My life sucks.
15 Jun 2017Penelope Richman
Sitting on a stool, I took a moment to straighten my hair before talking.“Well, I should introduce myself. My name is Penelope Richman. Ya, ya, I know. But if I ever hear you crack a joke, I’ll rip your arm off and beat you to death with the bloody stump. Now that we have that established, I think we could be friends, and if not, well it is a large galaxy. Some estimated 400 billion stars, but I’m already digressing.”
“Okay, so in the beginning, my mom and dad did the jig, and nine months later, little ol’ me was born; kicking and screaming. Dad always said, I came into the world speaking my mind, and I like to think that I still do.
“My childhood was typical, like most children we took beach vacation trips to Mars, and ski trips on Achenar. We had lots of parties, friends of the highest affluence and the best of everything. I had personal coaches in ballet, my own private singing teacher, and was a debutante in etiquette.”
“I took an interest in modeling at 15 and daddy got me the best instructors in the field. I was quite successful in it. Having clawed my way up the ranks with finely manicured fingernails, I had it all; money, fame, any man I wanted. And then the unspeakable happened.”
“Daddy died. I took it hard. He was the best person I ever knew. But, as with everything, there was a catch. You see, where I grew up, the splitting of an estate isn’t exactly what one would call fair. The eldest male child receives the majority of the estate. In this case, the Federal Corvette, the Imperial Cutter, the business, the houses, the time shares the horses the jewelry. I got the Sidewinder.”
“It’s an old piece of shit. Not worth anything. Well, at first that's what I thought. In the glove compartment I found a note. It was simple and written by daddy.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. Opening it I started reading.
“I spoiled you rotten, and I regret what I did to you. It is time you learned to work for a living. Everything I built, it all started with this ship.”
I crumpled the piece of paper up and stuffed it back into my pocket
“The end. Like, seriously? I was left nothing but a rusty nail. So it’s not just an old piece of shit. It’s a death trap. I hope you're rotting in hell, dad.”
“So with that being said, I went through the pilot’s training, or whatever it was. I passed. Wasn’t hard actually. A few short videos posted on Gal-net, a test in the simulator and boom, I was holding a license. And let me tell you something. My picture is horrible. I tried to get them to do a reshoot, but the fat old cow behind the holo-imager wouldn’t let me. Normally I would sick daddy’s lawyers on them, but….ya….”
“So now, what am I doing? Ya, well with a whole two tons -what the hell is a ton anyway?- of cargo space, I’m ferrying bio-waste. Friking BIOWASTE! Poop. I’m moving poop from one system to the next. Why the hell would anyone want poop? It’s all I can afford to buy. And the profits from selling it is just enough to fill the damn ship up, feed me and….God I could use a new pair of shoes. I had to sell them all, but that’s another story, and... what was I talking about?”
“Oh, that’s right; poop. You know, you would think that I could land a job in the modeling biz, but it turns out, they only wanted the connections with my dad. Where are all my friends? I don’t have any. They all scattered when they learned I had nothing. So, let me tell you something; Credits do buy happiness. So excuse me, while I go and streamline my potential for credits per hour.”