he flips a journal page, counting the rows of weeks; four
weeks in a month, four weeks on a page. each page is a
month. that’ll help him do this faster. if they both eat two
meals a day, they’ll make it to this specific point; if they both
cut down to one, then it jumps longer. maybe it’s possible to
shear off another twenty-five percent, though he won’t be able
to handle much less than that. beth is smaller, as he’s–pointed
out before in jest multiple times–but maybe they’ll both try a
day of one part of a meal to see how they feel before he actually
commits to that, whenever ration stock drops that low. he thinks
it’d be better if he were here alone–no offense, beth, he loves
you. it’d just give him double the ration time, and she wouldn’t
have to worry about dying. she’d be back in space with beck
and martinez and vogel and lewis. safe.
she’d also have more stock of medication. there’s
more on the ship in the medical bay–or beck’s do-
main, as watney so thoughtfully coined it. ‘ that we’re
dead. ‘ he knows that she knows that. obvious fact.
he also knows that’s not what she meant. ‘ my par-
ents are probably preparing to take a plane from
chicago to d.c. to complain, or to–make sure the report
was true. they can’t afford that, though. i’m sure they’re
saying what happened was the result of a tragic accident,
or a freak storm–whcih, y’know, it would’ve been–and
that we won’t be forgotten. our names will probably be
set in some kind of memorial. ‘ he crosses out a week of
sols. ‘ until they realize we’re not dead. which will happen
eventually. ‘ we’re not dying here. the only way to get
back to earth was to follow acidalia planitia to the schia-
parelli crater and hitch a ride back with the next team.
‘ then they’re going to have to un-
set those names. poor bastards. ‘
he caps the sharpie.
“i don’t mean nasa. i mean, like --”
hesitation stalls her speech; she wraps one hand
tight around the pill bottle, caps her knee with the
other. before the hackathon, when she told her
parents she wanted to win because she wanted to
work for nasa someday, they thought she meant
she wanted to be part of ground control, planning
and surveying from behind a screen -- or a resea-
rch team, creating and testing new technology for
someone else to hurl into the black. something that
kept her feet firmly planted in the earth.
when nasa accepted her to train as an astronaut she
got on a plane, flew home joyous and bubbling to give
the news in person, ammi, baba, i’m in, i’m going to be
an astronaut, and they were confused - beth had never
liked travel, never ventured outdoors to seek adventure,
never shown a desire to be anything but a girl behind a
computer, programming, programming. an astronaut?
ya allah, elizabeth, isn’t that dangerous? she’d taken her
mother’s hands in hers, ammi, this is what i want -- met
the worried gaze, the furrowed brow, of a woman who had
already buried a child, don’t be afraid. allah will carry me
safely.
she wonders now if it had reassured her at all. she knew
her daughter did not set much in store by the divine.
the only funeral she has ever been to was a military one,
the marching music and the folding of the flag. what would
hers have been like? what was said? she reaches up to
tuck a curl of hair behind her ear and then drops her hand
into her lap again, follows it down with her eyes and fixes
on it as though its limp fingers and creased palm are of
great interest to her.
blakekathryn
titsay
romaincrisis
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
pixelskylines
