Hello all two (or maybe three) of my readers out there in the world of the interwebs. Today I wanted to share with you a short story I wrote as a personal challenge to myself since I love to be long winded and write novel length material when I write fiction. Part of the challenge was to see if I could properly convey the same message in under 2,000 words as I could in 10,000 words. Also, this does, in a way, tie into my novel "Shadows of the Western Moon" in that it presents the reason that mankind left earth permanently thru the T.E.A.R.S. project. Please take the time to read it and give me your feedback, I welcome it. Also, I would like to state that this is my work and as such it is my intellectual property, please do not steal it but feel free to share it.
WILL THE LAST
PERSON TO LEAVE PLEASE TURN OUT THE SUN
by M. C. Rylee
Turning on the light to the small study, Aurora Farsinger
looked around the room, her eyes stopping on the computer monitor which rested
on a small desk. On the monitor there was a small icon that
would flash before being followed by an insistent beeping before flashing once
again. Sighing, she walked over to the
monitor and touched icon on the screen.
Establishing connection…
Establishing connection…
She waited patiently for the
connection to be established, hating how slow interstellar travel made any kind
of connection to the net. While she
waited, she tapped her foot impatiently on the floor for a few seconds before
deciding to sit in the chair that rested in front of the computer. As she sank into the chair she wondered who
it was that was trying to call her since she hadn’t bothered to check the
caller ID. Her curiosity was rewarded a
couple of seconds later (establishing the connection had only taken thirteen
seconds) when an elderly face of a man filled the screen. His features were deeply carved with the
ravages of time and hard work.
“Poppa,” Aurora said, her face
visibly brightening as she saw the face of her grandfather on the screen. “I didn’t expect a call from you. I was expecting you to come walking into our
quarters any minuet. Where are you? Do I need to come and get you? Are you having trouble navigating the ship?”
“Hello to you too young lady,” The
old man said with an odd smile on his face that was almost sad. “To answer the questions that you bombarded
me with… No, I am not having trouble navigating the ship and no, I don’t need
you to come get me because I am not even on your ship.”
“What?” A look of disbelief crossed Aurora’s
face. “Which ship are you on? How did you manage to get on the wrong ship? I know you aren’t so old that you would
wander onto the wrong ship Poppa, you aren’t senile yet. Did you take too long packing? Is that what it is? I told David that we should have helped you
pack your things…”
On the screen the old man looked as if he was trying
to say something but after several minutes of listing to her continue to
prattle on, he just shut his mouth and waited patiently.
“… but don’t worry Poppa, when we to Casteal we will
wait for your ship to arrive so that we can help you unload and settle in
before moving on to our new home.”
Aurora paused for just a second and the old man,
sensing an opportunity spoke up before she could catch her breath.
“Aurora,” He said a little sharper than he intended
too. “I am not on a ship heading to Casteal.”
“You not only got on the wrong ship but you got on
one that was heading to the wrong planet?”
“No child, you misunderstand me. I should have just come right out and said it
before you ever left Earth but the fact of the matter is… I am not on a ship at
all.”
“What?”
“I said I am not on a ship. I am still on Earth.”
“What do you mean you’re still on Earth? Did you not get to the port in time?”
“No child, I did not even try.”
“But we had made arrangement weeks in advance to for
all of us to leave together and start a new life on Casteal considering the
situation with Earth.”
“No, you and your husband decided that, I had no say
in the matter. I never wanted to leave,
after all, this is where my dear sweet Lilly is and I don’t want to die on a
planet far away from her. Look around
me…”
The camera shifted and the face disappeared from the
screen as it panned around showing the area where the old man was at. Everywhere the camera panned, Aurora could
see gravestones jutting out of the dry dusty soil that held them. The one closest to the old man was clearly
meant to have two names etched upon it but only had one name that was carved
into it on the right hand side of the stone.
The scene on the screen swung back, once again revealing the old man who
had a sad look on his face.
“You see child,” The old man began. “Here I am among many of the people that have
left me behind, left me to grow old and withered, abandoned to the whims of my
children who, instead of treating me like a person, treated me like a burden to
be shucked off to someone else in the cheapest nursing home.
“Hush child,” he said sharply as Aurora opened her
mouth to protest. “I am not passing
judgment on you, you just did what you thought was best, but you never really
took my feelings into consideration.
Kind of like this migration to one of these new planets that they are
supposed to have terra-formed and ready to be populated, you never asked me if
I wanted to go, you just made plans for me without ever considering how I felt.”
“You should have talked with David and Me before
doing a fool thing like this Poppa,” Aurora said, scolding the old man.
“Child,” the old man said sharply, “Don’t take that
tone with me. I have tried to talk to
you and your husband about this repeatedly over the course of the years since
your Nana died, you just never bothered to hear what I had to say. You and David wrote me off after putting me
in that home. You figured that you could
just dictate how my life without my say so because you thought you knew better
than me when it came to my own life.”
The old man on the screen sighed and closed his eyes
while taking a deep breath and holding it.
He sat there motionless for several minutes before opening his eyes and
continuing.
“I know you were just doing what you thought was
best, I do, but you never took how I felt into consideration. I never asked to go to that Home. I was perfectly fine in the Apartment that I
had shared with your Nana before she died.
When you took that away from me, it not only felt like you were casting
me aside, it felt like you were trying to strip me of all that I had left to
tie me to Lilly.
“My dear, sweet Lilly, how I miss you,” the old man
said as he looked over his shoulder at the gravestone beside him. A tear shimmered on his cheek as he turned
back toward the screen.
“Child… No.
Aurora, I know that life hasn’t been easy for you, especially since your
parents died and you had to come live with us.
Making that transition was not easy for anyone, Lilly and I suddenly had
a child to care for again while you had to live in a stuffy antiquated
apartment with your grandparents while mourning the loss of your parents. Your Nana and I did our best to make sure you
were provided for and had everything that a growing girl needed. We struggled to make sure that you had the
best life you could and over all I think we did rather well. You grew up to be a beautiful woman who
married a kind and intelligent man. You
have your own family to take care of and for some reason you thought you needed
to take care of me as well even though I am perfectly capable of taking care of
myself.
“Ever since the T.E.A.R.S. project was announced over
ninety years ago to the public, I knew it was something that my children and my
children’s children would benefit from.
Honestly, I never expected to see Casteal or any of the other planets that they have prepared for the human
race since I figured at the time that I would be dead long before the ships
meant to take mankind to that distant planet were ready. Now that the time has come to leave this
beautiful planet that I have called home all of my life, I don’t want to leave. I have so many fond memories here, all of my
life is here, and the woman that I dedicated myself to is here. I’m too old to go make a life on another
planet and I want to die here, on the planet that I call home. Chances are, I wouldn’t even survive the
journey to Casteal anyway due to how many years that is going to take.”
“Aurora, I waited to call you like this because I
knew that you needed to be well on your way to your new home before you knew
where I was. I know that you would have
tried to find some way to rescue me,” he said, making air quotes as he said the
word rescue. “I couldn’t have you
potentially jeopardizing your life or the lives of others over me. I have had a full life and remaining here is
my decision. Please, you can be angry
with me but don’t mourn me, I am happy and content.”
“Poppa, I am angry at you,” Aurora said, her face a
mask of fury. “How could you do this…
this… this selfish act? I can’t believe
you would just abandon me like this. You
telling me that I never took how you felt into consideration, well I did. I didn’t like having to put you in that Home,
Poppa, but we did it because we couldn’t be there all the time to make sure
nothing happened. You were alone in that
apartment and there was no telling what might have happened to you at your
age. You could have fallen and broken
something then not been able to call for help.
We placed you in that Home for your safety and you will never know the
financial sacrifices we had to make to keep you there. We were only looking out for you.
“Now you just up and decide that you are going to
stay behind on Earth after we spent the money that we earned to make sure that
you have a place on one of the ships evacuating the system so that you wouldn’t
die when the sun…” Aurora’s voice
trailed off as the angry dropped from her face and tears began to well up in
her eyes. She turned away from the
monitor, shoulders shaking as she cried softly to herself, not wanting her
grandfather to see her tears.
“Aurora, I know that this decision has hurt you and
for that I truly am sorry. I am. If I could make it up to you I would but we
both know that is impossible. I love you
and I only want the best for you, I hope that one day you will see that.”
The old man grew silent and Aurora turned back
toward the monitor where the old man was now looking up at the sky.
“It’s so beau-“ He said as a brilliant flash of white filled
the screen and his words were cut off.
Static followed a brief second later before switching to a black screen
with the flashing message…
Connection Lost
The End
