Ama Kit Xmas Gift - 12_2020

Merry Christmas Ama Kit!
I hope all is well over in Denver and that you and John are doing okay with a
quarantined Christmas. It definitely feels weird celebrating all alone (even though
we as a family don’t usually do it together), but we can still make it fun. (I may
have already baked more cookies than we have tins for.)
Because the postal system is so clogged up it was hard to think of gifts to give to
family living far away this year. However, quarantine has given me more time than
ever to write, so I thought that I would send some of the work I’ve done, both
recently and some older pieces.
I hope you enjoy. These are just some thoughts, feelings, and fictions, most of the
time all three. For the most part they transition between two themes, one to start
and one to end, but they are, really, independent works cobbled together for you to
read here.
Have a lovely Christmas, we love you and miss you and hope to see you in person
someday soon!
Love,
Svan

“Hope has two lovely daughters, anger and courage.
Anger at the way things are and the courage to
change them.”
- Augustine of Hippo

Contents
Patroclus and the Girl with a Pearl Earring
The Brown Planet
Hiraeth
Dear Generation Z
A West Wind, or a Zephyr
Before She Fell
Salt
Aylla on Gods
Ya’ersi Tree

When I wrote this I had just read the part of the Iliad where Achilles' partner (lover, best friend,
whatever you make of him), Patroclus, was killed by Hector. It was a very sad scene with much
prelude and aftereffects, and I had it on my mind in class when we were told to write a poem
based on one of the paintings offered. I quickly zeroed in on Johannes Vermeer’s ​Girl with a
Pearl Earring​. Particularly, I was drawn to her eyes and to her slack jaw. There is a deep
sadness in that face, but also a shock and a glassiness. She is not looking at you, at the viewer;
she does not know that whoever is in front of her is there. All she knows about is whatever her
body is facing, what her head has turned away from to watch our approach. I think that
whatever is in front of her must have broken her, and that reminded me of Patroclus. The hero
was winning in battle, after all, winning and remembering his promise to Achilles to return home
safe, until—with no warning—Apollo touched a finger down between his shoulder blades and did
a miracle so that his armor fell off and he was left, naked, for Hector to impale. Patroclus knew
he was going to die the second he felt the god’s hand on his back, but he did not accept it. He
tried to fight first.
We don’t all go through what Patroclus did, but that expression on his face, on the girl’s face, is
not unique to them. So I decided to write this poem, and I wrote it in the second person to mirror
the intimacy in Patroclus’s death (which Homer told by switching to the second person) and in
that expression.

Patroclus and the Girl with A Pearl Earring
You had thoughts of Patroclus
as your heels hit,
went click... click… click… on the Met
floor. It, grief, had bit
you, its maw gripping across your
stomach, its claws sinking
into your back, spears nipping
skin which Apollo
saw fit to shuck of its armorrip...
rip… rip… goes flesh.
In that moment, the god-like
man did not know he
was finished. Caught up in war
he fought on, confused
‘til Hector wrought his
end soon after. Almost close was
you, heels clicking
as you thought of Patroclus.
Of course the girl looked like him,
eyes on the brink of
distraught. Jaw inched to barely
ajar. A silver
pearl earring. Wrapped in soft cloth
that was like the cotton
underclothes ​b​rought to​ b​attle
b​eneath armor. Just
like Patroclus, her war had
been for nought. Just like
Patroclus, her face tilted,
not believing that
her helmet, her breastplate, gifts
that should have begot
victory, were gone. Just like
you, she faced her fall.
You had thoughts of Patroclus
and of a girl with

pearl earrings as your shoes
went click... click… click… on the Met
floor. They stood so lost,
eyes glossed and hopes quashed, fight caught
and peeled off, tossedclash
- to the earth at their feet
where they looked down. But
not you. You saw it coming.
So you thought of them.

This is an old short story I wrote nearly two years ago, and surely since then my writing style has
grown. It remains in my mind more for the characters and a few places I think I did well writing
the prose than the actual premise or the plot. But it fits well, I think, with some other works here,
so here it is. It can’t hurt.
(Though, warning, it has not been proofread since then, and is also the longest piece in this
collection.)

The Brown Planet
The lights flashed bright over the stage that day of October 1, 2343. Blinking erratically, they lit
the otherwise dark room with the irregular shine of all the colors of the spectrum, glinting off
dresses and jewels and nurturing within the crowd an air of excited anticipation. The crowd
swirled, constantly shifting to accommodate more people, despite how the building’s walls
almost seemed to fade in the distance. The ceiling loomed over them, proclaiming its own
immensity with long-stroked, glistening paintings of stars and planets and swaths of empty
blue-black space. ​Stand beneath me​, it seemed to say. ​You are nothing compared to my vastness.
But not an eye turned to this (and by their chatter and smug grins, one doubts if they ever
received it at all). No, all eyes were on the empty stage. A woman, tall and wavy-haired with
amethyst hoops the size of a man’s palm hanging from her ears, whispered to her partner, “So,
you think he’ll show, go through with this?”
The man beside her shrugged. “Who knows, he’s a con-man.”
She laughed. “A con-man, perhaps, but one with very promising ideas. Plus,” she added,
looking around, “I can tell most of these people are here to get their money’s worth.”
The man beside her just shrugged, brushed invisible dust off the shoulder of his meticulously
groomed black suit.
The crowd started to mutter, everyone pulling up the clock in their view. They grew louder as
they began to realize how late their guide was.
“Perfect, see?” A young boy grumbled. “I told you he wouldn’t show.”
“Oh, calm yourself, Patrick. Your father will be out in just a moment.” The woman’s, his
mother’s, voice held a tremor, herself unsure. ​Oh Pat, please hurry up. I don’t know what these
people will do if you don’t.​ Unconsciously she hugged her son closer.
As if the man could sense the unrest, the lights around the rim of the stage brightened, a so far
invisible door opening to let in a new figure. An odd shade in the light of the mixed colors, he
was lean with unusually pale skin and curly black hair that all hung combed to one side. His
eyes, an unseen color in the spotty darkness, were sharp, scanning the crowd with the broad,
shining white smile of a showman. For that was what he was: a showman.
“Welcome!” He spread his arms wide, his voice booming with the aid of hidden speakers. “To
the launch of Cruise Flight 1!” The crowd ooed and awed, its restlessness tempered by the arrival
of their guide. “Now,” he said, lowering his voice, “for all our history, all but the luckiest man
has been trapped on this single planet, this single rock. Sure, we went to the moon, we went to
Mars and Venus and Pluto, but only a few, lucky lucky people.” The crowd, silent under the
man’s spell, emanated a few cheers. “The results of such missions, some of the most amazing
events of our history, were interesting, but let’s be honest, how many of us cared? How many of
us got to reap the benefits of all those dollars spent?” Woops. The man nodded. “That’s correct.
None of us.​ But this trip, this trip is different. This,” he announced, grinning, “is for ​you​. The
people. The first tourist spacecraft ever to depart!” Clapping grew, overtaking his words.
Satisfied, the man stopped talking for a moment, nodding and grinning at the crowd, basking in

its applause. As it died down, he continued, “In the short time of one hour, Cruise Flight 1 will
be departing with a cargo of some two hundred crew members and over 1,000 passengers. From
there, it will leave Earth and start its two-week long voyage from the sun to the outer reaches of
our solar system. For those of you with tickets, the boarding process will commence in about
thirty seconds.” He grinned again. “I hope you enjoy your flight!”
The view from the ship’s windows was spectacular, Johanna thought. The wide windows - made
of real glass and strengthened with minuscule steel filaments, her downloaded guide helpfully
told her - showed a high view of the landing field: a dusty landing of concrete plagued by scorch
marks; three jets, their smooth, shining steel bodies standing out stark against the dust; two
buildings, as dusty and old and the landing; and the plains, lush and spreading forever in every
direction, making her view feel like that of an island in a swirling sea of gold. She sighed,
admiring the blue of the sky and the way the wind struck each blade of long plain grass to paint
the picturesque landscape, complete with a herd of buffalo sitting in the shade of a few trees on
the horizon.
Zooming in on her ret, Jo watched the animals flick flies away from their scruffy ears,
mowing away complacently at the grass. She couldn’t believe the animals had been almost
wiped out only a few centuries prior. ​How foolish people must have been then. Fortune lies not
with murder but with science.​ Her parents proved that. The climate disaster of the 2000s proved
that. ​Man is greedy,​ she thought, guilty. ​We do whatever we can to live happily, whatever to put
the largest steak on our plates. ​The steakless scientists saved them then. She frowned,
remembering the lavish (if vegetarian) meal she’d enjoyed the night before. For not the first
time, she wondered how much things had changed.​ ​And for not the first time, a fear overtook
her, the kind her little brother always teased her of. Earth was a paradise now, but no one
expected it to live forever - no matter how humans treated it. Now, as she prepared to leave, she
felt like a thankless teenager, leaving her mother’s beautiful home for a life of homelessness. ​It
will be okay.​ She took a breath, forced herself to smile. ​I will be back. And the buffalo will still
be here.
Speaking of, a finger tapped her shoulder. “Five minutes, Jo. Five minutes!”
She smiled, nodding at her younger brother’s energy. Only seven, he had no idea what it
meant to be leaving Earth, no idea about any problems other than their parent’s refusal to get him
the latest game, no idea that anything but cool views and a bigger pool laid ahead of them. Now
fourteen, Johanna had always been the worrier of the two, and now she felt the burden of
responsibility weigh even heavier on her shoulders. “I know, I know,” she laughed for her
brother, chiding “that means you have to put on your belts, Mal, no more jumping.”
He groaned, struggling out of her reaching grasp. “Not until Mommy and Dad get here.”
Johanna sighed, letting him go. “Malik, this is serious, do you know where we’re going?”
The young boy nodded, dark head bobbing. “Yup! Space.” He made a rocket sound with his
mouth, and his toy rocket made dips and swirls, flying laps around his head at the command of

his ret.
“Yes,” Johanna nodded, “but we’re going to be gone a long time. And,” she added, snatching
the toy out of the air, “this is the first time a craft of this size has chosen to go so far, and with so
many civilians.”
Malik frowned. “But we aren’t going far. Mommy says that our solar system is small.”
“Yes, but compared to Earth, we’re going far.”
He blinked. “Okay. But no seatbelts.”
“Yes seatbelts,” Johanna urged, dropping the toy ship and quickly strapping him in before he
could bounce off again. “Three minutes,” she handed it back.
“Three minutes,” he repeated, and the ship in his hands flew high.
Cruise Flight 1 took off at exactly 14:58 that day without any trouble, easily lifting off and
quickly rising to turn the shiny feather-gray ship into a red arrow disappearing into the sky. From
the ground, the remaining technicians, engineers, and civilian onlookers gazed up at it in delight
- the second largest ship ever to depart Earth, and the first to carry such a weight of tourist
passengers. It truly was a human milestone, a miracle, they thought, no matter what Patrick
Calaway’s critics claimed. They watched it, some with jealousy, some with awe, until even their
retina’s scopes couldn’t pick up a light.
On the ship itself, however, the man’s own son Patrick Calaway Jr. did not gaze back, neither
did he seem to take any interest in the miracle ship at all. Sitting strapped in the first class portion
of the cruise’s takeoff seats (after all, even with today’s technology no one could safely walk the
length of a spaceship still in atmosphere), he eclipsed his view of the departing blueness with an
old-time battlefield. A laspointer in his (virtual) hands, Pat wrinkled his brow in concentration.
Somewhere, there were enemies somewhere. Behind a rock or broken down building. In tunnels
below him maybe, maybe above him with a jet and invisi skin. Chuckling, he remembered once
how an opponent had smashed to pieces at his laspointer’s strike, their shriek coming surprised
over the intercom before being cut off, replaced with the popping of now gooey flesh beneath his
feet as he’d landed. Focusing, he bit his tongue, swung around, and laughing aimed a flurry of
shots at an escaping figure, anticipating a similar shriek and sizzle. They wouldn’t- the image cut
out and turning he scowled at his mother beside him. Her brown eyes stared impassively at her
own display, but he growled. She must have blocked him, the fool.
“Mom, I almost had him! Why’d you-”
“Because, Patrick,” she scolded, turning to him, “this is no way to act. Enjoy yourself in
reality for once, today’s events should be more exciting than any VR.” She smiled, brushing
back his black curls. They were unusual, he knew, very different from her own tight brown
knots, but still, she didn’t have to finger them. He brushed her away, scowling. “Your father will
be here any moment now, try and put up a happy face for him, hm?”
He grumbled, turning away. “Sure.” Bored, he watched the shrinking view of his home out the
window. The plains of the landing had long since disappeared, his view overtaken by a large

frame snapshot of North America. Someone somewhere would probably die for this view, for the
way the light glinted off the windows and accented the curves of the land, displaying proudly a
scene full of the dark forests, rolling plains, and glittering cities that the States, Canada, and
Mexico had worked so hard to preserve. Pat sighed, bored.
Calaway gazed eagerly at the planet before him, watching happily as the blue marble shrunk, it’s
shining seas giving way to twinkling dots, black expanses, and the bright orb that was their sun.
So perfect the view was, making visible everything from the lights of the Great Atlantic
Hyperloop to the swirling whirlpools that were the sunspots some millions of miles away. He
could see both now, for though they were heading to Venus they had to go away from the sun
first, solar-south, take a quick spin around Earth so they could use it’s gravity to slingshot their
way out. Not everyone used this tactic, but, with a ship of their size, it would be an incredible
fuel-saver - and, therefore, money-saver. Spinning around, he clapped his hands, abandoning the
view and turning all working gazes below him to the stage that he had made sure the engineers
included. He had wanted to make sure his men always looked up to him, and swinging his legs as
he floated, he saw just what he wanted - like always. “So, crew, how does success feel?” His
voice, even without the microphones, boomed, bright and cheery; expectant.
The crew (those in the bridge, at least) murmured, looking around at each other quizzically.
Most were used to Calaway’s eccentricity, but still, the man was odd even for the term. “Good,
sir!” one, a bulky, duller man by the name of Sam Halish, responded from his security post, and
Calaway laughed.
“Good, good,” he rattled, continuing with his incessant swinging of the feet. “This is just the
first, boys, just the first. Hundreds more like it to come, trust me.” The bridge crew looked at
each other skeptically, seeming to raise their eyebrows in unison, but after a moment hesitantly
applauded. Calaway didn’t seem to notice the pause, grinning at the clapping hands and waving
away the applause as if he sought it gone, though all in the room knew how he needed it. Slowly,
the noise died away, and Calaway was able to speak again. “Heather, how fast are we going?”
A pilot answered him, letting her colleagues take control of the massive ship for a moment.
Heather Boivin had been one of the few not to turn and applaud her boss, and each day found
herself waiting impatiently for her paycheck. Though generous, she still felt it too small.
“Approximately 7,800,000 km/h and accelerating. Expected speed is 9,000,000 km/h. We should
arrive at Venus in about 12 hours without any trouble.”
Calaway nodded. “Good, good, excellent time. Then we can stop for ten, twelve hours for a
tour of the planet and some rest. Wouldn’t want to damage Flight 1 on her first flight out, would
we?”
“No, sir,” Boivin answered stiffly, pausing a moment before turning back to her work.
Oblivious to Boivin’s coldness, Calaway smiled again at his crew before turning, pushing his
way over to his seat and its speaker and proclaiming that he would announce the current flight
stats to the passengers. Pulling himself down, he turned on the speaker and said in a (somewhat)

normal voice the announcement that instantly blared from the speakers above. Of it all, the only
thing given much notice by his passengers was the information that they could proceed to their
cabins and then subsequently to the now open restaurant and gift shop. None, however, was
given notice by his son, who had been able to hack back into his game, and all was listened
attentively to by Johanna, who made note of the life suites tucked under her seat and in each
cabin, as well as instructions on how to move most effectively. Cheerily, Calaway ended his
announcement, as usual only aware of his own racing success.
Kicking off to float down the steps, he paused to find waiting for him a woman with short-cut,
wavy black hair, earthy skin, and arms crossed loosely below her breast as she leaned against the
wall. Her eyes, unlike his cheery ones, were swords, and she was happy to wield them.
“Dr. Wateen,” Calaway said, surprised. “I didn’t realize you would be joining us for this
flight.”
The woman raised her eyebrows. “Yes, well, I do need to have a first-hand account of events
before I can critique them, don’t I?”
Calaway shifted his weight, looking around the room, uncomfortable. “True, yes, you, you
do.” He smiled, seemingly just remembering to uphold his showman’s attitude. “And so I hope
you will realize that there is nothing aboard this ship to critique. This is a safe, beneficial
program that will help educate the public about space as well as make ​plenty​ of revenue.”
Wateen stood straight, moving to leave. “We’ll see.” She turned her back to him. “And, ah,
don’t forget, Patrick, the papers have not forgotten the fate of your last business.”
Calaway opened his mouth to speak, but she was gone. The bitch, she would ruin his whole
program. Fuming, he watched her disappear out the door, most likely to go enjoy the luxuries of
his ship, before finally sighing and continuing on his way to his desk by the opposing windows.
He loved the views of the stars, up here they looked almost like diamonds. Such jewels were rare
these days, most mishandled in earlier centuries. He’d seen one once, in a museum, when he was
only five. His father, noticing his interest, had introduced him to the wonders of geology, and,
eventually, space travel. “Space is full of diamonds,” his father had told him, “someday, Pat,
someday we’ll get to them.” He had tried, but the damn government had stopped him.
Apparently, the riches of the asteroid belt were too much for single men. Now, asteroid mining
was outlawed for non-government corporations such as his, and so that door was closed. This
though, he grinned, this was even more genius. The cash inflow, like all tourist businesses, was
ginormous, and with his tours, he was sharing the wonders of space with the people, the rightful
owners of such beauty. It really wasn’t fair that the Govs and their NASA people had taken all
the glory in this kind of thing. But not even they nor their damning papers could stop him now.
Reaching his desk, he thought of ways to stop Wateen. She couldn’t be bribed, he knew, not
with cash. But she was a science journalist above all else. Maybe if he gave her funding…
Calaway never finished the thought. At that moment a tech came up to him, panic written
clearly upon his face as he panted. ​The poor fellow must have pushed himself all the way across
the bridge,​ Calaway thought - not an easy task considering how difficult most people found
moving even at a normal speed in zero-g to be.

“Yes?” Calaway asked him, patient, though unease at the sight did not escape him. Something
bad must have brought the man here, and not even two hours in, too!
Straightening, the man cleared his throat. “Sir, an unknown attracting force has been detected,
about 1,950,000 km ahead. We’ll arrive at it in, in 15 minutes, sir.”
Calaway’s brow creased. “And you don’t know what this, ‘attracting force’ is?”
The man shook his head. “No, sir. The pilots and navs, they’re working on it but we can’t
seem to detect it in anything but gravity.”
“No visual oddities in the area? No physical mass detected?”
“None.”
Calaway raised his eyebrows. “Well, that’s odd indeed. Let me talk to the navs.”
The man nodded, and together they moved swiftly back across the bridge to the navigation
section, upfront behind the pilots where everyone seemed to be in much the same state as the
man who had delivered Calaway the news.
“So?” He leaned onto the back of his head nav’s seat.
The man didn’t answer immediately, focusing on the flying of his fingers over the various
navigational controls. After a moment, “Not much, sir. We know we’re being pulled somewhere,
our speed is increasing rapidly, but we are detecting no nearby matter that would cause such
displays. Nothing else around us seems to be moving either; the sun, the planets, all are
continuing their usual orbital patterns.”
“Hm,” Calaway thought, biting his lip. “Not a black hole, then?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s too local.”
The man nodded. “Is there no way to steer away from this?”
The nav shook his head, looking sullen.
“Ok,” Calaway said, straightening. Suddenly, he clapped his hands, turning and swiftly
pushing off towards the stage. “Keep working on it, okay? If there’s any way to avoid it, do it…
just so long as it ​doesn’t​ require us to stop the trip,” he ordered over his shoulder. Numbly, the
nav nodded, though Calaway had already strode away.
Reaching the stage, he pushed up without the stairs and clapped his hands loudly. Pressing the
mic on his chin, he emphasized the importance of his next words with the loud screeching of (for
once purposeful) audio feedback. Startled, the crew all looked at him, many with annoyed looks
on their faces. Again, here was Calaway, swinging his feet and making his mic screech,
distracting them from the work ​he​ gave them. An annoyance, but a necessary one nonetheless.
“Crew!” He announced, yelling as if he had forgotten the existence of his mic. Lowering his
voice, “It seems we have an emergency. In fifteen,” he checked the watch on his wrist - a useless
thing, considering how easily he could bring up one on his ret - “nope, eleven minutes now, we’ll
be heading into something producing an unknown gravitational force. There is no way out, and
no way of knowing what we’re going into.” He said all such cheerfully, even as panic overcame
his people. “Now, now, no need to go crazy,” he laughed. “No need in worrying about something
we can’t change. Navs, please keep working, and all pilots I would like you to try veering us
port, though if nav is right that won’t help us much.”

The same man from navigation nodded at Calaway. “That is correct, even if we activate our
rockets along with the ramscoop we won’t have enough power.”
“Thank you, Herald. Everyone else, keep doing what you’re doing, we need that, but use this
information to help you get us out of this, or make it easier for the navs and pilots.” He paused as
if thinking what else to say. “Oh, and all available power should be diverted to the rockets and
ramscoop in turning us.” He turned, raising one hand as if to call attention to his afterthought.
“And above all, don’t lose hope!”
There was silence in the room for some time, before Calaway’s voice filled it once more.
Johanna was playing chess with her mother when the lights went out, along with the holo-board
and the king her mother had just been about to move to checkmate. Despite everything, a sigh of
relief escaped her, before logic came and let fear take over.
“Mom?” she called, waving her gaze around wildly in the darkness. All she could see were the
bright pinpoints of stars in the window to her left, and the wisps of green and blue after-images
of the once glowing board.
“I’m here, honey, it’s alright.” She heard a shifting, saw a figure eclipsing some of the stars in
the window, and within a moment felt the minute dip in the seat as her mother pulled herself
down beside her. “Are you okay?”
Johanna nodded, then said, remembering her mother couldn’t see her, “Yes. What happened?”
“I don’t know…” her mother, always the calm one, responded. It sounded like she was
pondering about what they should have for dinner that night. Nervous, Johanna gulped, gripping
the arm beside her tighter. All around them they could hear similar shuffling, whispers muted by
the sound barrier surrounding each booth. ​Where were Dad and Malik again?
Suddenly, a voice boomed, and starting Johanna realized it was simply the captain, his voice
blasting over the hidden speakers. Damn, his voice was annoying. “Hello friends and fellow
passengers,” he announced, “I hope that you are enjoying your trip so far.” Yes, Johanna thought
sourly,​ I just ​love​ sitting ignorant in the dark.​ “Sadly,” he continued, voice steady, “it seems that
we have encountered some turbulence, and so have found it necessary to start diverting some
power to our rockets. As a result, you will be experiencing a bit of a black out momentarily.”
Johanna snorted, and from the speakers, they could hear Calaway’s voice pause as he turned
away, and the dimmed sounds of shouting on the other end. “Oh,” he chuckled, surprised, “it
seems the lights have already shut down. My mistake. But do not worry, this is temporary, I
repeat, temporary. We ask that you please follow the green emergency lights to your rooms,
where a battery lamp has been provided. Hang tight, we are doing everything we can.” A pause,
and then a beep announced the end of the message. Groaning, Johanna stood up and watched the
edges of the hallway light with pale green dots, not dissimilar from the fantasies created by her
retina in the absence of real light.
“ ‘You will be experiencing a bit of a blackout ​momentarily​’,” Johanna quoted, shaking her
head and using the doorway to pull herself out of their booth and into the hall. She still wasn’t

used to moving in zero-g, it made every motion so much more difficult, it seemed. Some people
spent their entire lives up here, she thought. Such an odd lifestyle, those people must lead. Man
was built for one-g Earth - nothing else. Again, the idea that humanity was abandoning its
mother came to her, and she felt the sudden urge to return home. “I mean, what even is space
‘turbulence’?”
“Hey,” her mother said, squeezing her shoulder, “calm yourself. Calaway is… ​interesting​. But
he’s responsible for this luxury, so we have to thank him.”
“Sure,” Johanna replied, taking her mother’s hand. “I’ll thank him if we make it out of this
alive.”
“Jo,” her mother scolded, “don’t think like that.”
“Yes, mother,” she rolled her eyes. “Let’s just get back to the cabin. Dad and Mal’ll be there.”
Her mother nodded. “Think like that.”
Raven Wateen was already in her cabin, actually enjoying Stronam’s new mystery novel for
once, when the lights went out, and as Calaway’s voice started over the speakers she, despite her
immediate panic, quickly smiled and started making mental notes of the events for her story.
This was ​definitely​ a security disaster among Calaway and his crew, and depending on the
probably chaotic results, could be the perfect reason to get this foolish operation disbanded. No
more wasting of the precious resources that men like Calaway threw out as she and her peers
watched longingly. Neither the public nor the govs would like this. Grinning, she prepared for
the perfect headlines; that is until she noticed the slight way the stars seemed to tilt. Stars, of
course, don’t move - not visibly at least. Confused, she put down her book, floated towards the
window. It was then, just as her fingertips reached the windowsill, that the alarms started blaring,
screaming and flashing low green lights like those that shone around the edges of her room.
Panicked, Wateen gripped the sill, staring out the window at the tipping stars, listening to the
blaring of the alarms and the many sets of footsteps she could now hear out in the hallway. Good
for her report, yes, but not her, as she realized that the ship was tipping. The pilots were losing
control. That, or were attempting the most ridiculous and dangerous stunt in all of history. ​What
is Calaway doing?
Unnerved, Wateen pushed herself away from the dizzying view of the stars, reaching to open
the door on the other side of her cabin, pausing only to grab her port and life suit before floating
out into the river that was the hallway. ​River​, she noted, bookmarking the word for the article she
planned on publishing as soon as she got back to Earth. ​A river of people​. Panicked, it seemed
every one of the civilian passengers had decided to rush out, creating a tide of screaming and
thundering bodies as people pushed themselves forward through the use of the walls and,
sometimes, each other. They screamed, crying and talking and the bang of fists and feet on metal
filling up every inch of space between the people as they pulled and pushed, held tightly to the
crack of a cabin door or simply stopped, in panic, fatigue, or laziness, and allowed the current to
pull them forward instead. Even the most intelligent seemed to have lost their wits in the

maelstrom, it seemed - though of course, these upperclassmen probably had little experience
with disaster. Simply put, it was total, fatal chaos. Sighing and trying to curb her own fear,
Wateen slipped out the top of her doorway, quickly pushing herself up so that her back hit the
ceiling as she floated, almost as if swimming. Even without the ties of gravity, it seemed few of
the passengers had thought to rise too far above the floor. Good for her, though, looking down on
a pair of panicked children (probably separated from their parents in the torrent) she did
sympathize with those only trying to make it out.
Always a journalist, she snapped a few photos of the scene on her port, zooming in on the
frightened children. The perfect front page.
Zooming ahead, Wateen strapped the lifesuit to her belt, taking full control of the port with
both hands. Occasionally she let it float, moving her arms to straighten or push along her course.
The smooth ceiling offered little handholds, and without a crowd she didn’t even have anyone to
push off against, so she settled with a slower zig-zagging pattern, pushing her way from one side
of the hall to the other, moving forward a few feet each time. Eventually, she attached the port to
her lifesuit as well, positioning it so that the orb’s camera faced downwards towards the people,
capturing everything. She needed every limb and nerve for this work.
The hallway was long, curving all the way around the exterior of the ship, opening to hundreds
of rooms along the way. There were over four hundred rooms lining this floor, she recalled. Four
hundred more above. To the main deck of the ship sat hundreds more closed doors, and their
only way onto the deck. Wateen stopped, a chill running through her. Every door they had
passed had been locked, a red light glaring from the lock just above each. Without the doors,
they had no way of getting back on deck. Without the doors, this whole chaotic march was
destined to swirl in circles, indefinitely. Within half an hour they would be back at their rooms -
less, she supposed, for those at the head. Looking down, she watched the terrified passengers
continue running for an imaginary exit. Why did they want to get out of their cabins anyway?
There was nowhere to go but the deck. The deck with its crazy crew and dark halls. Bitterly, she
pulled out her port and focused on the locked doors and maniacal march for a moment before
ending the tape. ​If only that fool Calaway would open us up!
This was idiocy. Turning, she floated back to her room.
The ship, however giant, was a grain of sand in the whirlpool that opened up in space. The hole,
similar to the “wormholes” of old science fiction, was less of the microscopic tear that scientists
had imagined, but rather the collapse of hundreds of square kilometers of the universe, drawing
everything in and taking everything with it. It was as if a giant hand had pinched between its
fingertips the very fabric of spacetime, pulled it down, twisted and twirled it into a ginormous
braid that just kept pulling, so everything resting on it was lost, and everything around it was
stretched, down into the compression and twisting of the very filling of the universe. Nothing

could escape it, and it would only grow. The ship did not last long.
The people on the ship, however, did not know this. They couldn’t see the massive warping of
space ahead of and around them, nor could they see when they disappeared beneath the “surface”
of the normal continuum. All the passengers knew was that their captain had locked them in their
cabins and the surrounding hallways (for reasons still unknown) and that one moment, there
were stars, and the next, blackness. Few noticed the change, however, panicked as they were. All
the captain and his crew knew was that they were drawn in, a fish on a line, and not even the
strongest ramscoop or solar sail could have saved them (and that the passengers joining them
would only distract the pilots - possibly fatally if they weren’t dead yet). ​They​ noticed the
winking out of the stars.
Defeated, Calaway hung his head, grateful only that his dear Janine was safely tucked and
ignorant in their suite, unable to see him in such despair. Maybe he could keep his dignity at least
with his wife.
Deep in his own dejection, Calaway missed the marching sound of footsteps towards his seat,
noticing the pilot-aid before him only when the sound of a clearing throat rang loud, louder than
it should have had to. Fatigued, he looked up at his man without the usual brightness. This scared
the aid more than the disappearance of the stars.
“Sir,” the pilot-aid said, nodding nervously.
“What is it?”
The man hesitated. “We-we lost all senses, Sir. All our cameras, microphones, sensors,
measurement devices, everything. They’re gone.”
“Gone?” Calaway despaired, standing up, and looking around wildly. “How could such things
be gone? It’s like a man losing his eyes and ears!”
The man nodded again, taking a step back. “We know sir. It’s, it’s the pressure.”
“Pressure? On you or on the machinery?”
The man gulped. “The machinery. What we went into, it, well, it’s causing immense pressure.
Compression of, of the vacuum, if that’s possible. There’s no light, the temperature is dropping,
we can barely control the ship.”
“And you got all this ​before​ the machinery collapsed?”
“Yes, sir.”
Calaway furrowed his brow. If what the man said was true, then the ship would soon follow its
outside extremities. They would be crushed to death.​ That’s no way for a man such as me to die!
He thought. Still frowning, he tossed a glance towards the navs and pilots, saw only a display of
confused faces and stilled hands. Sighing, he walked over to a shelf of books he’d had installed
by the stage staircase (obviously for appearances and the limited navigation of the bridge
on-planet). It was small, not going too far above his head, but there was enough space for much
more than a trip’s worth of reading. He’d had it built for long voyages, of the kind he’d hoped
for Cruise Flight 1 to one day make. Correction: the kind of voyages he ​still​ hoped Cruise Flight
1 would make. Plus, having a lot of books makes people think you read much and are therefore
more intelligent. He was always trimming his appearance to suit what he wanted to be seen as.

Calaway had learned from early on that appearances matter just as much as utility. Coming to the
shelf, he ran his fingers along the spines. Each and every one bore the name of an ancient science
fiction writing, classics, but also antiques that had long ago disappeared from the publishers’
desks. He loved them - often they were the source of some of his best ideas. Stopping, he pulled
out a book, flipped through the pages. He ended up in the back, at a list of terms. This must have
been one of the earlier ones; readers were so new to the vocabulary of science fiction that they
required a specialized dictionary back then. As always, this made him laugh, despite the grim
circumstances. Like with the spines of the books, he ran his index finger over the pages,
browsing.
Behind him, the crew exchanged glances, half knowing and half annoyed. Maybe about 40%
of the time Calaway’s books presented their supposed benefits. Most begged for their luck to
land in that 40%.
Suddenly, Calaway’s finger stopped. He paused a moment, before slamming shut the book and
whirling around. “Pilots! Take the rockets up to full speed, ignore the ramscoop. Turn us around
- no, just 95 degrees - and go forward.”
“Sir?”
Calaway threw his arms into the air. “Just do it! Trust the books.”
There was a hesitation, but the crew was desperate. Soon enough, the ramscoop had been shut
off, and all power was diverted to the rockets.
The ship struggled, inching forward at a snail pace of 2,500 km/h. It groaned, metal shrieked,
and the even the people in the chaotic halls stopped, stilling and hugging those near in fear of the
noise, which reverberated through the hall long and loud for possible years after the initial cause
had faded. But the pilots in the bridge pushed on, gripping their tools with hands of icy death.
The air in the bridge was thick enough to swim through, hanging heavy with fear and
anticipation. Everyone was silent, even Calaway stood still, floating an inch above the floor
before the bookshelf. A single person sobbed in the bridge, many more in the cabin halls. In their
suite, Janine Alkathet hugged her son tight, and for once Patrick didn’t protest. Johanna hid in a
corner of her room, arms around her brother and her mother’s arms around her. The family hung
together in a clump, gripping each other and whatever else they could find to hold themselves
still. Pressure formed behind her eyes, but she focused on quelling the shaking of the little boy in
her arms. Wateen clung to the windowsill, watching the motionlessness of the blackness outside
and clenching her jaw at the shrieks. The story was gone from her mind, each little noise and
sensation and feeling taking up her entire world until the next one came, and she forgot about the
prior one and let the new consume her; there was only the now, the now and the screaming. Not
a person knew what was going to happen - most didn’t know what was happening at all. They
hung together or alone in little pockets, each person fearing every little movement aboard their
vessel.
Such it seemed to last for millions of years.

When Calaway heard that final shriek, the drowning sound of straining metal, he’d thought he
had been wrong. That for once his crazy ideas hadn’t worked. But then it halted, suddenly after
only a few moments of noise, and with a loud popping sound, he knew they were out. (Out of
what exactly he didn’t know, but this didn’t stop his later elation) For a moment, there was
silence, anticipation mixed with hope. Then, the rockets shut off, and a blaring red alarm startled
them all out of their stupor. Wide-eyed, the upper maintenance quickly worked on getting the
alarm shut off, and with their advice the pilots switched back to the ramscoop. Finally, they
moved smoothly, measuring at about 6,000,000 km/h, and after a minute of this, the crew
erupted into cheers. Grinning, Calaway flew up to the stage.
Before he could even open his mouth, however, he was hailed in applause. “Our lives to the
quick-thinking captain!” Someone cried, and the crowd echoed it. “And to science fiction!” This
was uttered a little less enthusiastically. Calaway, for one, had never felt more pride in his life.
It took the ship one and a half hours more to reach Earth, and when the homing monitor beeped it
would have been a moment of triumph had it been any other ship in any other circumstance. But
the windows - being not real windows but screens projecting an image taken from the ship’s
cameras - were dark, and so no one was able to watch triumphantly as their blue planet
approached. The only sign was that single beep, and the red text floating across the pilots’
visions as the ship’s tracking recommended the appropriate course to return to the home landing.
(They followed this course, certainly, for without cameras they had only this to guide their
otherwise blind track) As such, Patrick Calaway did not know when his true success - getting all
of his people back on-planet - had really been solidified, a fact that would later grieve him
despite the great applause he had previously received. Blind as his ship, the captain only stared at
the black windows, occasionally lifting the speaker to make reassurances to his passengers.
There had been some very bad riots before, but it seemed with an explanation and the promise of
a 50% refund (something Calaway had fought bitterly but knew was the only way to avoid a
lawsuit or such) most had calmed and returned to their cabins or the diner to wait out the
remaining length of the trip.
But of all things, Calaway looked out his window not in happiness to be returning home, nor
even in relief for having escaped space’s determination to see him dead. His eyes, staring
uselessly into the blackness and only dimly noting the movement of his crew and the
announcement that all passengers and crew sit for landing, held a look of shame in them, shame
and anger. For even though in the end it had been ​him​ to save the day, that had barely saved a
shred of his dignity. This trip - his grand idea, the thing that was supposed to make him rich and
famous - was a failure. ​He​ was a failure. Bitterly, Calaway thought of how snide Wateen and all
the rest of his critics would laugh, yell to the hills of the wreck his trip had become. He must try
this again. Get scientists to figure out what could’ve ruined the endeavor and go again. Of
course, it wouldn’t be as glamorous, fewer people would want to come, but, if he could find the
threat and neutralize it, he could still save this. He clenched his fist. History would still see him

as the first to open up space to the people.
Then came the roar of reentry, and hurriedly Calaway slid down and strapped himself to his
seat, not wanting the sudden return of gravity to make him out as any more of a fool. It took a
minute, but soon the roar dimmed, shifting into the smooth glide of an aircraft in atmospheric
flight, and finally the slight vibrative bump that told of landfall. Sighing, Calaway unstrapped
himself and stood, only to be jerked aside by the sudden motion of the Cruise. Odd. Such
jerkiness he had only felt when taking a plane to a remote mountain resort. He smiled. It had
been his and Janine’s honeymoon. Shaking his head, he pulled himself back into his seat as more
jerks followed. The bumpiness of that plane flight had been due to landing not on a runway, as
the resort had none, but a flattish area of the rocky slope. None of that should be experienced
when landing on a large smooth surface such as their launch site. Could the pilots have missed it
without the cameras for guidance? It was possible. He chose to believe so.
Finally, the rough motion stopped, and he watched as from across the bridge the pilots stood
up, scratching their heads but probably also blaming the odd landing on their blindness. As a
whole, however, the crew seemed to rejoice, and comforted by this Calaway picked up the
speaker. “Welcome home, Cruise Flight 1 passengers! It is currently 16:51, Kansas time.
Landing has just been completed, and we will start deboarding shortly. Please wait patiently in
your seats until given the signal to do so. We do apologize for the unexpected, erm,
inconvenience, but hope that you still enjoyed your flight. All refund money will be emailed to
the address you gave on your admission form,” he struggled to keep his voice cheerful at this.
“Thank you for flying!” Pausing a moment, Calaway released the speaker, turning back to his
crew. “Well,” he said, “should I deboard first, inform the staff of our unexpected return?”
After the announcement shut off, Johanna hung eagerly at the end of her seat for another to come
again with the news that they could deboard. She couldn’t wait to get off this death trap. Besides
her, her parents looked just as attentive, whispering between each other over Malik, whose head
was turning with the telltale signs of a video game. Sighing, Johanna waited. Only a few seats
away, Pat. Jr. barely noticed the announcement, and certainly did not wait eagerly for the next.
His mind was absorbed in a (notably more violent) version of Malik’s entertainment, and his
constant preoccupation with such was just another worry in the scores filling his mother’s mind.
Gnawing on her lower lip, she worried most for her husband. Patrick never took things like this
likely. When his mining business was shut down, well, it was not a good time. Her specialty
might not be in business (in fact, her mind was still turning, trying to use her years of college to
figure out the cause of the symptoms Pat had emailed to her about an hour beforehand), but she
could tell how much of a disaster this was, if not from the near death than from the upset
muttering filling the space around her. Looking down at her son, she sighed, wrapping an arm
around him. He didn’t seem to notice.
It was a while before Calaway’s voice finally came back with the promised announcement, but
Johanna’s eagerness was not quelled by it. Calaway’ voice came shakily over the speaker: “We

have, um, encountered some difficulties with deboarding. It seems we may have, uh, well, we
have encountered some kind of, some kind of problem.” The panic was clear in his voice, in his
stuttering and uneasily high pitch, and it only sent the muttering of the cabin louder. “Please, do
not leave the aircraft under ​any circumstances.​ I repeat, ​do not leave the aircraft.​ The crew will
handle this, and we, we will have you all home shortly.” His voice broke at the end, and Johanna
felt a tremor shake her. Even Malik’s gaze focused, turning questioningly to his parents.
“Mom? Dad?”
Her father frowned. “Don’t worry about it, honey. Everything’ll be fine.”
Johanna’s brow creased, unconvinced.
Behind them, however, it didn’t seem like another passenger was taking it so calmly.
Scowling, he stood, blatantly shaking his fists at the ceiling speakers. “You know what, I’ve had
enough of this bullshit. I’m leaving.” He looked around. “Who’s with me?”
Agreeable mumbling arose, and a few people stood up to join him.
Shaking her head, Johanna watched as her mother stood as well, moved to block the path of
the angry passenger. He was probably twice her weight, standing at least a foot above her.
Gulping, Johanna sat on edge, ready to stand herself. “Sir,” her mother cautioned, “I suggest you
sit down. This program may not be very successful but-”
“Damn right it’s not successful! That Calaway man nearly got us killed with his bad flyin’.”
“Yes, I understand. We’re ​all​ shaken by this. But Calaway and his crew still know a lot more
about what's happening out there. If you people go,” she looked around at the standers, “you will
just get in the way and make it more difficult for us all to leave.”
The man stared at her, hatred evident in the harshness of his gaze and the trembling of his
clenched fists. Without a word, he pushed past her, and quickly he was followed by a dozen or so
others. Shocked and scowling herself, her mother stumbled out of the way, plopping back down
into her seat. Frowning, she turned to Malik and Johanna. “Promise me you will never act like
that.” Her eyes were stones. Johanna had never seen her mother like that, and admittedly
frightened, she nodded, nudging her brother to do the same.
All grumbling, they passengers made their way down the rows of seats, slowly picking up more
people as more time passed without another of Calaway’s updates. The first to stand, the owner
of a very prodigious power company by the name of Cruz Ratcliffe, never unclenched his fists,
walking forward with the sure and steady stride of a man used to getting his way. In his mind,
Ratcliffe saw himself pushing through the idiotic crew members, making a way out for himself.
He expected a full refund from this, another of Calaway’s scams. A bulldozer of a man, he
probably would have gotten one.
“Excuse me, sir, please return to your seat,” a flight attendant stopped him as he entered the
exit chamber, eyes looking behind him and gaze turning glazed and frightened. Ratcliffe decided
he was afraid of him, or of what Calaway would do to him once he let Ratcliffe pass. For he
would​ let Ratcliffe pass. This did not help his pompousness, and he glared down at the man.

“I demand to be let out of this flight immediately,” he made sure to pull himself tall, imposing
- though he barely needed it. “Unless,” he raised his eyebrows, “you can give a reasonable
explanation as to the holdup.”
The attendant stepped back. “I- I’m sorry, sir,” he glanced at the caravan behind Ratcliffe,
“there is nothing we can do.​ I’m​ not even aware-”
“Then let me through,” Ratcliffe rumbled.
“Sir, you have to-”
Ratcliffe pushed past him like he would a small branch, striding across to the door. At first, the
other attendants moved to stop him, but at his glare, all froze. They could tell it would be no use.
One attendant, her uniform a shade darker and seemingly the highest ranking, shouted,
“Everybody, out!” and with her peers pushed all of Ratcliffe’s followers away. Oddly, they
air-locked the door, almost as if Ratcliffe were about to exit for a spacewalk or something of the
sort. For a moment, he paused, suspicious, but his anxiousness to leave crowded out any doubt.
Without hesitation, he slammed his hand down on the button.
When Ratcliffe failed to return, the crowd outside the exit doorway assumed he had made it out,
simply left the flight and taken a porter home. Jealous, they grumbled, a few in the front
attempting like Ratcliffe to push their way through. But this time the door was already closed
and, prepared, the head attendant had stationed herself and two others in front of it.
“No one else is coming through here.” Her voice, though soft, stopped the disgruntled
passengers. It held within it a note of grief along with its determination, and her eyes held steady
with a pain that one only ever sees in a person that believes they have failed. A pain, but also a
determination to stop such from ever happening again. One man, a doctor, felt it related to the
look one of his assistants had given the dead body of a young boy after a failed surgery. He, near
the front, stopped, and in doing so helped to quell the people.
“What happened to Ratcliffe?” There was fear in his voice, for he felt he already knew the
answer.
The attendant looked him directly in the eyes as she spoke. “Your friend is dead.”
There was silence, and hesitantly the crowd backed away from the door.
It was then that the long-awaited voice returned, and at it, the people looked up, scared, angry,
and for some, hopeful. Hopeful that the attendant had been misinformed.
But the voice didn’t address any of these questions. Instead, it only gave a single sentence, one
to be repeated a thousandfold. “May all passengers please report to the auditorium - follow the
red lights. I repeat: may all passengers follow the red lights to the auditorium,” and their shoes
were bathed in scarlet.
A knot of panic in her throat, Alkathet raced up the stairs, barely sensing the touch of metal on
her shoes or the confused voice of her son behind her, who for once had left his game at the news

of a man’s death. Normally, she would have taken full advantage of the moment, but terrified she
knew she had to see her husband. Almost up the stairs, she slowed - only in the slightest - unused
to the heavy pull of gravity, even after only a day. An astronauts’ daughter, even years on Earth
hadn’t normalized the heavy pull.
“Patrick?” She asked, reaching the bridge. He was nowhere in sight.
A tech looked up at her, and she noted the lines of fright on his face. “He’s by the library.”
Alkathet nodded, quickly turning to lug her heavy feet over to the bookcases. Usually, she
smiled at the term “library”. But not today.
Rounding a display, she caught sight of her husband knee deep in his old novels, staring at an
empty shelf. A book in his hands stood open, its pages crisp from disuse, and he rotated between
the frantic turning of them and a seemingly endless staring at the vacant shelves.
“Pat?” She ran up to him, flinching at the way her voice broke.
For a moment it seemed he had not heard her, despite how close she knew her voice had
gotten to a yell. She grabbed his shoulder to turn him, but he whirled around before she could
move him an inch.
“What is it?” He asked irritably.
Alkathet stared at him in shock. “What ​is it​? Someone just told me that one of your passengers
died​.”
“Oh,” Calaway responded, glancing down and reading a clause from the book, still open in his
hands. “Two men, actually - but I refuse to take responsibility for that Ratcliffe character, sounds
like a real ass.”
She gaped at him. “​Two?​ Wha- Pat what is going on here?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
She stared at him, clenching her jaw. “Patrick, what ​do​ you know?”
Again, he shrugged, though now with an edge of nervousness. “We’re on Earth, but not our
Earth. The atmosphere is toxic, filled with carbon dioxide, which we suppose is due to what
seems to be a complete loss of plant life. That’s how our first guy died. Without cameras, we
thought he would be stepping out into the landing, but that appears to be gone. He did get us
some camera shots though…” he chuckled. “And to think, I was planning on sending ​myself​ out
there.”
Again, she felt her jaw drop, shock but also cold fear overcoming her so that she stumbled
against her husband. “Yeah, I had about the same reaction,” he comforted her.
Shaking her head, she stepped away from him, started to rub her forehead. “I, I don’t
understand. Show me the pictures.”
Her husband frowned, but nodded, sighing sadly as he sent the pictures to her. Instantly,
pictures of a wasteland showed up in her gaze; vast landscapes of arid rocks, sand swept away
long ago from the pummeling of wind. An orange sky, cloudless, framed a sun glaring too
harshly for any human to glance up at, even with glasses. Not a sprig of grass grew, not a mouse
crept from hole to hole, not a plane zoomed off in the distance. Empty, lifeless the land stood.
What had once been rolling fields of grass was long gone, she assumed, as all the life it had

carried. Even the mountains, though small, were gone, replaced by an irregular lump rise.
Panicking, Alkathet dismissed the pictures, replacing them with the view of her husband’s
somber face.
“What…” she choked on her words, shaking her head and body in disbelief.
Nodding, Calaway held her, holding her tight until the shaking stopped. “We don’t know.
Something happened while we were gone, the navs, they say something’s changed. The moon is
farther away - too far. Some stars are missing, others have appeared. Earth… the probes send the
same pictures for miles, though we have reason to suspect that there is water at the poles - it
can’t just disappear, after all - where it’s cool enough for it to condense back into its liquid state.
There is water here, don’t be fooled, just mixed in with a largely poisonous atmosphere.”
“And… and life? Is there any?”
“None that we can see,” Calaway replied, somber. “There’s too much radiation, something
happened to the atmosphere while we were gone… it’s too thin now, no ozone to stop the sun
from sending over its ultraviolet.”
Gasping, she pulled away from him. “You don’t think… Patrick, what else have you found out
about the ship?”
He sighed. “Nothing. Some kind of space anomaly pulled us in, the pilots reversed course and
got us out - just like I told you.”
Alkathet shook her head. “Do you realize what’s happened? The moon, the stars, they move
slowly…” she trailed off, and Calaway could see in her eyes as they stared that she was working
something out on her ret. “That thing,” she continued, “the planets are still here so it must have
been local.” Calaway nodded, confirming her suspicion. “So it can’t be responsible for these
changes…” She looked up at him. “The moon moves slowly away in its orbit over thousands of
years. Earth is nothing like we knew it. That, that ​thing​, it, it curved time. Moved us so fast the
normal gaps created in space travel were lengthened thousandfold.” Gulping, she looked up at
her husband. “The people are gone. Time is subjective… While we felt very little, our speed
must have been so great that Earth lost thousands, ​millions​ of years as it stayed put.”
Calaway stood silent, mind reeling in shock. But he knew she was right. It was the only thing
that could explain such a change, for even the mountains that had been visible upon their leaving
had disappeared. Biting his lip, he pulled her into his arms, nearly weeping from his failure. The
failure that was far worse than he had ever imagined. The people would blame him for this, he
knew. He was as good as dead - in the eyes of those he’d left behind and those here with him.
When the trembling stopped, Alkathet said to him, “You’re going to have to tell the crew.”
Calaway shook his head, burying it into her hair. “They must have figured it out by now…”
“No,” she responded firmly. “They’re too scared - trust me, I almost dismissed the possibility
myself.”
Sighing, Calaway nodded, reluctantly letting her go, thankful at least that the tech’s wall had
covered the rest of the crew’s view of the whole exchange. Janine once told him to hang on to
the positive; he decided to do so. Heaving a big breath he rounded the display wall, putting on
his mask of the effortless (though now somber) showman. He clung to the click of his wife’s

shoes behind him.
As he became visible, the techs looked up at him, the head pilot standing up from the other
side of the room. “Sir?” He asked, a tremble of fear penetrating even his steady timbre.
Calaway nodded, mind behind him, acknowledging the unspoken question. “We know what’s
happened,” he stated, mournful. “I’m sorry, but we can’t-”
“What happened to the landing site?” A tech besides him asked, volume rising.
“What the hell are you saying, ‘I’m sorry’”?
“Is all of Earth really like this?”
“We landed in the wrong spot didn’t we?”
The voices rose, panic breaking from the control of even his well-trained crew.
“Shut up!” Alkathet strode past him, making careful use of the voice she used on Patrick Jr.
when he misbehaved. “Listen and you won’t have so many questions.” Her snap effectively
silenced the crowd. Cooly, she continued: “My husband and I, after reviewing the data, have
come to the conclusion that we must leave Earth, go find another Goldilocks planet to inhabit. It
seems-” she held her hand, silencing the growing confusion, “-that the space phenomenon we
were caught increased our speed to the point where the normal time gap created by fast space
travel was lengthened considerably. The stars have changed slightly, the moon is farther away
from Earth than it has ever been, and Earth we have confirmed is a wasteland. No one is left; we
are moving on.” The icy silence in the room thickened, becoming not a fragile sheet as it had
been but a thick glacier, an object no voice or reason could break.
Patrick Calaway and Janine Alkathet met the passengers already gathered in the auditorium,
waiting nearly half an hour for the conditions to be suitable to relay their message. The crowd,
consisting of nearly a thousand people, was chaotic in the least, but the news was handled
without any deaths. The people cried only, weeping for the ones whose fates were lost and
unknown, for the life of comfort they had left, and an overwhelming desperation to learn of the
end. What had happened? How had the human race fallen? They guessed, but none could see
through the veils that their wealth had brought them the true answer.
Over the next twenty-four hours, the miracle that got twenty people speaking together on the
bridge stage and agreeing on a plan occurred, and it seemed they had managed to avoid the
mistakes their peers previously on-planet had made. They discussed rationally (for the most
part), and when it had, in fact, been confirmed by another physicist (who by chance happened to
have been among the passengers) that there was no way of return, they prepared for long-term
habitation. Nothing but a few raw metals and sand for glass were scavenged from Earth, for the
water that was indeed found at the poles was found to be poisonous beyond purification, but that
made no difference. The people were stranded; a drifting Noah’s arc in a vast and deadly sea.
Maybe not an islandless one, they hoped, but one filled with more unknowns than Earth’s oceans
could ever have concealed.

And so they left, tears filling up the windows as the dot of their brown, wilted planet
disappeared.

I wrote this poem for an English assignment (it’s surprising, how many half decent works I write
for school), but it was based on feelings much older than the prompt and has since had a story of
revisions and sharing that outlived that grade.
For context, the word “hiraeth” is a Welsh word which if you put it into Google Translate comes
out as “nostalgia” in English. More accurately, it translates to “a nostalgia or homesickness for
a home you can never return to, or a home which maybe never was.” I thought it very
appropriate for a girl who is not really old enough to feel the traditional type of nostalgia, yet
empathizes with it nonetheless.

Hiraeth
Hiraeth: “here-eyeth”, or
here lies the longing,
here persists a pain,
here breathes a stubborn
nagging nostalgia
needy just for what
can be seen nowhere
near. Seen never, nullfor
it never was.
It is impossible,
imagining this thing.
Incorrigible is
this idea, image
this reality which
is all I am to know.
Constant crisis can not
be handled by human
minds, above all, child’s minds-
Yet it’s all we get to have.
Hiraeth’s the urge that powers us,
hiraeth’s the hole we fall into.
The longing for a past unknown
a future whose heart never beat.
With longing I imagine what
it would be like to awake and
know wordly doom stays far away,
to awake without guilty grief
to a world that is sensible.
For years I hid between book pages,
for years I played pretend in places
where people lived long, starships
sailed,
and insurance grew beyond our claws.
So still for that sight I long,

seeking
in my chest what I know is a ghost.
Hiraeth hollows out my soul, which
drowns
in the knowledge that this broken
thing
is all I am ever to witness.
So bitterly will I always grip it.

I debated for a while about whether or not to include this piece. I wrote it inspired by news of the
forests’ response to the wildfires in California late this summer. Wildfires are, ironically,
incredibly restorative forces. I won’t go into the ecology of it (as that would get me going for
longer than the poem itself), but essentially by burning up the old trees that hog the sunlight and
nutrients wildfires allow the seeds that survive the blaze to grow more successfully. Because of
this some species of tree in wildfire-plagued areas have evolved seeds that only grow when
exposed to extreme heat. It's ingenious, and I have some theories laying dormant—like said raw
seeds—about how the ecological principles underlying the phenomenon may be applied to
history and political theory, but as I have said, I won’t get into that. I’m just letting you know, so
that you may remember that those seeds are very important, as are said underlying themes and
principles (either word works, though one may be more appropriate than the other depending on
whether you are looking through the lens of the humanities or the science).
Anyway, this poem was written as an open letter to my generation. I even submitted it to a New
York Times contest “Coming of Age in 2020”, though it didn’t get far. But intergenerational
communication is vital as well, and I do like the writing in this poem and how the progression
from “Hiraeth” to here very much reflects a progression of my own mind, so here it is.

Dear Generation Z
Dear Generation Z, let us be the seeds
of the lodgepole pine.
Let us watch and wait as the kindling grows dry
and builds up beneath us.
Let us embrace the flames when they come,
when they burn down our parents.
Let us fall with the snapping branches of the old treeshear
them splinter!
Let us crack open and burrow ourselves deep into
scorched earth.
Let us spread out our roots, watch as the worms turn
Mother’s body to dirt.
Let us sprout up from the ground and rejoice at the sun-
Father’s shadow is gone.
Let us grow fast and tall and sturdy and green now
that we have space.
Let us, when the old forest of this world implodes into wildfire,
melt off our wax skin
and eat their ashes
to grow anew.
Dear Generation Z, let us be the brave young people
who abandon the tribe.
Let us, when our elders dig their heels into the cracked earth and choking dust,
turn our backs.
Let us leave them to their dogged worship of a withered past,
so they die.
Let us go out into the night with blistered feet and whining stomachs and sprint
into swirling darkness.
Let us be unable to see home when the sun rises again, just desertsnake
trails like shark fins.
Let us run through it, run and run and run and run, feet
sinking into sand.
Let us remember Eve, running with sweat carving canyons down her ebony skin
abandoned, yet wise.
Let us forget all the rest of history! every heritage but that first
bite of knowledge.

Let us carry it out with us across the dunes until we reach the river valley,
lone survivors
crying naked to the stars
with jubilance.
Dear Generation Z, let me acknowledge
our tempestuous psyche.
I know that you are angry, that at night you simmer like the roiling stars overhead-
I do too.
I know that you are tired, that exhaustion is a leech inside your marrow sucking blood before
it’s even made-
I am too.
I know that you are frightened, that your legs tremble like a bewildered newborn fawnmine
do too.
But we are the generation of crises.
We are the children of COVID-19.
We are the children of police brutality.
We are the children of raging inequity.
We are the children of political incompetence.
We are the children of the climate crisis.
We are 2020’s children.
And we can cry, we can cover our eyes, we can gnash our teeth with bitterness.
We can do all of those things, and still
abandon their foolishness and
use their burnt stumps as leverage
to rise from their ashes.

This was another English assignment, but one I wrote fully intending to outlast the prompt. I may
rewrite it as a novella. The only limits on that assignment, though, were that it be under five
pages when double-spaced and address the theme of “change”, the latter of which I did with
zeal and the former I worked hard to comply with. Thus this piece, a bit compressed for my liking
and a top candidate for rewriting once I have the time. For now this is my short story (submitted
to a major state short story contest; I will tell you if I place), a response to both that prompt and
also the heavily divided state of my American nation.

A West Wind, or a Zephyr
She remembered through the haze of sixteen years and a seven-year-old’s memory how the
Milonyr flag had fallen that day. It fell like it was sinking in water, the air resisting as if to hold
the flag up as its red banner bled down, and down, and down, and fell finally with a ripple. She’d
watched it with barely suspended disbelief, but it was just outside and across the street, a few
meters of air and a cracked windowpane the only things between her and their realized dream.
Olyr hadn’t known back then what it meant for the flag of the tyranny they’d lived under
for so long to fall into dust; no one had then anything more than suspicions of what that change
meant, suspicions they’d tuck away out of doubt. She had suspicions she was quashing at the
present moment too, as the tire of her bike blew and she saw herself slowly flying forward.
In an instant, said suspicions of hopelessness were dropped and Olyr was scrambling to
her feet. She left her bike, tire as airless as her knotted stomach, and began running down the dirt
road. Cars blew past, and her lungs itched from breathing sand, but she ran like she was chasing
them as they drove away from her squat village enshrouded in dust. The village unnervingly
empty of one taciturn figure, her little sister. Her sister Feja who had just enough money saved
and more than enough anger to pay for a ferry ticket to the pro-Milonyr riots brewing in the
capital city.
She ran until her knees rebelled and pulled her legs out from under her. Gasping, Olyr
found herself unable to continue avoiding her failures. First to catch the last ferry to the city.
Then to bike there. Ultimately to even run just a handful of the many miles gaping between her
and Feja. She ground a fist into the dirt.
A car stopped next to her. She didn't look up.
“What’s wrong with you, Olyr? Why’re you here and your bike blown miles back?”
Olyr froze, then was up in a moment to clutch at the window of her neighbor’s car.
“Norne, where are you going?” She skipped a greeting, and the face wrinkled and scarred by
years of Milonyr servitude raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to the city? Please, I need to get
there ​now​.”
“Are you sure, dearie?” Norne leaned over and opened the door to let Olyr in, but the car
stayed still as she settled down restlessly into the passenger seat. “I should get you home and-”
“No, no.” She shook her head. “I need a ride to the city, it’s important.”
“I’m sure it is, but-”
“Feja is there.”
The old woman fell silent. Looked between Olyr and the road like she knew what Olyr
would do otherwise. Finally, she nodded, resigned, and began driving. “Just don’t get yourself
hurt, you understand me? We’ll all starve without your hands working the farms. Same goes for
your sister. You’re lucky. I’m heading there anyway.”
Olyr just grinned and looked out the window to watch the sun’s narrowed-eyed glare,
threatening explosion, and the choppy waves of the river fighting themselves in foamy rage
beside the road. She focused on the present, nothing else. On the constriction of her sister’s

too-tight jeans, which she’d had to grab in her rush to leave, hers too full of holes. On the dust in
her hair, ears, and under her fingernails. Not on Feja, alone in a dangerous riot, fooled by the
name of the Milonyr empire - which meant “shining hill-city” - whose pitfalls she was too young
to remember. Not on Feja crying the night before, ​“You don’t see what I do, you don’t get it.
Every time I walk into that room I see Mom dying - from what? A flu? You’d get sick worse,
Mom said, before, but they’d fix you.” ​Not on that, because Feja was wrong. The Milonyr
weren’t saviors, they were murderers. They were the reason their mother was dead just as much
as the new ​Freedom State​ was. She’d be alive if their father had survived the Milonyr cullings to
take care of her.
They had just entered the suburbs of the capital when the radio switched from ignorable
background music to a voice speaking too high, too fast, “This just in, after a day of mostly
peaceful anti ​Freedom Stat​e protests, a bomb has gone off just outside Capital Square. The
number of casualties is unknown. Multiple protesters appear injured or dead. Counter-protesters
have taken credit for the attack. Since early this morning…”
The voice had more to say, but Norne moved to shut the radio off. Olyr reached a hand
out, and after giving her a look, the old woman sighed and pulled away. The car sped up. They
were still in the suburbs when the first plume of smoke appeared. Moments later, the radio
announced that another bomb had gone off.
Arriving in the city, Olyr jumped out of the car before Norne had come to a full stop. She
vaulted over the police’s barrier without a goodbye and sprinted through densely packed streets.
She struggled forward. Warm bodies pushed against her, jostling her from side to side.
Blood pounded in her ears and her vision blurred to a crude finger painting. Discordant chants
shook the ground, drowning out her shouts, and she stumbled. The pavement was gritty, the city
air harsh, and the hot sea of people extended as far as she could see.
Olyr ran on. And on and on.
She fell, a foot made contact with her ribs, her temple, her stomach. It disappeared and
Olyr struggled up and kept running, coughing from her scream-sore throat. The crowd was
endless. She had no plan. So she just ran.
A bomb went off and she was down again. Smoke and screaming and debris flooded the
city block. From high up on a lamppost, someone reported into a megaphone, “Bomb, corner of
5th Ave and 8th, one man down, pink sweater. Intersection of 5th Ave and 10th, bomb,
sixteen-year-old boy dead, older man with B.M.B. hat injured. Street…” The voice hit Olyr like
a chunk of concrete to her stomach, and she froze, panic snaring her where she stood as the
world sped on around her.
Feja wasn’t here.
Feja could be anywhere.
Bombs could be anywhere.
Feja could-
She stepped forward to continue her mad rush but was stopped by dust crashing down
over the street in a blinding, choking wave. Forced to stop and cough she heard her sister’s voice

scolding her, ever practical and firm over the eye roll. ​Think, ​Feja said. ​Where am I?​ Anywhere.
She could be anywhere floating in that crowd… ​I’m not you, Ollie, I’m not a capricious
stormcloud of emotions. Stop running and think for a moment! ​She did. Feja’s voice dissipated,
and Olyr gripped the fabric of her sister’s jeans as if the connection would help her think more
like the sibling that should have been born to different parents than Olyr. She fought herself
because she couldn't be herself at that moment, not if she wanted to help her sister. She had to be
Feja, with her thoughts and opinions and habits, even when those were the opposite of her own.
“​Oh​.”
She took off again, but this time thought about her course carefully, planning a street
ahead. She tore through more people. Swerved. Jumped a barricade. Fell. Ran down a deserted
parallel street. Swerved away again from a burning shop. Ran. Turned. Ran. ​Almost there…​ Ran
faster to avoid the stinging debris of a building with a red Milonyr flag bursting to splinters. Her
legs disappeared, replaced by a storm of sand. Her lungs joined them. Her head. She was a cloud
of dust, blown by the west wind across chasms, around barricades, away from explosions,
through crowds, aware of nothing but the fact that ​she was heading somewhere​. Not home to a
leaning house full of laughter and sand. Not further into a city of fire and red and high pitched
shrieks of metal. Somewhere…
There​.
There, on a crumbling wall in Capital Square, dressed all in yellow, a yellow vibrant
enough to make the red banner she waved as insignificant in Olyr’s eyes as the morning star
when the sun rose. Training her gaze on Feja, she ran as if her life depended on it. Everything -
the running, the screaming, the rocks flying - crumbled away down the sheer edges of her focus
to leave only one path, narrow, right down the middle.
Within moments Olyr had climbed up what remained of the wall and before Feja had
even been able to shout her name Olyr’s arms were around her waist and they were flying,
soaring over the rubble on the other side of the wall and then hitting the ground hard, only to be
covered in thick dust raining down from the mushroom cloud of the bomb that in her bones Olyr
knew could have snuffed out the sun.
“Ollie, what-”
Feja said more, but Olyr didn't listen past her name. She helped her little sister up,
gripping her thin and dusty arms until she left indents in her skin. A west wind blew at their
backs as, ragged and torn just a little bit to pieces, they clung together and limped through the
ragged city.

This is a poem I wrote on a whim one day a few weeks ago. I had been listening over and over
that day to the song “Icarus”, by the Crane Wives. The song, in short, represents to me a
movement. The singer is flying, they are rising higher and higher above the heavy and restricted
ground, and they are doing it surrounded by others—particularly their brother, in flesh or spirit.
They keep going forward throughout the piece, though there are hints that maybe things are not
so peachy from the very beginning of the song, until, out of nowhere, the song ends with a new
chorus: “They’re spreading out our ashes in the sun, in the sun, in the sun.” They are dead; the
singer’s tone deceptively remains the same, contrasting with their morose words, but they are
not flying anymore. Their ashes are on the ground, spread out far below the sun they were flying
to. Like Icarus, they were flying high until suddenly they weren’t.
Thinking of that, I wrote a poem to emulate that feeling, that feeling which has become a
common, if unwelcome, bedfellow for many of us this year.

Before She Fell
Before she fell
Her walls trembled rickety in the wind like the loose little twigs of a child’s fortress.
Before she fell
The wind buffeted at our backs, and we were the beast whose paw made the air ripple
like a puddle and the walls shake.
Before she fell
Each wave to us was one of pure energy, anticipation boiled down and smoked like
tobacco so that the air tasted of excitement on our side, wretched smoke
downwind on the other.
Before she fell
I readied myself, and my horse turned to breeze under my hackles and my sword hilt to
unburning holy fire.
Before she fell
I gloried in the frightful gazes of the men whose eyes poked me in experiment across the
field and then flinched back.
Before she fell
I revelled under the blazing blue ethereality of the sky and spoke in soft words to my
commander - “Have you ever seen a sky so blue?”
Before she fell
She said to me, “No - the sword does not illuminate for me what it does for me. To me
the sky is grey and the sword in my own belly.”
Before she fell
I heard her say that and saw her tired face, but did not take on the weight from her so as
to keep hold of my own antigravity.
Before she fell
I dropped all weights akin to hers and flew - faster and faster and faster and faster -
cradled between the bosoms of Earth and Sky, whose warm hands I felt steering me
to victory.
Before she fell
It was our war to win, and they knew it, and they crowded around her walls accordingly.
Yes, before she fell
Our past of failure was already fading.
Then she fell,
Her words morphing into prophecy,
And like a charcoal rubbing our ashes revealed the grooves of all our mistakes once
again, and forever.

This is a completely random piece that really is not much more than its words. It stems more
than anything from my appreciation of running and the human ability to sweat.

Salt
What was the first flavor?
Obvious. Milk.
What is the flavor of milk?
Creamy, rich, fatty… just a little hint of sweet… just a little hint of salt. It is the flavor of
warmth, and comfort; of rest after a long hard battle; of whispers as we cry in the night. It is the
flavor none of us can stretch our minds to remember, and so have no word for, which is why I
had to use so many - thirty-eight, to be precise - to describe its singular flavor. So does milk
count?
No.
What was the first flavor?
Easy. Nothing.
What is the flavor of nothing?
It is the flavor of air, of water, of our heartbeat. It’s the flavor of life coursing through our lungs
as we wailed and laughed and took our first steps. It’s the flavor that was on your tongue in your
first memory, that passed through your throat as you spoke your first words, and that you take in
a shattering breath of finally before you die, because the first is always also the last. But wait, is
nothing a flavor? There is no word for it; I had to use seventy-four that time, making it worse
than the flavor of milk. Take a deep breath. A long draught of water. Is that a flavor?
No.
What was the first flavor?
Think.
What was the first thing we did? Run. Before humans had language and axes and plows we ​ran​.
Before our brains were anything to compare to the crows’ or the dolphins’ we ran, up and down
the savanna, chasing down our prey until it collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, because no
one could beat Man in a marathon. We ran and we sweat, long before we ate. We licked our lips
at the sight of meat, and the meat wasn’t the first thing we tasted. Think: what was on our lips as
we stumbled, soaked, to the ground?
What was the first thing we tasted? Not milk, that doesn’t count, we can’t remember. No meat,
that grew our brains but first we had to grow to catch it. Not the sweet flesh of fruit, nor the crisp
leaves of a vegetable. And our own blood doesn’t count as we licked out wounds. No, the first
thing we tasted was dirt. Dirt on the skin of roots and insects we dug up, dirt to wash off of our
hands, dirt in our water, dirt under our skin. Dirt, soil, minerals. Think: what flavor is dirt?
What were the first things we fought wars over? Not oil, because who wanted oil in the
paleolithic? Not money, not pride - those weren’t invented yet. Not game; we were too few to
fight wars when wild game was still our main resource. Not women - there wouldn’t be a Helen
for thousands of years. Not freedom - slavery, or even servitude, was still unthinkable. Think:

what did we need, when the world was still empty, there were more acres than people, and
murder was paid for in sheep?
Taste it, it’s in your kitchen, on your lips, in your blood, in the spoils of war. It streaked our
mothers’ faces as they birthed us, and it will trail down our loved one’s cheeks as we die.
What was the first flavor?
Salt.
No need to explain. One word says it all.

Aylla is a protagonist of a book I have brainstormed as a sequel to my novel, ​The Quiet Men.​ I
don’t know yet if I will write it yet. I do love Aylla, however, and have in the meantime played
around with her character and used her as a mouthpiece to narratively sketch out my own ideas.
This is one of the latter instances; I won’t pretend otherwise. It is also the unedited skeleton of a
once-proofread drabble. But I have a soft spot for her.
For context, she is speaking to another character, her friend Evgeni. The histories that build up
to this conversation are intergenerational, full of religious and personal conflict, but they are
largely unimportant to understanding this brief dialogue. Aylla’s attitude you will gather fine
from what she says here. Evgeni, for his part as the questioner, has a slightly less defined stance,
but in short he is a former religious zealot whose arc has carried him, by this point, to doubt. He
has asked her something along the lines of what she thinks about the gods that they were taught
created the world.

Aylla on Gods
She twirled the maple leaf in her hand so fast it blurred into a tornado of orange and red and
finally morphed into a lick of flame.
“Honestly? I don’t know. I think… I think things are wonderful just how they are. The
world doesn’t need gods to be whole, not really. It’s complete all on its own.”
Evgeni stared at her, hands empty and eyes wide with incredulity, seeing only her
blasphemy. “Wha- what?” He shook his head. “The world needs a creator, it needs someone to
organize it. This-” he swung his arms wide, but didn’t sway his gaze to see around him, “can not
possibly be all there is. It defies logic.”
“Does it?” She stopped spinning the leaf and it came to rest between the pads of her
fingers to glow orange under her studious gaze. “Does the world not organize itself? Can we not
see the world create? Out of nothing an oak tree makes a seed, and then from just the air and
water flowing around it that seed sprouts and makes branches and roots and leaves like this one.”
A small smile, like the exploratory first rays of a summer sun, brushed across her face as she
held up the leaf in front of her. For the first time since she’d picked up the leaf Evgeni looked at
it, a blotch of red trying to be holy fire, only to lose it again as she continued, “This leaf was
made from nothing. From matter and energy flowing through the air in a disorganized mess. No
god did that, just a tree. A simple, sturdy, marvelously intricate tree.”
“But what made that tree, told it how to do that?” Evgeni countered. “Ya-”
“Another tree,” Aylla interrupted, and her shining stars of eyes stopped him short. “And
before that another, and another, and another, back so far anything that came before doesn't
matter, not any more. Because all there is right now is trees and trees and more trees - creating
and organizing and living just for the sake of it. And they don’t even need a mind to do it, they
just go! That’s its own brilliance if you ask me.”

This is also a drabble, written late one light. The story about Robert Hook is true, as far as I
know, if paraphrased. The tree, Ya’ersi, is a real tree. Two trees, a red maple and a green-leafed
one whose species I have yet to determine, grow in the park so closely together they look like one
tree with two different kinds of leaves. They are a good small tree for climbing too, so I visit
them on my runs and walks to sit in, and their bark is worn away where I rest my sneaker to step
up every day. I call the red maple Ahmasi and the green-leafed on Ya’ersi. Ya’er is the goddess
of living things and life’s unique wisdom in my novel, ​The Quiet Men​. Hence, her name is also
the title of this poem.
I like this poem following the drabble from Aylla’s lips (though Aylla’s drabble still has much
growing to do). They follow a similar train of thought, a very appreciative one which I like to
end my days, and so also this collection, on.

Ya’ersi Tree
Hook said
that he never put his
all-seeing eye to a
man’s art.
“Just God’s,”
he always insisted,
or as I like to think,
just Earth’s.
Lichen
on a tree, when you go
and press your nose too close
is that​.
When your
eyes start to tear, ​beauty
blooming wider the closer
you stare.
So I
flattened my nose to the
tree I’d dubbed Ya’ersi
and looked.