Titanic Post

I called into work dead that morning, but they asked me to come in anyway. When I hesitated they started asking me questions.”Is it contagious?” Was the first one.

“I don’t think so?” I replied, still a little irritated by their request. “I mean no one else around me seems to be dead?”

“Do you have a high temperature?”

“No, actually I don’t have a temperature at all. The doctor says that’s one of the symptoms of being dead.”

The doctor said a lot of other things too. I didn’t have a pulse, which of course meant no heartbeat. I was cold to the touch and the only time I drew a breath was to talk. I had all the symptoms of being recently deceased, except that I was moving around, awake and alert. The doctor couldn’t explain it and kept telling me it defied all the laws of science. He said I couldn’t be dead and still walking around because it was simply impossible. Of course, they use to think it was impossible to fly, so what the do those eggheads know?

The doctor thought it might have had something to do with the strange electrical field my transport ship passed through. It happened while I was on my way to my new ship, this ship - The Space Gull. To me, the energy field was just a bolt of light that winked in and out of existence so fast it was barely even noticeable, but when I looked at my time gauge, an hour of my life had been lost. I thought it was a fairly unsettling experience and the doctors concurred.

“We really need you,” the voice on the other end of the com line persisted. “We need you to work today. Do you think you could manage to come in?”

I hesitated.

“We need to work together. It’s all part of being a team and you’re part of our team.”

I hesitated some more.

“You don’t have any sick days left.” That decided it. Dead or not I couldn’t afford to be docked. “Yeah, I guess I could come in,” I finally answered. “Part of our team”, I thought I as I walked to the cockpit. That was their new company slogan for employees. When I started with Stellar Spaceways it was: “We’re like family.” The employee recruitment advertisement for Steller sounded so good. I guess that should have been my first clue that there was something wrong with them. The new truth in employee recruitment laws stated the employers had to be completely honest about wages, working condition and such, but there were always ways around that law. Stellar used a dual frequency commercial. Part of it was in a range anyone could hear, part of it was in high frequency only audible to dogs. Unfortunately my dog was outside, so he couldn’t tell me what the message actually said.

“Come work for Stellar! We have state of the art ships,” was what I heard. “…for when they were built 20 years ago,” was the part I didn’t hear.

“We treat you like family,” was heard. “We hate our family,” wasn’t heard. I really shouldn’t have been surprised at how bad Stellar was (and is).

That’s just how the corporate galaxy is these days.

It was a long walk from the infirmary to the cock pit. The Space Gull was a big ship, made for lengthy, slow voyages. The ship had four lounges, two theaters, five restaurants. It had dozens of corridors leading to hundreds of places that were designed to entertain the passengers. Each hallway had posters to remind everyone what a great time they were having on a “Stellar Interstellar Flight.” The posters had pictures of faces that smiled back at you. Through their smiles, the faces spoke with bright colored words that read, “Stellar, the only way through the Milkyway,” and that sort of stuff. As big as the ship was, the company only assigned two pilots working in 12 hour shifts. They were, and still are, cheap, not even providing a relief pilot so a person could have a day off… or for emergencies like this.

“You look dead on your feet!” Scanlin, the other pilot was laughing so hard at his own dumb joke he could hardly get it out. He’d heard about my condition the very first day, and the very first day he started making jokes. I was getting sick of it. I didn’t bother to acknowledge him and just took the log and sat in the captain’s chair as he stood up. Unfortunately my lack of interest didn’t turn him off.

“Don’t work yourself to death,” he said, on his way out. He was still laughing a scoffing laugh.

“So, what do the doctors say?” Bolles, the navigator, asked once we were alone.

“They say I seem fine except for… well … you know.”

“What do they say about you not sleeping or eating for the past…how many days has it been?”

“They said they can’t explain it,” I answered. “And it’s been three days.”

Three days of not even wanting to taste a melting steak in my mouth. Three days of not having that comforting, drifting feeling of the world fading as you drop-off to sleep. It was the not being able to sleep that made me go to the doctor originally, that very first day on the ship. Stellar always liked their pilots well rested, so tranquilizers were free and easy to get. But instead of a pill I found out I was DOA. I thought it was just a little new ship insomnia, I had no idea how serious my condition was.

“And that’s it, all they say is They don’t know what it is?” I think Bolles asked that question twice before I finally heard him.

I nodded. I didn’t mention the energy field. I had been told it was classified, which meant I would loose my job if anyone found out.

“Hmm,” was all Bolles said,then went back to his work. I was glad he didn’t want to discuss it further. Since I had arrived on the Space Gull that’s all I’d been talking about. I didn’t sleep at the end of shift, so I would just go to the infirmary for company required tests, after that it was back to work… then back to the infirmary….then… well, you get the idea. I was a zombie caught in a cycle, not even thinking, just acting on orders.

The infirmary was dull. It’s funny that no matter where you go, all hospitals are exactly alike. The rooms have big machines with tiny screens, the people wear rubber shoes that squeak, and everything they put next to your body is ice cold, even the sheets they give you to keep you warm.

Yes, the infirmary was dull and beyond. So was work. Time ran together. With no nights to break them up, all the hours became one, very long, work shift.

Then, on the seventh day, something happened. That day, suddenly, unexpectedly, I found I really loved work. I loved flying. It was poetry. I hadn’t felt like that since I was kid, just starting out in the business. After all the years of flying for the corporations the joy of it had been lost. It had disappeared somewhere between the bureaucratic paper work garbage and the monotony of familiar flight paths. On the seventh day of my death, however, the exhilaration of space travel came back to me.

It started right after Skanlin left the cockpit, chuckling over some inane joke I don’t even remember now. Bolles sat, like he usually did, hunched in the corner, quietly working on his charts and graphs. The gauges on the flight panel gave off a soft blue green glow that warmed my cold skin like a campfire. Outside it was dark, except for the stars surrounding us and inside it was quite, except for the hum of the life support engines. As I touched the controls I began floating through space and time. Flying put memories to sleep and erased the past. The only thing that existed was the ship and the stars, and I was part of them both. It was a wonderful kind of insanity.

When I told the doctors what happened they just chalked it up to one of the side effects of the energy field. I wasn’t sure what I chalked it up to, but I was glad that it happened.

For the next two days I went to the infirmary and I worked. I hated the infirmary, I loved work, except for Skanlin’s jokes. I still didn’t sleep or eat. On the tenth day I got a bit of good news. Skanlin was being transferred to another ship, immediately. He was to leave that day to go back to home base.

“I’m supposed to take that new route back,” he said, scowling over the flight instructions. “The same path you took here, they say it’s shorter,” he said, looking up at me, then back down at his notes.

“Through the energy field,” I thought. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all.

Skanlin mumbled aloud the headings, “95 degrees for 45 min 68 degrees for 2.5 hours….” his voice trailed off. “Is this way really shorter?” he asked turning to me. I guess maybe I should have told him, but my curiosity got the best of me. I just had to know if he would be making the same dumb jokes once it happened to him.

“Yeah, it’s shorter,” I said. That wasn’t a lie, it actually was shorter.

********************

Stellar Spaceways put me on a new assignment one day after the Space Gull docked. I was glad, I hate it when I’m not flying. They told me I would be working doubles for a while and that was fine with me too. The way I feel now, the more time in the Captain’s chair the better.

There was another pilot at the space port who was as anxious as I was to get back in the saddle. He didn’t say it in words, but his actions told me he may have had a run in with the energy field too. I suspect that soon, many Stellar Spaceway pilots will have experienced the energy field. I guess I could try to warn people, but that would just get me fired and the corporate bigwigs would go ahead and do it anyway. So I figure, why bother.

Besides, I had heard a rumor that they were thinking of making stock available to employees. They want to be able to say they are “Employee Vested.” Not owned, of course, they would see to it that the hours worked per share was too high for that. It would be just a few employees owning a few shares of stock. But the catch phrase “Employee Vested” sure makes for a good PR statement.

Like I said the cost of shares would be high, it would be something like one share per one thousand hours, but with me working double shifts and with no time off, I’ll bet that one thousand hours would come and go by fast. In fact, I bet it would be that way for all of us pilots.

I guess the gist of all this is that now I can now honestly recommend Stellar. The ships are still pieces of junks, but you never have to worry about the pilot falling asleep at the wheel, or spilling dinner on the control board. And in a few months, I think I’ll safely be able to say, that Stellar pilots have more flight time logged than any of the other space transports in the galaxy. And, if the rumors are true, it will soon be “Employee Vested!”

I wonder how much stock all those CEO’s own?

[Rights Reserved under Creative Commons License as Posted]

A science-fiction short story

I called into work dead that morning, but they asked me to come in anyway. When I hesitated they started asking me questions.”Is it contagious?” Was the first one.

“I don’t think so?” I replied, still a little irritated by their request. “I mean no one else around me seems to be dead?”

“Do you have a high temperature?”

“No, actually I don’t have a temperature at all. The doctor says that’s one of the symptoms of being dead.”

The doctor said a lot of other things too. I didn’t have a pulse, which of course meant no heartbeat. I was cold to the touch and the only time I drew a breath was to talk. I had all the symptoms of being recently deceased, except that I was moving around, awake and alert. The doctor couldn’t explain it and kept telling me it defied all the laws of science. He said I couldn’t be dead and still walking around because it was simply impossible. Of course, they use to think it was impossible to fly, so what the do those eggheads know?

The doctor thought it might have had something to do with the strange electrical field my transport ship passed through. It happened while I was on my way to my new ship, this ship - The Space Gull. To me, the energy field was just a bolt of light that winked in and out of existence so fast it was barely even noticeable, but when I looked at my time gauge, an hour of my life had been lost. I thought it was a fairly unsettling experience and the doctors concurred.

“We really need you,” the voice on the other end of the com line persisted. “We need you to work today. Do you think you could manage to come in?”

I hesitated.

“We need to work together. It’s all part of being a team and you’re part of our team.”

I hesitated some more.

“You don’t have any sick days left.”

That decided it. Dead or not I couldn’t afford to be docked. “Yeah, I guess I could come in,” I finally answered.

“Part of our team”, I thought I as I walked to the cockpit. That was their new company slogan for employees. When I started with Stellar Spaceways it was: “We’re like family.” The employee recruitment advertisement for Steller sounded so good. I guess that should have been my first clue that there was something wrong with them. The new truth in employee recruitment laws stated the employers had to be completely honest about wages, working condition and such, but there were always ways around that law. Stellar used a dual frequency commercial. Part of it was in a range anyone could hear, part of it was in high frequency only audible to dogs. Unfortunately my dog was outside, so he couldn’t tell me what the message actually said.

“Come work for Stellar! We have state of the art ships,” was what I heard. “…for when they were built 20 years ago,” was the part I didn’t hear.

“We treat you like family,” was heard. “We hate our family,” wasn’t heard. I really shouldn’t have been surprised at how bad Stellar was (and is).

That’s just how the corporate galaxy is these days.

It was a long walk from the infirmary to the cock pit. The Space Gull was a big ship, made for lengthy, slow voyages. The ship had four lounges, two theaters, five restaurants. It had dozens of corridors leading to hundreds of places that were designed to entertain the passengers. Each hallway had posters to remind everyone what a great time they were having on a “Stellar Interstellar Flight.” The posters had pictures of faces that smiled back at you. Through their smiles, the faces spoke with bright colored words that read, “Stellar, the only way through the Milkyway,” and that sort of stuff. As big as the ship was, the company only assigned two pilots working in 12 hour shifts. They were, and still are, cheap, not even providing a relief pilot so a person could have a day off… or for emergencies like this.

“You look dead on your feet!” Scanlin, the other pilot was laughing so hard at his own dumb joke he could hardly get it out. He’d heard about my condition the very first day, and the very first day he started making jokes. I was getting sick of it. I didn’t bother to acknowledge him and just took the log and sat in the captain’s chair as he stood up. Unfortunately my lack of interest didn’t turn him off.

“Don’t work yourself to death,” he said, on his way out. He was still laughing a scoffing laugh.

“So, what do the doctors say?” Bolles, the navigator, asked once we were alone.

“They say I seem fine except for… well … you know.”

“What do they say about you not sleeping or eating for the past…how many days has it been?”

“They said they can’t explain it,” I answered. “And it’s been three days.”

Three days of not even wanting to taste a melting steak in my mouth. Three days of not having that comforting, drifting feeling of the world fading as you drop-off to sleep. It was the not being able to sleep that made me go to the doctor originally, that very first day on the ship. Stellar always liked their pilots well rested, so tranquilizers were free and easy to get. But instead of a pill I found out I was DOA. I thought it was just a little new ship insomnia, I had no idea how serious my condition was.

“And that’s it, all they say is They don’t know what it is?” I think Bolles asked that question twice before I finally heard him.

I nodded. I didn’t mention the energy field. I had been told it was classified, which meant I would loose my job if anyone found out.

“Hmm,” was all Bolles said,then went back to his work. I was glad he didn’t want to discuss it further. Since I had arrived on the Space Gull that’s all I’d been talking about. I didn’t sleep at the end of shift, so I would just go to the infirmary for company required tests, after that it was back to work… then back to the infirmary….then… well, you get the idea. I was a zombie caught in a cycle, not even thinking, just acting on orders.

The infirmary was dull. It’s funny that no matter where you go, all hospitals are exactly alike. The rooms have big machines with tiny screens, the people wear rubber shoes that squeak, and everything they put next to your body is ice cold, even the sheets they give you to keep you warm.

Yes, the infirmary was dull and beyond. So was work. Time ran together. With no nights to break them up, all the hours became one, very long, work shift.

Then, on the seventh day, something happened. That day, suddenly, unexpectedly, I found I really loved work. I loved flying. It was poetry. I hadn’t felt like that since I was kid, just starting out in the business. After all the years of flying for the corporations the joy of it had been lost. It had disappeared somewhere between the bureaucratic paper work garbage and the monotony of familiar flight paths. On the seventh day of my death, however, the exhilaration of space travel came back to me.

It started right after Skanlin left the cockpit, chuckling over some inane joke I don’t even remember now. Bolles sat, like he usually did, hunched in the corner, quietly working on his charts and graphs. The gauges on the flight panel gave off a soft blue green glow that warmed my cold skin like a campfire. Outside it was dark, except for the stars surrounding us and inside it was quite, except for the hum of the life support engines. As I touched the controls I began floating through space and time. Flying put memories to sleep and erased the past. The only thing that existed was the ship and the stars, and I was part of them both. It was a wonderful kind of insanity.

When I told the doctors what happened they just chalked it up to one of the side effects of the energy field. I wasn’t sure what I chalked it up to, but I was glad that it happened.

For the next two days I went to the infirmary and I worked. I hated the infirmary, I loved work, except for Skanlin’s jokes. I still didn’t sleep or eat. On the tenth day I got a bit of good news. Skanlin was being transferred to another ship, immediately. He was to leave that day to go back to home base.

“I’m supposed to take that new route back,” he said, scowling over the flight instructions. “The same path you took here, they say it’s shorter,” he said, looking up at me, then back down at his notes.

“Through the energy field,” I thought. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all.

Skanlin mumbled aloud the headings, “95 degrees for 45 min 68 degrees for 2.5 hours….” his voice trailed off. “Is this way really shorter?” he asked turning to me. I guess maybe I should have told him, but my curiosity got the best of me. I just had to know if he would be making the same dumb jokes once it happened to him.

“Yeah, it’s shorter,” I said. That wasn’t a lie, it actually was shorter.

********************

Stellar Spaceways put me on a new assignment one day after the Space Gull docked. I was glad, I hate it when I’m not flying. They told me I would be working doubles for a while and that was fine with me too. The way I feel now, the more time in the Captain’s chair the better.

There was another pilot at the space port who was as anxious as I was to get back in the saddle. He didn’t say it in words, but his actions told me he may have had a run in with the energy field too. I suspect that soon, many Stellar Spaceway pilots will have experienced the energy field. I guess I could try to warn people, but that would just get me fired and the corporate bigwigs would go ahead and do it anyway. So I figure, why bother.

Besides, I had heard a rumor that they were thinking of making stock available to employees. They want to be able to say they are “Employee Vested.” Not owned, of course, they would see to it that the hours worked per share was too high for that. It would be just a few employees owning a few shares of stock. But the catch phrase “Employee Vested” sure makes for a good PR statement.

Like I said the cost of shares would be high, it would be something like one share per one thousand hours, but with me working double shifts and with no time off, I’ll bet that one thousand hours would come and go by fast. In fact, I bet it would be that way for all of us pilots.

I guess the gist of all this is that now I can now honestly recommend Stellar. The ships are still pieces of junks, but you never have to worry about the pilot falling asleep at the wheel, or spilling dinner on the control board. And in a few months, I think I’ll safely be able to say, that Stellar pilots have more flight time logged than any of the other space transports in the galaxy. And, if the rumors are true, it will soon be “Employee Vested!”

I wonder how much stock all those CEO’s own?

---

Kim’s Blog: Our Blue Island
Kim’s Website
Copyright restrictions of High Desert Views apply.

The voice on the answering machine was probing and determined. I knew who it was at the first word. We hadn’t spoken to each other since that summer of 1957. She said that there was a number I could call if I wanted. The old excitement returned reminding me of how much I missed her. We had parted without saying goodby.

I didn’t call her right away. Instead I sat on the deck, hoping the sun’s warmth would realign my erratic thoughts. I couldn’t say whether it was from the exertion of my morning bike ride, from which I had just returned, or the sudden reappearance of this girl from my past who had my pulse racing and my mind in disarray. I had believed that she was forever gone from my life.

It began when she came to New Mexico that summer for a visit. She was from a small town in Texas not far from where I grew up. Our parents had been very close at one time. My family had moved West some years before. I don’t remember why she came to visit us then or how she even got there. I only remember how beautiful and desirable she was and how words failed me in her presence.

As children we had been together on numerous occasions, usually ignoring each other. However, I recalled one summer day at my grandmother’s house, we were both there in the living room, which was mostly reserved for formal occasions. We couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve at the time. My aunt Eunice’s painting of Rembrandt’s The Man with the Golden Helmet stood watch over us as she played the old out-of-tune upright piano with the missing ivory near middle C. I think it was a boogie and her hands and fingers were flying everywhere and she had a voice like an angle. She tried to teach me “Chop Sticks,” which I butchered with my clumsy fingers. She showed me three chords, which I did retain. Even now, when I see a piano, I mentally form those chords with my fingers, and remember.

That summer of her visit, we drove around town evenings, circling the Red Rooster drive-in north of town, then south to the Hi-Di-Ho drive-in, then back again. This was the ritual in our small town that teenagers in the late 1950s followed religiously. One evening we actually went inside the Red Rooster. There we each ordered hamburger and a cherry coke and fed the juke-box from our booth. I still see us sitting across from each other in the red vinyl booth, me cautiously probing her with questions for answers that I hoped would indicate her interest in me. She, coyly looking up at me through lowered eyes. At the time I was too dumbfounded to realize that she was flirting with me.

On other days we drove to the mountains and walked for miles under the cool canopy of the Ponderosa Pines, talking and growing bolder with each step. I remembered the smell of her long auburn hair mingling with the cool musky fragrance of the air rising from the decaying pine needles.

With time we discovered a universe of things-in-common. Not that we were so alike, because we weren’t. We came from vastly different backgrounds. She was what, today, you would call a capricious child coming from a solid middle-class family and accustomed to the better things in life. My father was the black sheep of the family and didn’t fit into any of the usual little boxes. In spite of our backgrounds, we shared many dreams and some vague ideas of how we wanted our lives to be. We found that we had a certain comforting toleration for each othe’s quirks. We fell in love. When we were alone, we held each other tightly, not speaking, as if our souls were interchangeable with a knowing that was beyond the physical world. She was my first love. I don’t know if I was her first. I didn’t think so but it didn’t matter. We were destined to spend eternity together, or so I began to think. My parents, sworn to protect her virtue (I assumed), didn’t suspect us.

We sensed that time was slipping away. School would start soon and we would have to face the inevitable end of summer. Then the day came. A furtive kiss, a last embrace and she was gone.

For months after she left, we wrote almost daily and promised each other eternal love and truth. We tried desperately to hold on to each other and to think of ways to be together. It was her mother’s discovery of one of my letters to her that brought about the end.

Our parents conspired to make correspondence impossible and thoroughly embarrassed the both of us. I was devastated. I wanted to run away from home: run to her. For months I pushed myself through life, consumed with guilt and yearning. I was one love-sick puppy dog.

Later I understood that even had we not been outed, we could never have sustained the practical parts of our relationship. Our inexperience alone would have undermined any chance of success. After high school I did figuratively run away from home. I went to live in Europe and stayed for thirty years before returning to home to New Mexico. I suppose she also ran away from home. She became a rather prominent singer. Now she had called after all these years, as I had many times wanted to call her. She was now only a telephone call away.

Back then, after our separation, I was sad for a while. I began to feed off the memories as I went out into the world. The sense of loss faded and I began to use the memories like trail-mix, nourishing me on my path when I was alone and full of doubt. Now, the longing to be with her was unbearable. All it took was those few words of her voice on the answering machine.

What could we possibly say to each other after all those years? So much had changed. Did I want to risk another relationship? She was my first true love, if there is such a thing. It seemed that love, if it is romantic, could not, strictly speaking, be true. But, if it isn’t romantic, could it ever be true? I wondered if she even remembered that summer. Then what about my love of solitude? Of course that didn’t mean that I wanted to be alone, or did it? Why couldn’tTMt I hope to share the sunsets with someone? But that sweet bird lights only when least expected, and I was getting way ahead of myself.

As I returned inside to call her, I realized that I had loved her silently all these years. I tried to push aside that old and familiar fear of rejection, not all the way, but just far enough to the side to allow room for a ray of hope, should one be offered. As I dialed, I was deeply aware that her presence, but also her absence, had gone through me like thread through a needle. Everything in my past and everything in the future was stitched with her color.

April 2005

I’ve never written anything like this. In a way it reminds me of those romance novels with the heaving bosoms and ripped bodices. Not that I’ve read any. Part fiction, part flawed memory, it was an interesting experience trying to accurately describe falling in love without sounding like a teenager and without using vocabulary and syntax that are too masculine or too feminine. I feel that love is mostly feminine in the Taoist sense; however, it can never be entirely so from the male perspective. There are too many male traits (also in the Taoist sense) that should rightly be part of the process. I’m thinking of concepts such as truth, honor, responsibility, security, and providing, but also self-doubt, fear, and lots of confusion.

The memories are still fresh enough to write this, but the right words, as usual, are hard to come by. Like the first time I fell in love, I wasn’t sure I could pull it off with dignity. I hope I’ve succeeded in both. S., thanks again for the call. - kn

That big tumbleweed was gone yesterday. It was as if it had never been there. It had spent all last winter out between the Cottonwood tree and the propane tank.

At first it seemed harmless enough in spite of its size, which was over eight feet tall and almost as wide. At first it didn’t bother anybody. At least not until the winds came last March. Then, every time I’d go to check the propane level or to put water on the Cottonwood tree out back it would glare down at my puny six foot frame and shudder and shake with each breath of wind, stuggeling to pull loose from the greasewood branches that were somehow holding it back.

I had heard about people who where attacked by packs of smaller tumbleweeds during the windstorms. Some needed medical attention, but for others nothing could be done. The Old People used to say that if a tumbleweed gets ahold of you, it’s thorns would inject their seeds under the skin of your arms and into your stomach and when the seeds germinated, they would feed on your body, and that’s where the really big tumbleweeds come from.

I guess that the reason it left here was because nobody would get close enough to it and so it finally decided to move on. Maybe it tumbled north toward Tularosa and found somebody there who didn’t know.
~ Kenneth Nicholson