A Waste of Oxygen

Content warning for very mild sexual themes and some depictions of blood and death.

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Yes, I know I should be saving air by shutting up. But you need to stay awake. You have all the signs of a concussion: slurred speech, nausea, confusion. At least, that’s what I remember from the shows we used to watch.

The main power is offline, but I sent a distress call using the portable backup. Dear anyone: please retrieve Mr. and Mrs. Callahan from… well, somewhere on route to Earth. Struck by debris, shuttle adrift, pilot dead.

Poor guy. The last thing he would have heard were the polite exchanges of two recently separated spouses. What, you thought I was serious? Trust me, Ev, I don't actually want to know how your mom is doing.

Hey, there it is. A little smile. If you ever appreciated anything about me, it was my stupid sense of humor.

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Nothing yet on the portable. You know, when you think about it, this is all your fault. We could have just gotten divorced on Mars. The government would have become official soon enough. If we’d waited, we could have had a little red sandstone town hall where we could have squared it all away. Why the rush? Was it because you wanted to return to Earth? Maybe there’s something extra-final about seeing it spelled out on a state-issued rectangle of tree pulp. No paper on Mars. Or maybe you just couldn't stand being married to me any longer.

Listen to me, trying to have a real conversation with you instead of the usual niceties. Our therapist would be proud. I suppose the fact that you're too incoherent to reply has nothing to do with my boldness. That was a joke.

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Hey, as long as I have you: blink once if there’s another man. No? Honestly, that's all I can imagine. Just a string of guys who are better than me. It's not even that I miss you so much as I'm used to you being mine and me being yours. Perhaps we should have left monogamy behind on Earth along with the rest of our things. We forgot to downsize our expectations. Hard to sustain any kind of clutter, material or otherwise, when you live in a self-contained habitat. Breathing one another's air, growing one another's food. We thought it would fix us. Well, I did, anyway.

.

Hey, no, no, come back. Here, have a pillow, just keep your head still. At least I think that’s a good thing to do in your state. Guess I waxed a bit too poetic, huh? Let's see. What annoying habits of mine might keep you awake… come to think of it, what didn't keep you awake? I'd roll over at 2:00 a.m. to find the bed empty and you deep into one of your projects. There was such a restlessness about you. You stopped being yourself by day, so some creative Hyde-type had to assert itself by night.

Maybe if I make you really mad, you'll have an easier time staying awake. I could just tell you all those things that our therapist always tried to get out of me. My “safe space” list of complaints. Um… you're closed off. You're picky. You’re a control freak. And I don't know what happened in the bedroom. I certainly kept trying, but you must have had an out-of-body experience one day and never found your way back. And you blame me for giving up?

There. Hopefully all that anger will keep you lucid for a moment. Be right back.

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I just realized I've never seen a dead body before today. The pilot… well, I think all the blood that was in his body must have come out. He’s a bit deflated-looking, and the cockpit is slippery all over. I tried not to look at his eyes, but they caught me on the way out. They reminded me of smashed windows.

Evelyn. I don't want that to happen to you. You've been a part of my world for so long that losing you would be like waking up one day to find out all the forests had been razed, or the oceans boiled. Even though I don’t live near the forest or the ocean. You know? I understand that you want and need to be away from me. But I thought we would at least continue to exist in the same universe together.

Evelyn.

Do you hear that?

I think I hear something. I need to check the portable, it could be a transmission. Wait here. And for the love of God please stay awake.

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Hey. HEY! Oh please, no, no. Ev, no.

Okay, you’re still breathing. There’s a heartbeat. Jesus. I hope you can hear me. It would make me feel a lot better if you could just open your eyes a smidge. But that’s alright, you do you. Maybe it’s fine for you to take a little nap. What do I know.

False alarm on the portable, by the way. It was a low battery warning. I dismissed it in case it saves us some power. I don’t know how low is “low,” but I hope it lasts.

Also, for the record, I don’t really think this was your fault. I wanted to go home, too. It just felt right.

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Hey, Ev?

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I just realized something.

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If we don’t make it, then you really were the love of my life. And I guess that means I was yours by default, too.

I believe you when you say there’s no one else. You were one to hide but never to deceive. Sorry, I guess, that you didn’t find what you were looking for. The shape of our lives really turned out to be just the two of us, crisscrossing paths through the house, wasting oxygen as our little planet went around the sun. And then we tried it again, somewhere else, but nothing changed. I get dizzy just thinking about it.