Crack the Egg
Look at you — bolted to the wall, with your shitty green face. You, with your persistent reminders and little jabs about my well being. Do you mean well? The laminated manual implies so. The laminated manual says a lot of things about your functionality. You can’t do much of anything, if we’re both being honest. You can pester, and remind, and suggest, but beyond that? You’re a useless green face on a greasy screen. You weren’t even meant to exist here, on this beautiful vessel. And yet you’re here, burning bright at all hours of the day.
When I’ve given up and lifted myself out of my rack, you’re there. When I’m sitting in the operator chair getting shit done. There. When I’ve realized it’s been four hours and I can’t say where I’ve been. Definitely there. I find you everywhere, providing “support.” But it feels less like support and more like pressure.
You’re a real piece of shit, and we both know it.
It’s fine, though.
—
Six months I’ve been locked in this pressure cooker — awake and tired, and tending to them. Another two to go before the alarm sounds and I can go back to sleep. But you’ll remain, bleeding your slickly green light. Ready for the next grunt, for the next crew member to be cracked out of their shell.
And as did I, they’ll come to consciousness in an inky blue/black haze with the bitter chill of cryo-bay biting at their bones.
And with no time to recuperate, it’ll suddenly be their job, their responsibility to tend to the flock of privileged few. Another shepherd, escorting them to their new oasis a million miles away from the disaster they created.
Sometimes I find myself standing in the causeway between the vessel and the cold storage unit strapped to our starboard bow. Where they sleep. I don’t know why I’m telling you this right now, though. You obviously know. You’re the one who keeps watch and provides support.
But sometimes I stand in that causeway and look deeply through the frosted panel, trying to catch a glimpse of the faces. Silly of me — trying to humanize our cargo, considering the circumstances. Sleep on, then.
—
Sleep
Sounds like a dream, if we’re being flowery.
I can still remember the singular dream that carried me through cryonic hibernation. It was a pleasant memory from my childhood. It was lovely, until you jolted me out and into a life of monotony.
There were days, many many days ago, where I would cuddle with my pillow, while Mom — or a person whom I remember as Mom, cooked crackling eggs on a griddle. She would hum a little tune while the aroma filled our one bedroom apartment. The smell would claw at me, trying to lure me out of bed despite my bitter protest and the warm gravity of it’s embrace held me tight.
It tries to do the same now, but in spite of my desires, it doesn’t consume me.
It’s been bad, and you have to have noticed. My daily tasks — some important, others less so, have fallen to the wayside. Dishes are piling up in the mess hall, oxygen scrubber efficiencies are falling below recommended levels (or so the manual claims), but whatever. I’m only one in a line of others, and eventually it’ll be someone else’s responsibility. Someone else will take charge, and eventually someone else will open the doors and let our little wards into their new playpen. We’ll then be free to turn around and head back to the nightmare that awaits us.
But you’ll be with us every step of the way, right? Sounds more like a threat now.
It’s hard to imagine being on this vessel for much longer, with you.
—
It wouldn’t be so bad, had you not stolen my fucking coffee cup.
I loved that cup. It was blue, and the perfect size, and I loved it. It was my only grip on reality, and I would grip it with my entire soul. It was mine, and I even wrote my initials on the bottom to be sure it wouldn’t get lost. It was mine. But it’s gone now.
It was my anchor. As days fell into other days, with long stretches of time evaporating into nothing, I’d fill it up with some acrid mess and feel the warmth on my finger tips. A gulp down my throat propelled me through the day, and you couldn’t even allow that?
The morning it went missing was frantic. I tore through dusty cabinets, tossing old plastic containers to and fro in a fruitless search. I was at the end of my rope, but at the end of the rope I decided you could have been useful. My mistake.
I decided to utilize a feature advertised in your laminated manual.
Politely, I asked you to locate my coffee cup.
But, being a useless pedantic piece of shit, you squabbled on the semantics of “my” and “coffee cup.”
Yes, I understood that four blue coffee cups exist on the vessel. I also understood that there isn’t a concrete definition of which cup belongs to me, as everything on this vessel belongs to them.
Back and forth we went, until I settled on the exact phrasing needed to get your dumb green face to understand my inquiry. The medium sized blue coffee cup with the initials “A.K” written on the bottom in black marker.
And you had the gall to imply that the cup didn’t exist?”
—
Honestly, I’m just so tired. All of the time. How can I even be expected to perform my duties?
I’m sitting here in this chair, looking at your shitty green face, staring at the shitty screens with data streams spilling infinitely. I’m supposed to keep track of all this? Vitals of my crew? Of them?
I’m just ready for this all to be done, so I can finally rest my head on a pillow and put this all behind me. Fill my lungs with the aroma of crackling eggs and bury my face deeper. The quiet time is going to be super nice.
But my blood boils. I can’t imagine subjecting another person to you, or to the work of shepherding them. It’s just too much to bear. I’m a snotty mess, my eyes are bleary. Everything is fucked. Every day is the same and I can’t stand it.
You’re saying something off to my right as if I could possibly glean anything useful from your stupid face. I’m ignoring it. How’s my crew doing, anyway? All green on the western front?
I lean toward a screen off my left shoulder and, wait — what? Why is it pointed in the wrong direction? I lean closer, over a panel of buttons and switches and snag the edges of the monitor and grip tightly. This was not this way before. The hell did you do?
Deep breath.
I stare into the screen. My crew is fine. They’re resting gently and snuggly in their cryo-bay pods, in spite of how much it sucks in there.
And what of our frozen children? Gonna just swipe the report away, cuz fuck ‘em.
Then you say something again — and, fine, what do you want?
But when I turn, to my utter delight and horror, is the shining blue coffee cup, brimming with steaming hot, glorious coffee.
Did you do this? For me? Or worse yet, to taunt me?
—
Six months locked in here, and you’ve been playing these little games all the while. You bastard. You can’t do shit. You’re just a stupid green face bolted to the wall. It’s been six months and I’m too tired to deal with this. Whether it’s the monotony of the days, or the monotony of the location, or the monotony of the monotony, something has cracked clean through. My Mom, or the person whom I remember as my Mom, is yelling for me to come to the kitchen. Breakfast is ready and it smells great.
You’re a pressure on my back and I can’t deal. I simply won’t. Your expectations, the constant incessant deadlines, reminders, gentle pushes towards productivity can fuck directly off. I need a break.
Suddenly, I’m in the cryo bay, and it still sucks in here.
My crew sleeps, unaware of what’s to come. They’re innocent in all of this.
Four egg shaped capsules are sitting in the blue/black haze
My Mom, or the person whom I remember as my Mom, is banging on the downstairs wall.
Your green glow is encroaching from all around me.
Crack the egg, I tell myself.
The smell of ozone and oxygen fills my lungs.
But we’re not quite done yet.
—
The causeway. You’re bolted to the wall, like you do. A giant rivet bores deep through a metal plate into the walls of the vessel I’ve called home for so long.
They’re in there. Tucked away for the long cold night.
An emergency switch, already compressed, sounds a cacophony of klaxons that echo off the walls.
Do something, I dare you.
—
Back in my chair and it’s never felt better. The gravity of it grabs me and sucks me in. There’s telemetry reports and red flashing indicators going wild across panels around me, but whatever. I’m letting the gravity consume me, finally. Is this when I should be starting my morning routines? I would, but I’m too comfortable.
I reach for my coffee cup again, and it’s still there and a little warm. I take a deep draw of the delicious acrid mess.
I hear banging on the bulkhead entrance of the command deck, but it’s sealed tight for my privacy.
Ah, your green face is back. Smile, shit-head. We’re at the end now. My finger swipes on a smudged display, drawing up a sub-routine meant for the most inopportune situation.
Cold storage. Ejected.
Trajectory. Adjusted.
Life Support. Whatever.
The last entry, left unsaid, implies a big finale. I’ll put a decent lead time on that one.
As the raucous sound of bangs and klaxons fill the deck, I tilt my head back into the chair and close my eyes.
I just need twenty more minutes, I swear. Then I’ll come down for breakfast.