Catharses Via Passage to the Moon

Caleb grunted loudly and shifted in his seat, his eyes darting across the aisle over to Hannah, whose head was bent over her book. He coughed and shot another look at the woman who only moved to flip the next page in her story.

      He sighed and tapped his foot on the ground impatiently, she still didn’t move.

      “You’re really not going to say a word to me this whole trip, are you?” he frowned.

      Hannah still did not say anything but she nodded slightly, acknowledging his existence for the first time in hours.

      “Why not? Come on Hannah, we don’t have to be like that, please?”

      Now it was Hanna’s turn to sigh loudly.

      “Just because our parents are dead does not mean I have to speak to you Caleb.”

      “Well thank you for saying something at least!”

      “And that is ALL I’m going to say.” She turned back to her book.

      “We’ve been on a 13 hour flight to the moon together and you’re really not going to have a single conversation with me?” Caleb shook his head with clear disgust.

      “You guessed correctly, congratulations.” She didn’t look at him.

      “I don’t understand where this hostility is coming from Hannah.”

      “Hostility? Really?” She finally turned towards him with a dumbfounded expression and then rolled her eyes, turning her attention away from him.

      “I don’t want to get into this now Caleb. I want to read my book, enjoy the final bit of our flight, eat my moon sushi when we land, and then wrap our affairs up as quickly as possible.”

      Caleb sat back in his chair and crossed his arms with a grunt, clearly very upset with his sister’s attitude.

      Hannah looked up and stared ahead with her book on her lap.

      “It’s just this Caleb, we are always like this when we get together, don’t you just think we should… not even try? Isn’t that easier?”

      “We weren’t always like this Hannah, we weren’t when we were kids.”

      Hannah laughed lightly and then closed her book and turned more to face him.

      “We were kids 40 years ago Caleb.”

      “Still… I don’t know about you but any time I take a trip to the moon now I think about our first time there.”

      With that statement from Caleb, Hannah couldn’t help but smile as the precious memories filled her mind. The excitement of her first trip was pure electricity. She had sat on the ship and

spent every hour imagining all the incredible things she would do once she got there, like collecting a rock from the moon’s surface or experiencing zero gravity for the first time or shopping in those specialized malls built just for fancy places like the moon.

      “Oh, if only I could taste moon sushi for the first time.” She sighed and closed her eyes.

      “That’s disgusting. I can’t believe you’re thinking of your weird moon fish when I bring up

our first trip away from earth.”

      “Well, that wasn’t the only thing of course.” Hannah said defensively and looked away.

      “Remember our classmates were so jealous?” said Caleb smiling.

      “Yeah, we had bragging right for so long until every other kid got to go too.” Hannah’s face lit up and she laughed. “I bet you’ll always remember spending the whole trip in the lavatory because you refused to take the nausea medicine sand you threw up the whole way there.”

      “If I could only go back and keep myself from throwing those damn pills away.”

      “You were SO dumb I can’t imagine how miserable you were.”

      “Ugh. Very.” Caleb put his hand over his belly to signify he could still very much remember. “but still, it was worth it. We were the most popular kids in school for months!”

      “Hmm, what a dream the moon was back then. Now it’s just a chore.” Hannah sat up straighter in her seat and opened her book again.

      Caleb ignored his sisters obvious want to end the conversation and he kept talking.

 “I remember my company used to pay me for the inconvenience of going to the moon and now they just expect it as a commute.”

      “Hey at least I get my reading in.” Hannah’s head was bent over her book again and she didn’t look up.

      “How many books do you reckon you’ve read on all your trips?” Caleb asked.

      “I don’t know, hundreds, thousands probably.”

      It was quiet for a moment, and then Hannah spoke again, lifting her head and staring off as she recalled the memory. “I remember one of the books I read on one of our first trips was about

a boy… a boy who had adventures with his dog like traveling the country side to visit his aunt or something. The book talked about the grass and the harsh weather and the food and the hiking. I just remember it being so strange, trying to imagine what this book was talking about exactly. It sparked my curiosity to learn more about what earth used to be like, kinda fueled my passion of reading anything that I could get my hands on, especially earth history. It

changed how I see a lot of things.”

      “Anything having to do with ancient earth is very confusing.”

      “It’s not ancient earth you idiot, it’s middle earth, didn’t you learn anything in school at all?”

      Caleb shrugged. “Oh I don’t know, I honestly didn’t pay that much attention.”

      “Ugh I can’t believe your stupid mind and how it has the capacity for numbers and nothing else it really drives me mad.”

      Caleb smiled slightly and then looked down. “Dad.”

      “You’re right, he did love to spend HOURS with you and your math homework, like it was a normal thing for a father and son to go over trigonometry all night at age 11.”

      “Ok, ok.” Caleb held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry that not everyone was obsessed with books and history and obsessing over survivalist propaganda.”

      “Survivalist propaganda? SURVIVALIST PROPAGANDA? Excuse me but how exactly do you plan to survive when one of our bubbles shuts down and the whole city is subjected to the harsh climate of earth ok, how will you survive that?” Hannah stood up in excitement.

      “Well, I probably wouldn’t.”

      “And you’re ok with that?” She asked, gesturing wildly, only partly aware of the many eyes of the other passengers now watching her.

      “Guess what Hannah? In the 51 years that I’ve been alive, I’ve never ever needed that knowledge and neither did mom and dad or their parents or their parents…”

      “Well, I do hope that nothing ever does happen because you’ll just be done for.” Hannah sat down again.

      “And that would matter to you?”

      “Well of course it would, you’re my brother.” She fiddled with the pages of her book.

      “And I thought you weren’t going to talk to me for the trip.” Caleb smirked.

      “Oh, you do annoy me SO much Caleb.”

      “You know with mom and dad gone Hannah, it’s just us, we are all we have.”

      “I know that but we have such different lives and different interests… and we aren’t quite in a yelling match yet but just wait, we will be.”

      “So how are we going to do this?”

      “What exactly are you referring to Caleb?”

      “After we are done wrapping up mom and dad’s affairs, then are we never going to see each other again?”

      “I don’t really know; I hadn’t really thought about it. It’s not like we see each other that often anyway. Like I said different lives, different… And what about Chris, is she?”

      “Oh she’s doing really well uh, I think you’ve probably heard she’s about three months along with our third. To be honesty she really did consider the sleeping pod this time until she’s

ready to give birth but in the end, she just decided to take it day by day.”

       Hannah smiled a very kind smile that Caleb hadn’t seen from his sister is a very long time.

      “I’m very happy for you.”

      Caleb felt an intense sense of pride and grinned widely.

      “Thanks Hannah, we are both really happy, we have a good life. I just… I understand what you said about our different lives. Heck, we don’t even live in the same bubble or even close to the same bubble. You’re so far away from us, all by yourself… but... somehow… I really would like my kids to know their aunt. I think you should come visit us…. Not be so alone.”

      Hannah bit her lip while he talked and put her head down over her book again. Presently she shook her head and took a deep breath. When she raised her head to look at him again, Caleb could tell there were tears in her eyes.

      “If this is you feeling sorry for me, I don’t want it. I’ve told you and mom and dad, God bless their souls, that I like being alone. I am a loner by nature, I like old fashioned books and studying by myself and I do not need any kind of life partner for me to feel whole, so just stop.”

      “Yeah, I figured you’d say that.” Caleb shook his head and looked away. Concentrating on a passenger a few rows up that had his head turned in an obvious matter that showed he was definitely listening to the conversation.

      Hannah didn’t say anything else and opened her book back up again.

      After a few minutes of utter silence between them Caleb spoke again.

     “You know what? I am sorry. I’m sorry Hannah.”

      Hannah slowly closed her book and looked up at her older brother who looking at her with remorse in his eyes. She noticed that his balding pattern looked so much like Dads but his facial

features looked always like their mothers. More delicate and kind, even when angry or upset.

      “I just realized,” He continued. “That by bringing up my wife and kids like that I was asking you to change something about your life without expecting myself to change in anyway. I don’t want you and only you to change for us to be in each other’s lives. I realize we both have got to give in some way. I know you’ve been happy to talk about your dwelling in Bubble 7 and you’ve sent me pictures because you were just that excited about it. There is no excuse to why I didn’t take a day trip out to see it and to see you, I have no excuse for that.”

      Hannah didn’t reply, she sat there with her mouth open slightly as he talked.

      “And even after mom and dad went to live on the moon and you and I were both taking business trips out there all the time. None of us worked together to make sure we could all be there at the same time and I don’t know, at least see each other. We took off for college and had completely separate ideas about life and that meant that both of us just pushed each other away. When we do get to see each other… you’re right. It usually ends up with us getting mad and

irritated at each other because we are so different in so many ways. I’m sorry that happened to us and I am very sorry for my role I played in that happening to us. I could have been better to you and I wasn’t.”

      Hannah sat in stunned silence while Caleb looked at her and studied her face. All gray now, just like mom was at her age. She had that noticeable crooked nose from that time she broke it and refused to get care so it healed in a funny way. Same Hannah with dads’ deep blue eyes.

      “Caleb,” She put the book down gently beside her and faced her brother. “I don’t know if you’re going to believe this, but I have been wanting to say the same thing to you for so long. I, I keep thinking about how this trip would be the perfect opportunity to sit down and talk with you about how I hate this distance and I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you for so long but it’s so hard… it’s so hard to admit you’re wrong and that you could’ve been better through the years. I am sorry too, I should have been better.”

      Hannah watched her brother cry softly and felt her heart squeeze with compassion.

      “Let’s now work on doing things together from now on ok?” She said with enthusiasm. “We’ll get to the moon and we can settle our parent’s affairs without any hassle, then we’ll come back home and you’ll come visit my bubble and I’ll visit yours and we’ll celebrate

birthdays and make day trips and send out Christmas cards every year, ok? Both of us will put in an effort to be in each other’s lives.”

      Caleb wiped the corner of his eyes and smiled. “I don’t know what a Christmas card is but it sounds like a plan.”

      “Oh, Caleb you really must read a book!”

      “GOOD EVENING PASSENGERS. WE WILL BE ARRIVING ON LUNAR BASE KRATOS IN ABOUT 30 MINUTES. PLEASE PREPARE FOR LANDING.”

      Hannah put her book away and grinned. “Hey Caleb, since we’re on friendly terms now, I’m going to make you eat moon sushi!”

      Caleb sighed. “I was literally just going to say, if you think this means I’m going to try moon sushi, you had better think again.”

                                                         END