Destination Thasus

Jeanie walked into the room slowly. Deliberately. Taking it all in. She ran her fingers across the door frame as she caught sight of the white chair and helmet directly across from the entrance. She walked over to the chair and ran her left hand along the right arm and then made her way around the back of the chair to the left side. Once she reached the left arm, she reached both hands up to the helmet from the front of the chair. She held it so gently. Caressed the smooth surface of the helmet. She stood on the step up to the chair and rubbed her right cheek along it, up and across the left side of the helmet. She took a deep breath and lowered herself to the chair. She leaned back against it and closed her eyes. Tilting her head back, she looked up to the control room in the balcony overlooking the destination room.

“I’m ready, Brandon,” she said firmly.

She was ready to go to the one destination she could never visit again. Her home world, Thasus. It was the first colony of Jerians in this solar system and the first to fall in the war. Its importance was its weakness and the enemy used it to send a message. From orbit, while the colonists were undergoing emergency evacuations, the enemy dropped an erasure bomb. This era’s nuclear weapon and the first used in the war.

Jeanie was 14 then and her shuttle was just outside the planet’s gravity when she saw it. Before the blast cloud could make its way across the valley she grew up in, the planet ceased to exist. It was like an artist erasing the sketch lines they’d made with their number two. Deliberate and final.

But Brandon had just completed his much anticipated invention. The Destination Chair. A way for refugees from other human colonies to revisit their lost home. It was his hope that his chair could be used in therapy sessions to help people deal with their PTSD. And his friend Jeanie offered her trauma for his test run.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this, Jeanie?” He asked, looking down at her from the console.

She could hear the concern in his voice and see the hesitance in his eyes even from down there.

“Yes, I’m sure. Take me home,” she said quietly but with determination.

“Ok, put the helmet on,” he instructs her.

Jeanie raises her arms until her finger tips feel the smooth finish of the helmet. She pulls it down and pulls it onto her head. Once she’s done that, she lays her arms on the armrests and the chair straps her in. The seat belt around her waist gently appears from right to left. The wrist constraints brush past her wrist before clicking on the left side of the arm rest. The step she took up to the chair raises itself until it feels the weight of her feet fully on it and then her ankles are held in place.

“Sorry about the straps,” Brandon says apologetically.

“The user has to stay still and the session mustn’t be cut abruptly.”

“It’s ok. I understand. I’m ready. Activate the first sequence.”

Jeanie’s body suddenly goes taught and her eyes roll back in her head as her eyelids flutter to a close. In what seems like seconds, she starts to blink and opens her eyes to a new view. She’s standing on the front porch of their house in the village at the bottom of Nesterine Valley. She stretches her hands out and wriggles her fingers. It feels real. She looks down and sees the white wooden panels and the golden door knob. Then she remembers.

“The view!” She turns around and runs from underneath the porch as she walks backwards. From behind the house, she sees the Haggard Twin Mountains. She even hears the easterly birds chirping and watches them fly across the sky between the twin mountains. She smiles a nostalgic smile and walks back towards the porch. Slowly, she reaches for the door knob and turns it. As she pushes the door open, she sees the living room. Just as they had left it days before the evacuation order.

The sofa is against the back wall. Their family photos on the shelves to the left. She walks over and takes a look. Her older sister at the age of 6 wearing her white ceremonial dress. Her parents wedding in the plot of land that would hold this very house. Both in the traditional and green silver dress of their colony. She reaches out and touches the glass of their photo. A tear falls down her right cheek as she remembers the sacrifice her parents made to make sure she and her sister were evacuated first.

She walks over to the couch and sinks into the cushion. The right side of the couch that her father always sat in after working in the fields. Well worn in and rounded to fit him perfectly. As a child, she used to love to sink into his seat. She leans back and closes her eyes. Takes in a deep breath and her senses are awoken even more. She springs up from the couch and runs towards the kitchen.

“Mommy?” She calls, uncertain. Does the Destination Chair also bring back people as well as places? She walks through the hallway and stops just before the door of the kitchen. She’s not sure if she can handle what she might see. But she was sure she had just spelled her mom’s maple tree pie. She would never forget that smell as long as she lived.

She takes a deep breath and walks into the kitchen. And standing there at the stove with her back to the doorway, her black and green apron around her neck and tied behind her back, with her curly and coily hair in an up bun like she always did when she was cooking, was her mother.

“Mommy?” She breathed through the tears that started to well up.

She walked into the kitchen, leaning on the kitchen chair for support as the being at the stove turned around.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m just happy to see you, “ she smiles.

“I’m happy to see you too. Pie’s almost ready, but come and give me a hug.”

Jeanie walks over, slowly, each step taking more and more effort as she realizes she is about to feel her mother’s hug for the first time in a decade. And there, in their home’s kitchen, was her mother, just like she left her back then, with her arms opened wide.The sun setting in the background and shining through the window above the sink. The smell of the maple tree pie and the fresh breeze of the valley gently touching her cheeks as she gets closer. Then she leans in and places her head on her mother’s strong and caring shoulder. Her mom holds her tight and squeezes. Jeanie takes a deep breath. The smell of her mom’s vanilla lemon perfume enters her nostrils.

She reaches up to caress her mom’s smooth cheeks as she raises her head one last time and says, “I love you, Mommy.”

“Well, I love you too baby,” her mom says, shining her bright smile and her eyes full of all the care in the world.

Jeanie blinks and she’s back in the destination chamber. Brandon is kneeling down in front of her holding her hands in her lap that were released when he ended the journey sequence. He looks up at her and he sees her face is drenched with tears.

“Jeanie, are you ok?”