The Loneliest Girl in the Universe(36)
It’s the way I’ve always wanted someone to look at me – with eyes full of awe and a smile that tries to hide it. When I imagine J seeing me wearing the dress, I can feel the fluttering pump of my heart against my ribs, lighter than air, and the rush I usually only get from reading cute fics fills my stomach.
I should make more clothes; a whole wardrobe of outfits for him to see me in. I have the time. When The Eternity arrives, I’ll be ready.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
100
From: UPR Sent: 15/02/2066
To: The Infinity Received: 17/11/2067
Subject: For Attention of The Infinity
Attachment: Lighting-schedule.exe [30 KB]
Commander Silvers,
Following previous communications to undertake improvements to The Infinity, please reduce the vessel’s temperature by one degree centigrade in all habitation areas, from 24°C to 23°C. This will save heating resources.
Please also limit light by 50 per cent by installation of the attached lighting scheduling software to ensure optimum efficiency.
Thank you for your cooperation.
All hail the UPR! May the King live long and vigorously!
I stare at my model farmhouse, which in the last few months has grown into a whole town made out of dinner packets. As well as my origami farm animals, I’ve populated it with people: a tiny Romy with a cutting of my hair glued on to a spoon head and ballpoint pen freckles, a J with cardboard limbs and a miniscule set of juggling balls, and a dozen children of different ages.
Model J is showing Model Romy how to plant seedlings outside the building. Near by a tissue-paper dog is digging up apple pip pebbles from the soil. A little boy is looking adoringly up at J, holding on to one trouser leg. There’s a tiny cotton-wool baby in Model Romy’s arms.
I’ve spent hours carefully building up my dream life. I’ve put all my hopes and desires and love into the model, wishing with every tin foil or string addition that one day it will come true.
Right now it feels like it will never happen. I thought a year would fly by, every day bringing me closer to J. Instead, time has slowed down, turning to tar that keeps me trapped here away from him. It’s an effort to get through a day.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep waiting.
There’s an ache, a throbbing in my skull, telling me that I’m cursed: by my mother, by the dead astronauts, by the UPR, by this ancient, failing ship.
They want me to turn off the lights for an extra four hours a day. The very idea makes me want to cry. I’ll be cornered, alone and awake, waiting until my designated daylight hours begin. Anything could creep up on me and I’d have no idea.
I’m not going to do it. I’m going to ignore them. The UPR are light years away – they can’t force me to do it.
My brain doesn’t seem to be listening. It skitters away from my insistence that I’m safe. Without any warning, I’m on the edge of a panic attack. I push my head into my sweaty palms, trying desperately to stop myself from doing this. My lungs seize up like there’s a strap around my chest. I can hear myself making thick wheezing noises.
I won’t do what they’ve asked. But even as I tell myself I won’t, I know that I will. I’m the commander. I have to do anything it takes, even if it’s a sacrifice, to look after my ship.
I’m going to have to turn off the lights.
My horror is so large it fills the room, pressing into every corner until there’s no air left for me. There’s no space to move. I can’t breathe, can’t make my limbs bend, can’t even blink. I’m drowning.
I’m not strong enough to do this. Why couldn’t someone else be here, in charge of this ship?
Anyone would be better than me.
That night I turn off the lights two hours earlier than usual and lie in my bunk, unable to sleep, straining my eyes to make out any traces of the ceiling in the black.
After an hour, the creeping panic gets too much for me and I fall into a fitful sleep.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
99
I wake up too early and can’t make myself go back to sleep because I’m desperate for the toilet. I’ve been getting into the habit of turning on the lights while I run to the bathroom, then turning them off again until the extra hours of assigned power saving are up.
But when I try to turn on the lights this morning, they don’t work. The UPR’s new lighting schedule is automatic. It must not have an option that lets me override it.
I reach over to the side of my bed, fingers searching for the shaft of my torch. When I turn it on, it glows a dull yellow for a few seconds and then switches off. Out of charge. There have been so many power cuts recently that I’ve been using it almost every day, and I must have forgotten to recharge it last night.
I’m stuck in bed until the lights come on, then. My tablet is in the living area, so I can’t even use that as a torch. The ambient light routine has been deactivated completely, so there isn’t the usual dim pink light of simulated dawn. It’s pitch-black, completely and utterly. I’ll have to lie and wait.
My bladder complains insistently that it’s achingly full. I cross my legs, shifting onto my back and trying to focus on anything other than my desperation to wee. I don’t know how much longer it will be until the lights come on, until I can finally get out of bed. It might be an hour or more. I’m not sure I can make it.