A Spaceman

Chapter 13--Speaking of the father...

Quinn is not yielding. Every game I play he resist. Every word I say he doesn't hear. He eats, but how is he eating? He refuses the flesh as though he knows its human. He rambles to himself endlessly but when I speak to him he says nothing. around me he says nothing. I invite him to curse and scorn me, nothing.

I sigh and cling to the porthole, staring out at the chasm of space. Empty space. I match my hand up to the stars and catch them. It's Tess' birthday this morning. I was always in space for them. Always but once, when I happened to be on leave. She'd been four as I remember. We went and got ice cream. And she sat on my lap and pointed at clouds and talked about how happy she was I had come.

I focus my brain. Delete that memory. That useless memory waste of space. She is a waste of brain power. Why spend time on it? It is curious how my mind works so on things that are so inconsequential when it has much larger things to entertain it.

Perhaps it is good she is dead. No don't think that. think of what fun you two would have. On this ship. She would probably try to overthrow you, she devil. And you'd crush her but it would be worth it to have adversary worth fighting. Worth the game. None of them are worth it. I'm looking at their video feeds and their police phone calls and their battle plans right now. all pulled up on my monitors. I have them trying to track me. I have them doing EVERYTHING. It's not as fun as I thought it would be. I still know everything. I'm still winning too easily. And now I'm melancholy over Tess and what might have been.

Well I know just how to cheer me up.

I tap my ear.

"Titus, hello again, anything new in the last---oh, six hours?" Major Tom asks, her voice sweet and low.

"Nothing much, I got my usual four hours of sleep, its oh'three hundred for you eh?" I ask.

"You know what time it is, you're probably watching them analyze our last phone call," she says, darkly.

"No, I got bored," I say, "It's Tess' birthday today, did you know?"

"No, I didn't. sorry. You must miss her," she says, kindly.

"Thought about her. Do you ever think about people who are dead?" I ask.

"Yes, considering a whole lot of them died very recently, some very dear friends, yes, I do, very often," she says, anger dripping into her voice.

"You're still on the Ulyssess, when are you going to let that go?" I ask.

"Ah---not in a week!" she cries.

"Okay, fine, I'll call back in another week," I say.

"Can I talk to Lt. Starr?" she asks.

"If you like, he's sleeping now," I say, "Do you want me to call back later when he's up?"

"Yes, please," she says.

"Okay, bye then," I say, hanging up. I smile. I knew she would cheer me up. Maybe this is just what I need to tip Quinn over the edge.

**

I look out the window at the pouring rain. It's nearly four am and I still can't sleep. I got back at midnight, though. three beers later you'd think it would help. I sigh and walk back into the dark kitchen of my apartment. Lonely and dark.

Happy Birthday.

Bitter words. I knew today would be hard. I didn't even know it was today, though. I've been so busy. It was when one of the orderlies asked me for the date. I looked at my wrist pad and saw that today was tomorrow. I usually get myself ready to not be depressed, but three eighteen hours shifts at the hospital were enough to get me out of whack and off guard.