A Spaceman

Chapter 34--Extremes

"Aren't you going to see your friend today?"

"No he's dead," I say, standing in the doorway.

"Oh I'm terribly sorr---"

"Don't," I say and I close the door. We're supposed to let the nurses in when they come see us. to take care of us. provide empathy. I don't let people in.

**

When I reach them Jo is already shot. She's bleeding from the chest and somewhere in her stomach by the amount of blood on her. Lizzie is fighting with all her might and screaming and the police stagger as they drag her away, sedating her. She's bloody as well though I can't tell from where.

I don't consciously move but I'm kneeling next to Jo, as the paramedics try to take her away. there's a lot of blood. too much blood. I've seen enough men die to know it, to smell when far too much blood has been shed.

"Get Lizzie," Jo is gripping my hand, "Don't let them hurt her. We promised we wouldn't let them hurt her."

"Okay," is all I say. I want to stay with her. but she makes the call. She's my touchstone. She makes the call. I'll go get Lizzie.

"Don't let them hurt her," she says, as the put oxygen over her face and strap her down.

"Okay," I say. and I turn and walk away.

**

What I'm wondering about is how I'll kill him. Or if I'll keep the nerve when I'm not this drunk. But why not? Why shouldn't I? I don't remember.

"You're drunk," My mother is disappointed in me. She may need to get used to that feeling.

"Yes that's what I'm trying to achieve anyway," I say.

"You'd better drink some water or you'll be sorry in the morning---well quit," she takes away one of the packets. We are wandering into the depressurization chamber with our kits. It's a small area, with a little main room with sofas and screens, and then little pods where you can sleep off hangovers.

"Whatever," I say, going toward the nearest one.

"Men," she mutters.

"I know, he started slurring his words after three shots," Nicole says, patting my shoulder. She's not as drunk as I am.

"I don't understand the desire to dull one's sense voluntarily," the person I'm going to kill says, walking in backwards reading something on a tablet.

"That's because you don't have to live with you," Thorn says, lying down on a sofa and putting an arm over his face.

"That comment is without any substance by the very definition I must live with me I am me," he retorts.

"Yeah ----no---I have a theory about that, you see-----admittedly it makes more sense after several of these but ----here it is----I think you're not actually you----I think you're somebody other than you and you only interact with you on as limited a basis as possible," Thorn says, nodding his head as though that will make it make more sense.

"You believe I exist on multiple dimensions defying space and time in order to subjugate my own existence?" the soon to be dead Titus Card says.

"It's a theory----like I said makes less sense when you aren't drunk---but when I first met you I thought you were one of the four horses so you know----this is actually more complimentary," Thorn says.

"So this is why you said I needed alcohol," Quinn says, staring at them.

"Oh yes," Nicole says, patting me around the shoulders, "Come on, let's sleep it off."