over Thrill. He was actually a brawny, unpredictable guy, because of whom she would normally change the side of the street, but within her troop there was a strong solidarity, and even a loopy guy like him kept to the rules in the community. She lifted her heavy boots over him and then stood in the dark hallway. Two doors down was the bathroom. Here she washed her face and rinsed her mouth. She had already been out with the others for two days, and accordingly her clothes reeked of a mixture of sweat, alcohol, and tobacco smoke. Today was her 22nd birthday, the troupe had celebrated in with her and they had gone to a concert by the Future Subjunkies at the Apex. After the concert they had moved on to this squat. She looked in the mirror. Her eyes had deep circles, and her black makeup was smeared. She wore a sleeveless black T-shirt and a short red skirt over holey tights. A half-dozen earrings adorned her right ear, and she wore a dyed-red mohawk, its strands standing up in all directions. She makeshiftly washed the makeup off her face, then headed back to her sleeping spot. Thrill was still blocking the door, snoring, but by now a few people were stirring in the room. She sat down next to Fay and picked up her jacket to search the pockets for cigarettes, but it was all used up. Then a pack of cigarettes landed on her lap, and from the opposite wall Janos waved over. He was wearing black leather pants with a white shirt, and looked even more overtired than she did. He rose with difficulty and walked over to her with unsteady steps. Then he took Zoe in his arms and wished her a happy birthday. Their relationship was currently in crisis; she had been strongly reproaching him for his drug use for the last few days. The worst part of her reproaches had been the hopeless feeling, knowing how futile it was to speak out against his addiction. At the same time, it had hurt her to see in his eyes that he continued to cling to the relationship with her. She postponed her anger for a moment and accepted the congratulations, but inwardly demarcated herself from the tenderness of the embrace. Janos seemed to sense her demarcation, at least after the hug he retreated back to his sleeping bag without further words. Now Fay woke up and fell around her neck as well: "Congratulations, Zora!" she said, and some vague, uneasy feeling arose in Zoe when she was called by her scene name. Fay had shaggy, blond hair; her eyes were alert and always seemed ready to jump at her counterpart. She was extremely thin and her drumming kept her very toned, which added to the impression of being a bundle of energy. She wore a loose-fitting, slightly holey shirt and tight black pants; her thick boots were only half-laced and wobbled loosely on her lower legs. Fay had become a best friend over the past few years. In a way, that had always puzzled Zoe, since they had both grown up so completely different; Fay was a neglected child, and she had grown up in precarious circumstances. As much as her parents' disappearance and being left on her own too soon had thrown Zoe off track, she had grown up in a sheltered family for 15 years. She had internalized a rock-solid feeling that in the end, when all difficulties were overcome, there was always something good waiting; this certainty was completely lost on Fay. Although Zoe always admired Fay for her fighting spirit, she also often had the feeling that her friend overshot the mark, as if her inner compass was not properly adjusted. Fay could only find inner peace in alcohol and drugs.
Finally, the whole troupe started to move. Someone turned on the music, and the whole colorful bunch slowly rose. The cold haze of smoke from yesterday was joined by new clouds, bottles were opened, and after a short time there was life in the joint again. Only Zoe suddenly kept to herself. It suddenly seemed to her that the loud music was only drowning out reality, and the haze in the room was obscuring the view of what was important. The exuberance was not appropriate; it led to a dead end. She had to think about the university, the exam in astrodynamics in three days. And she knew again what she had been running away from for the last few days. All at once the feeling of invulnerability that she had built up around herself the last few days disappeared. It collapsed like a house of cards, and she felt all at once uncomfortably out of place. She didn't muster the energy to say goodbye, but slipped out of the room; when someone asked what was wrong, she just said she had to run to the bathroom for a minute. In the hallway, she hurriedly slipped into her thermal clothes. Then, at the exit of the apartment, she felt herself being watched, and when she looked around her briefly, she saw Janos stepping into the hallway behind her. "Him, of course," she thought, for it could not be otherwise; he waved his hand briefly, and she nodded back, then slipped out. The street outside was still empty. She breathed in the morning air; the icy air woke her up, and the wakefulness felt good.
When she got home, she first got into the bathtub to get rid of the dirt of the last few days, then slipped into fresh clothes. After that, she was only busy studying. Then, the next day, she casually heard that the occupied apartment had been evicted by the police, a few hours after she had closed the door behind her. Thrill, of course, had been arrested for resisting arrest; well, what else.
At first, it had also felt to Zoe like her usual running away when something gets too much or too close, and she thought she would want to rejoin her people after a few days. That this had been her final farewell to her old clique thus only slowly became clear to her over the next few weeks. At first, other things were always more important, especially her studies took up so much of her time, but actually the drive to reunite had been lost as well. Chaos had been a constant companion in their lives, and had felt natural and familiar; now was the time to clean up. Fay eventually got in touch again, and they both promised each other to keep in touch; Zoe knew, however, that Fay would never keep her promise, and felt no desire to chase after her either. If Janos had called, she wouldn't have answered the phone, but either, he anticipated this reaction from Zoe, or he was too busy with himself to call. She let the hair on the shaved-out sides grow back, the fiery red color of her mohawk slowly growing out. The day she cut the last bit of washed out red out of the hair, she dyed it blue.
Bluford Orbital in LHS 3447, 8.1.3305: 5 days before departure to the Distant Worlds 2. She had made the decision to fly along hastily. If the departure had not been postponed, she would not have been able to go at all because of her own long-distance expedition and the incident on Weyn Dock in late 3304. She had just returned from Jameson Memorial, had refitted the Copernicus there for the expedition, then enrolled in the Fleet Engineer Corps. The new mining equipment still had to be tested, and anyway, the days before departure were so packed with appointments - and then she saw this ad somewhere for a hair tint that she couldn't get out of her head. Shocking Pink was the name of the shade, and without giving it much thought, she had already bought the color. In the evening, she took the time to drown out the blue and shape her hair into strands. The blue had now accompanied her for years and had become a symbol of order and self-discipline. The impulsive-chaotic part of her, however, had been suppressed over the years. Meanwhile, the chaos in her was no longer overpowering and destructive; it had lost the threatening. Her whole life situation had now changed. As long as she felt she had not yet arrived in life, she saw in chaos only its destructive side, of which she was afraid. The critical time of training and searching for a place in life was now over, the outer framework was now stable. In the chaotic element, the creative and inventive part was in the foreground for her in the meantime and she felt the need to give this part of her personality more space again from now on. The time of hiding behind a facade was over. When she was finished, she looked in the mirror. She liked the result, but it was also a bit too wild and chaotic for her. She thought about it for a moment, then finally grabbed a hair tie and tied her hair at the back of her head. After that, the image of a delighted Zoe beamed back at her from the mirror.