[Bale, Wayward Cosmos – 1]

That day was like any other day, well for me anyway.  I woke up in my messy bunk pretty much the same way I did every day; basically when my body said ‘get up you lazy sod, you’re sleeping too much!’ All in one motion I spun a 90 degree, sat up straight while swinging my legs over the side and tossed my blanket off the edge of the bunk.  I noticed the blanket landed in an unceremonious lump. Looking around my 10′ x 10′ quarters I laughingly realized there was a menagerie of piles of discarded lumps about the floor; shirts, pants, several pairs of boots (which were practically foreign to me) and about 60 non-matching single socks. I stopped wearing anything on my feet pretty much since I had figured out a few years back how to heat the metal floors. Damn they were cold at first, but honestly I barely remember those times anymore.

Something was bugging me that morning – I wasn’t sure what – I thought ‘why would today be any different than the last 3,414 days?’ Yeah I’d been on my journey for 9 years, 4 months and 6 days exactly; making that day the 3,415th day. Don’t ‘get me wrong, the first 2 weeks or so were almost unbearably stressful but those last 3,401 days were about identical.

So what the hell was bothering me? Something seemed different but I couldn’t put a digit on it. So I plodded through my standard routine; stood up, stretched, washed my face, brushed my teeth, tried not to look at myself in the mirror as best I could, changed into whatever clean clothes I could find as it was obvious I loathed doing laundry, ate the same exact single button breakfast from carbonics (eggs sunny side up and 3 bacon strips) and checked the sensor array.

“Wait – that was it!”

Realizing I had been hearing the proximity sensor going off this whole time my brain started screaming at me to jump into action, “Holy twaddle!”

Instantly dropping my titanium spork and letting it land where it may, I rushed out of the small room, made an immediate right down the dimly lit corridor past a large bulkhead and into the piloting cabin. This cabin showed no more organization than my sleeping quarters as there was repair equipment, mechanical parts and even more dirty clothes on the floor, flung on consoles and draped over every conceivable surface. Seeing the little red light calmly blinking and quietly bleeping under some clothes I charged up to the rightmost console throwing off what looked like (and smelled like) a discarded undergarment.

Going through my now rote memorized procedure my fingers skittered across the dirty control console waiting for the results to show on the 28″ display above my head. I examined the graphic carefully but sharply decided to recheck the procedure to make sure of its accuracy.  Damn, it was correct.

That hated yet familiar anxious feeling came to me in a rush making my face go instantly flush. I took a deliberately long deep breath, “oh man… it’s big too.”

[502] Words : Hidden