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They both laughed, and as they had done so often before, tagged from topic to topic, covering the basics of day-to-day life to love, life, death, and remembrance. Sarah implicitly trusted her; she felt like she could tell Diane anything and that she’d understand. Diane found in Sarah both a ready wit and emotional depth; they both had long ago forgotten to look upon each other as aged or young. As distance did not matter, neither did age, nor time. Suddenly (and it was always suddenly) Diane’s wristwatch began to beep tinnily, signalling that it was movie time. She and Harry always watched a movie in the evenings and Sarah recognized that as the conversation boundary, not pushing beyond it.
As Diane shimmered away into nothingness, an idea blinked into Sarah’s mind. Maybe not the resupply ships, but what about the scavenger ships? They didn’t stop by nearly as often, but it was their job to take the waste from the reactors; they sent men inside the domes, and they stopped at every colony. They were much larger ships, shaped like flat frogs, and they had plenty of room for excess cargo, unlike the needle-thin resupply ships. Yes! But the next question hit her — what would she trade, and how much? She walked down the hall, pondering, and took a left into the open kitchen area.
The smell of lasagna still filled the air, and combined with the misty-fruity atmosphere generated by the hydroponic plants that ringed the kitchen like a green wall, made her feel at home. She found her clipboard, and outlined the trading plan. She worked on it for an hour or so until she felt her energy begin to wane. The grandfather clock in her room struck eleven tones, signalling her usual evening reading time.
Ordinarily she would have spent her time reading until she fell asleep, but the bend in the hallway summoned her like a magnet; her steps, though leaden, carried her there, and then around the curve to the sliding door just beyond. Over the doorframe a sign stated in utilitarian simplicity something stoic and yet, beyond need of ornamentation: “Observation Room.”
She drew near and the door slid open automatically, revealing a spacious room with a large plexiglass window that dominated the far wall. Through it the cold, distant light of a thousand thousand stars greeted her, perfect pinpricks of Heaven against the limitless dark of space. She stood for a moment in awe of the silent stars and their eternally fixed courses. Then, with a long, low breath, as though her head were forced down by a gradual emotional gravity, she rested her eyes upon a sight much closer still: four grey graves set in the rock of Adenia, each illuminated by a soft, yellow band of light. Though she could not read the writing from here, she knew each letter by heart. She mouthed the words, “Mom”, “Dad”, “Brenda”, “James” with long moments between each.
And yet, she had no tears. She found her breathing labored as though she were breathing in spikes, and though the sorrow was like a coarse, cold, river, it did not drown her. The piercing of incipient tears remained just a piercing without breaking. The memories of each family member were distinct and beautiful, little bubbles of the past frozen in time, and because of that, immortal; her memories of their shared time was their foundation. The pain seemed indistinct as though it had happened some time long ago, perhaps before she was born. It swelled within her with some breaths, but never spilled over; it swelled and faded, swelled anew, but did not burst. A year is just another division of time, not different from a day or a week, or a month, she thought. They are arbitrary divisions when there are no seasons, when there is no sun.
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