I've had enough.
06 Aug 2016Harry The Hatchet
The old dusty house, the old dusty field. The crops, listlessly swaying in their own content way. The clouds that hang idillically over head. Even when they're grey and about to burst with rain the clouds always seem so complete. The road that runs along our small land, the rickety cars filled with happy families that rattle by. I don't know who any of them are. We retired here years ago, to this dusty old community on this dusty old rock. I still don't know a single family here.My brother, as adventurous as he was, owned old ships sitting in hangers all over the Bubble. When he died (in some blaze of glory, no doubt) he left them to me. Though I just left the owners credentials swimming in some beaurocratic loop in some lender's data banks.
I'm no stranger to space-fairing of course. I spent many years ferrying goods from one shit-hole station to another. But that was long ago.
Life here on this rock is easy, it's just what I was looking for. At the time, any way. My beautiful wife, a home, an easy living and all the time in the world to enjoy both. But, years on I am tired of easy. Tired of my wife, as amazing as she is.
Weeks ago I started the process of re-claiming them. The ships and other cargo. What ever else crap he kept, and there was a lot of it.
It fetched me enough to get a new Cobra MkIII. It sat, waiting, in the spaceport only a few miles down the valley.
On the night, I crept downstairs. I slipped into the space suit. Rather difficultly, mind you. My brother was one or two sizes smaller than me (and by smaller, I mean thinner...). I packed what I needed, it wasn't very much. Then I went for the access card. A card that should allow me into the space-port, into the Cobra then into the inky black sky to adventure. I hid it in the kitchen but when I went for it, it wasn't there. I searched, awkwardly and quietly, trying not to wake the wife, for around half an hour. Giving up, I thought "The staff at the spaceport could flash me a new one, I have all the ID papers to prove it's mine. I'm worrying too much..."
I went for the door. I heard a sigh, behind me. I knew the noise. It was the noise I heard when ever I came home late, the noise I heard when I had done wrong. A deserving noise, at the least. I turned. My wife, with an understanding smile, sat on the bottom step. She carefully bent the access card in her hands, smiling a bittersweet, sad face at me.
"Listen, I-" I began.
"I know..." She said. Then she stood and walked over to me. She handed me the card and hugged me, squeezed me tighter than ever.
"I know what you feel, Harry, love. All you've done for years is stare up and sigh, at the night sky. Your ears prick up at the sound of a ship popping into the atmosphere. I see you stop and watch 'em come and go from the space port." She took my hands and wrung them in hers. Her pink cheeks didn't even twitch, she just grinned. Tears gathered in my eyes.
---
The door, the polished metal door, slide upwards. And there she was, the cobra. I felt horrible for leaving everything here, just to spend what time I could in space. I felt like a cockroach.
I called the ship Roach. We set out yesterday.
I am going to see what other assets my brother left, then I'm going to sell them.
Let's see where we go from here.