Transition: Chapter 3
Micah has a hangover, and names his invisible rat.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Micah—Chapter 2: Not Micah—Chapter 3: Micah
Chapter 4: Not Micah—Chapter 5: Micah—Chapter 6: Not Micah
Chapter 7: Micah—Chapter 8: Not Micah—Chapter 9: Micah
Chapter 10: Not Micah—Chapter 11: Micah—Chapter 12: Not Micah
Chapter 13: Micah—Chapter 14: Not Micah—Chapter 15: Micah
Chapter 16—Not Micah—Chapter 17: Micah—Chapter 18: Not Micah
Chapter 3: Micah
I wake in the dark. Some great beast breathes out, its mechanical chest rattles all around me. I’m trapped inside it, swallowed whole. I can feel its hot breath tickle my face. It pings, pops, creaks. It builds to a cacophony quickly, and then settles. My brain snaps into reality again, remembering where it is. How has humanity settled in geosynchronous orbit but still relies on this god awful electric heating? How have they not made it any damn quieter?
I feel the pressure on my body increase slowly as the station comes back to full gravity. Light fades into existence, softening the darkness and giving shape to my room. My cell. The piercing pain in my head has settled to a dull throb that I feel whenever I move my eyes. My hangover’s resolved, but my mouth tastes like I was chewing on insulation foam dipped in sewage all night. I push myself up to sitting slowly, and hear the soft snoring of the black, lumpy thing near my feet pause briefly, and then resume. Great, so that’s like, still a thing that exists.
I extract myself from the bed, careful not to wake the beast, and find my way over to the faucet, navigating the landmines of trash and discarded clothes along the way. Carefully, I extract a cup from a haphazardly assembled art installation of dirty dishes, and through some miracle it doesn’t all come tumbling down. I fill the cup, take a long, slow drink of water, and think. The light in the room increases fractionally again, and I hear the sounds of waking in the rooms around me.
Yesterday was fucked. Grade A, brain melting, reality questioning bullshit. The kind of thing that will make a man stop and wonder; have I done too many drugs and am I now suffering a mental collapse? There’s a talking rat asleep on my bed, a sentence that I never thought I’d put together, and I’ve seen things that make me fairly certain the real world and I are at odds with each other, if not teetering on all out war. I’m also fairly likely to get sent to reassignment today, again, and will somehow be required to function like a well rounded member of society.
I turn to fill up the cup with water again, but in my semi-distracted-semi-concussed state I move too fast and slam my hand into the teetering pile of dishes. Metal plates, bowls, cups, knives, forks, spoons of various sizes, and I think a pair of earrings I’ve been missing for a week fly across the room. They clang against the metal countertop, flooring, cabinets, sounding very much like a child using pots and pans as their first drum set.
My neighbor, a grumpy, stooped woman with more mass in her white hair than her bones, pounds her fist on the wall in irritation. I vaguely consider letting loose a symphony of thumps back, letting her know that I don’t give a good goddamn if she’s experienced some discomfort, and that she should probably just go ahead and die instead of using station resources, but I’m distracted by an elongated sigh that comes from the foot of my bed.
The rat, who I’m starting to think needs a name at this point in our relationship, although he certainly wouldn’t be the first to sleep over without telling me it, is stretching. He strains his legs and arms outwards from his lumpy body, pushing them as far as he can, and then relaxes completely with a great sigh. It’s such a human movement that I feel a visceral urge to do the same thing, but I squash it. I will not be taking my cues for relaxation from a rat that may or may not actually exist.
“Alright, since you obviously didn’t dissolve into thin air while I slept, what do I call you?” I say, walking back across the room and sitting on the bed again.
The rat yawns, and I force my mouth closed so I don’t mimic him. “Always with the names, can’t I just exist? Isn’t that enough? Also, do you have any food in here?”
I look over at the scattered dishes on the floor, remnants of decomposing food still clinging to them. “A veritable feast.” I say, motioning to them. “Now, as to the name. If you fail to provide one, I shall be forced to make one up for you. And let me just tell you, you might not like it.”
The rat plops off the bed and scurries over to lick the food with gusto. “But, why?” He gets out between licks, the idea of his tiny tongue sliding over moldy food remnants makes bile rise in the back of my throat.
“Listen, this is an important step in the anthropomorphization of a side-kick, I’ve seen it enough times to know. Without a name, people can’t properly place themselves in your ugly, scraggly, clawed feet.”
In response, the rat snorts a laugh. “Okay then, have at it I’d say. What’s my name?”
“Bambi.”
He pauses and turns around to stare at me. “Like the cartoon deer?”
“Right. It fits because you’re as far removed from a beautiful, graceful fawn as I can imagine. Also, I won’t get it confused in conversation with other people when I’m discussing the potentially invisible rat that’s been following me around. Which is truly a topic I can’t wait to broach, first with my therapist, and then probably with anyone else that will listen.”
“I’m not invisible, not really. I’m just good at distracting people so they think I’m not there.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were a ventriloquist.”
Bambi snorts another laugh. “Actually, that’s not far off.”
Next to my door, a small square screen the size of my hand chimes. A red light blinks in one corner. I roll my eyes and walk over to it, and press my thumb over the red light.
Automated message for MICAH ANGELOS. Your current employment contract has been terminated. Please proceed to the workforce center at your earliest convenience for reassignment.
The voice is shrill and metallic, like knives dragged through circuitry. It’s obvious that it’s trying to approach human, that a designer somewhere worked hard at it, but it falls far short in the pacing, syncopation, tone, and you know, everything that might make it actually sound human. I navigate through the menus on the touchpad, and turn it back to text-only for message readouts. I do this every single time, but the damn thing hates me and just reverts back after 24 hours.
I sigh aloud for what feels like the thirtieth time already this morning, and with irritation fueled procrastination, finally start to clean my room.
–
Thorston Eriksson is the type of man whose sheer presence would make you believe that vikings did at one point walk the planet, and they were some bad motherfuckers. Muscles bulge from underneath his too-tight, pressed maroon uniform, the color of administration. Who the hell presses their uniforms? Even sitting down, his blonde ponytailed head somehow towers over mine. Quaintly, he wears a small pair of wire frame glasses to read the computer screen in front of him, items that both look like they’re in the immediate danger of being crushed by his massive, meaty palms.
“Civilian, you are here for reassignment… again.” His voice, thick with a European accent, sounds like it was pulled directly from the villain in a bad action movie.
“Seems that way.” I said with a shrug of my shoulders, hoping that my noncommittal response would infuriate Thorston. From the sudden clench of his square jaw, I imagine I was successful.
He sighs, and then after typing a query into his keypad squints at the computer. “Of the 90 days assigned to the janitorial department, you were absent for 39 days, many of which were without notice entirely.”
“Seems that way.”
“Civilian, are you aware that you are required to work to maintain your housing at this station?”
“What?! Thorsten, are you playing a trick on me? This entire time, I had no idea.”
He scowls in response, and then presses a few more keys. “The computer will now determine your reassignment, this will take a minute to process.”
“Thorsten, darling, let me ask you something while we wait. Is your entire job to just press a button on that computer and read out the results? Doesn’t that seem, I don’t know, unnecessary? Like maybe, your life would be so much more fulfilling if I just spoke to the computer directly?”
“I am a people person. I speak to the people so the computer doesn’t have to.” At this point, Thorsten is speaking through a jaw clenched so hard that I imagine I might hear a molar crack at any point.
“That seems like a very challenging role that must use the full range of your diverse skills. Now, what if, instead of trying to chew and swallow your own teeth, you used those powerful hands and keypad of yours to place me into a similar position. Then I’ll be on my merry way and you’ll never need to reassign me ever again. You see, I think I’ve missed my true calling as an Administration chair warmer, and I am fully prepared to prove my dedication to the assignment.”
Purple rage climbs up from Thorsten’s maroon collared shirt, and inks across his face. I am almost entirely certain that he’s about to reach across the sheet metal desk and throttle me when the computer chimes and distracts him. He reads the monitor, and somehow finds it in himself to scowl deeper.
“You are being reassigned to the science team.”
“That doesn’t sound like a downgrade.”
The great ball of muscle shrugs. “It has been determined that this is the best use of your skillset.”
The machine dings again, and this second message brings Thorsten some great pleasure. A smile even turns at the corners of his mouth. I wait for the ball to drop.
“Civilian, you are also now banned from purchasing any alcohol on station, and approaching any bar will alert station security.”
“Oh goddamnit, that can’t be legal!”
Thorsten’s smile deepens as he leans toward me across the table. “Civilian, we set the rules here.”
I stand to leave, knowing that any more argument would only give him more satisfaction. Bambi, in hiding under my chair, pokes his mutant head out. As I walk to the door to the office, Thorsten calls after me.
“Your new assignment starts tomorrow morning civilian, don’t be late.”
–
Walking aimlessly away from the reassignment meeting, my palms start to itch, deepening my scowl. It’s the start of withdrawals certainly, from Luna or booze I’m not sure, but my guess is on the former. More importantly, it’s barely midday, or whatever you call that liminal time on an orbiting space station where you can’t directly see the sun but are told the relative time by clocks that line the halls, and I don’t have anything to do until tomorrow. My stomach growls, and I course correct for the mess hall.
Being on station must be a somewhat similar experience to being stuck on a naval ship, I think. We were each given a ration of food daily, and an allotment of extra ration cards to use throughout each month as needed. A variety of options were available in the mess hall, but the most popular things quickly ran out between deliveries. This usually meant that after a few days we were all eating the same gruel, a brown paste that contained everything essential and nothing enjoyable, every day.
From the smells on the way there, I had timed my trip perfectly for a food delivery. Smells of frying garlic and onion wafted down the hall, accompanied by that uncomfortable echo of too many people talking at once inside a metal room. I walk into the mess hall to the chaos of lunch.
The room itself was a long, high-ceilinged rectangle. Communal seating filled the center, with aisleways surrounding it on the outside, and various food vendors set into the walls. The far wall was entirely taken up by the largest viewing window on the entire satellite. The blue pearl of Earth hung in view, beautiful still from this distance. It was only when you got much, much closer that the rampant pollution, erratically shifting climate, and disappointment of the human condition became visible.
I navigated the outer perimeter to the shops that spoke nearly entirely in Mandarin. When the food delivery came, most English speakers were jovially searching out their favorite burger and fries, or steak and potatoes, or some other asinine combination of salted meat and starch, but I craved the richness of spices. I saw Shi Tsai, ladle in one handle and wok in the other, working both rhythmically, and made my way to his shop. He caught my eye and smiled widely across the crowded aisle. I shouldered through the throngs of people, and reaching up under my shirt to the hidden sash I wore there, pulled out two plastic ration cards. He grinned out at me through the curls of szechuan steam that surrounded his stall.
“Big spender today, what’s the occasion?” He held my gaze while still swirling the ladle and pot. The aroma of peppers, garlic, and spring onion fried in the wonderful umami of sesame oil and soy sauce made my eyes water and stomach bark.
“New job, moving up in the world.” Also I probably won’t be able to trade my extras this month for anything elicit, so I might as well enjoy something.
Shi chuckles at that. “New job, again? If you stand too proud against the wind, it will break you. Better to bend with it. What can I get you?”
I nod thoughtfully at the wisdom. Most times, I’d mock someone for saying something like that. But I’m smart enough to know that you never do that to the people making your food. “Serving of everything, Mr. Tsai, if you please.”
He cackles and builds a tray for me. A spoonful of perfectly white rice, then fragrant fried greens with big chunks of chili and ginger, and two scallion pancakes on top with a beautiful drizzle of something warm and dark. Then a large bowl of beef noodle soup, and with a wink, an extra scoop of chili oil. Seeing the shake in my hand when I give him the ration cards, he tuts and meets my gaze.
“Take care of yourself, Micah. You’re too young for that.”
“Thanks Shi, I know.” There’s a pang in my chest that I quickly smother.
He holds my gaze for a moment too long, concern etched on his brow, and then smiles again to greet the next customer.
I navigate the maze of people, and find a rare seat near the port window. With methodical patience, I start to eat. I use the chopsticks as knives to portion out each bite. It burns me clean, the szechuan searing my mouth and leaving it numbed. With each flavorful, salty bite, I sweat out my sins and stare at the home that’s no longer my home. At that blue dot that looks so beautiful from a distance, but whose surface is ravaged, whose air is choked with poison. I see my own reflection in that, I recognize that we’re one in the same.
–
My sleep is tortured that night. I transition between dreaming awake and asleep seamlessly, never certain of which state I’m in. I’m feverish, sweating through my sheets, and then ice cold and shaking. Bambi curls up on my pillow, right there like a halo above my head, and I think he’s my childhood cat. It brings me some small amount of peace, calms my racing heart for a moment, and lets me drift.
I see the station from the outside, rotating slowly in tandem with Earth. An enclosed ecosystem, one of many. When I gaze out to find the others, I see only the edge of space, the place where true darkness takes over. I follow its curvature, and find that the station is fully circled by it, wrapped in that cocoon of stars. As I drift over to the extent of it, beyond which is nothingness, I see that the Earth was never here with us. It’s only a painting on the side of our cage. An image rendered so well that from the station’s perspective, it would always look three dimensional, we could never not see it as real. But from here, from outside, the trick is clear.
None of it is real.