To the Stars and Back

Dom and I have been here for 32 days now. 32 days of him putting his damn cup on my desk with NO coaster underneath. True, it is his job to come over and review my work. True, in order to use the control panel, he has to put down his drink. While, yes, I’ll admit, I have not asked him to use a coaster, but honestly, he should know better. We are both highly-respected professionals, having gone to prestigious academies and training programs; He’s never been told before not to put his sweating cup on a table without protection?

This isn’t the old world, with their wooden tables that can be marred with rings or stains, but what if our ship pitched for some reason? That water could then LEAK onto the control panel, and that would be VERY BAD. I can’t just dunk the entire console into a bag

of rice, and the dehydration spray isn’t good for the inner workings. The closest habitable planet or service station is hundreds of thousands of millions of miles away, and this control panel is our only chance of ever making it back to one. Yet, he’s still placing that dangerous cup of too cold water, on my desk.

Nothing to be done about it, I suppose, he is my captain; It’s not like I can speak up about it. But it is 5057, he should definitely know better, we’re not 2020 savages. I guess I could just ask him to be more polite about it. We are both adults. If it were only that problem though, I wouldn’t be so upset. But he is truly one of the messiest human beings I’d ever had the misfortune of being stuck inside a space glider with. 

Oh well, it’s meal-time now, which means I’ll have to leave off my entry here until next time. Time to go watch a full-grown man slop food into his gaping maw.

‘Til next time. 

* * *

I stood up from my personal computer with an aggravated sigh, and closed out of my journaling document. It was a short walk from my cabin to the small mess-hall. Our ship wasn’t very big, just enough room for the two of us and the cargo we were transporting. I took a deep, calming breath before scanning my ID to enter the room. Thankfully, Dom hadn’t seemed to arrive yet, and I was able to prepare my meal in peace. It didn’t last long enough though; As I sat down with my chicken dinner, Dom pushed his way through the door. 

It must have been the fact that I was already on edge, but I swear, he was stomping louder than usual. With each foot-fall, the ground beneath me shook. In my aggravated mind, I thought that I would fall straight-out of my chair from the tremors. He stomped his way over to the shelf of dehydrated and compressed meals. Looking over his options, he tapped his foot, and hummed loudly. I began bouncing out of my chair with every tap, the force of it causing me to become unseated. I almost had to cover my ears, the droning of his hum working its way into my head, and trying to rip it open from the inside out. 

Finally, he made his selection, and I was able to relax again. Of course, that was rudely interrupted when Dom started taking the wrapper off his food, dropping the pieces on the ground as he walked toward the cooker. My eye twitched. I was the one that would have to pick that up later, as I knew he wouldn’t. As his meal processed, he began humming again. I felt the urge to duck under the table in order to escape his tonedeaf rendition of “To the Stars and Back”. Eventually, the cooker dinged, the humming stopped, and he left the cooker door open as he made his way to sit across from me at the table. 

Surely he hadn’t always been this bad? Or had I been lying to myself all this time, in order to make it through this trip with my sanity intact? Had the water rings really, finally, pushed me over the edge? Apparently so, as I couldn’t even look up as Dom sat in front of me with his bowl of soup. The hand clutching my fork began shaking slightly as Dom took his first sloppy sip of soup. Most of it didn’t even end up in his mouth, instead it was already beginning to stain his white jumpsuit. I was trying to keep my head down, taking quick, neat bites. I didn’t want to be here any longer than I had to. 

Through the hazy static that was filling my head, I heard Dom trying to tell me something, but his words weren’t breaking through. All I could hear was the smacking of wet noodles, crushing around in his mouth as he attempted to speak. I couldn’t take it anymore, I slammed my palms on the table, rattling everything on it. Dom’s mouth blissfully snapped shut, and that would have been enough for me to move on. If only he hadn’t let a dribble of broth out of his mouth, I would have been fine. Instead, I shot out of my seat, the ire bubbling up out of me. 

“How can you live like this? How can you force me to live like this? Do you have no sense of common decency? Do you even realize what it is you’re doing? You leave a literal trail of garbage and filth when you walk through. And do you know who cleans that up? Me! I always clean it up! Your soup dribbles, your snack wrappers, your dirty socks. I dread thinking about what your cabin looks like. AND STOP PUTTING YOUR CUP ON MY DESK WITHOUT A COASTER!” Abruptly, I stopped my tirade and saw the shock on Dom’s face. He looked genuinely surprised, and slightly hurt. I took a deep breath, centering myself again.

“I’m sorry for being so disrespectful, Captain, I won’t do it again. I think I’ll eat in my cabin from now on.” I sat up from the table, took my tray, dumped it in the incinerator, and walked back to my cabin.

I spent the rest of that night speaking to my partner, Gulk. He agreed that it was time something was done about the situation, but said that I may have gone over board. So I decided that I would wake up early, eat my breakfast, and pretend nothing happened; and that’s what I did. 

I woke up very early, and started my day by heading down to the mess hall again. In my sleepy haze, I almost missed the streaky water marks on the floor. They ran up and down the entire hallway, slightly tinged blue from...possibly cleaner? What in the wide world had Dom been doing after I had gone to bed? Perhaps he had a soda and spilled it everywhere? Seemed plausible enough. As I entered the mess hall, I saw the same streaky substance covering every surface. It was even streaked across the door of the cooker, and the window that looked onto the endless void we were travelling through. 

As I made my breakfast, oatmeal as always, I was able to get a closer look at the substance. It smelled like the cleaner that I used to clean the ship. It didn’t appear to be diluted correctly though, resulting in the strange streaking that was covering everything. Even after figuring out what the substance was, I couldn’t figure out why. The only other person on the ship was Dom, and I was quite sure he didn’t even know where the cleaning supplies were. Maybe a sprinkler malfunctioned somehow, and the extinguisher fluid appeared similar to the cleaning fluid? It didn’t matter, I needed to hurry up and make it to the control room before Dom started his day. 

After I ate, I hurried down the adjacent hallway to the control room. That hallway was also streaked with blue, as was the door, and walking inside, the entire next room. Every surface was covered. The floor, the walls, even the chairs. Everything except my workstation was tinged with blue. That ruled out a faulty sprinkler, even though that was a flimsy line of reasoning, at best. That brought me back to my original line of questioning; What had Dom done while I was asleep? I didn’t have to wait much longer to discover my answer. 

Dom came in backwards through the doors, and in doing so, obviously didn’t see me already standing on the other side. Thankfully, I was able to catch us from falling to the ground. I was not able to stifle myself whipping around to face Dom, rage evident on my face. The wrath died in me as I got a full look at him. He looked uncomfortable, embarrassed, and he wouldn’t look up and meet my gaze. Then a spot on his jumpsuit caught my eye.

In the exact size, shape and place where he had dropped soup on his jumpsuit, there was a scorched hole. I could see clean through to his undershirt.

“What did you do?” I asked, astounded. His face turned beet-red, and he muttered something under his breath, turning half-way away from me. 

“Captain, I can’t hear you.” I said with an eye roll. He turned to face me, and looked me square in the eye.

“I’m sorry that I have been causing you distress, Hollis. I guess I got so used to being away from...well, lets just say my mother would be ashamed at the way I’ve been treating this ship, and for the fact I’ve been expecting you to be the one to pick up after me. After you left last night, I thought long and hard about what you said, and decided it was about time I pitched in,” He took a deep breath, and his face grew red once again, “problem was, it’d been so long since I tried pitching in, that I may have forgotten how to use the majority of the supplies.”

“So that’s what all this is?” I asked once I got my mouth to stop gaping. He scratched the back of his head, looking around. 

“Ehh, yeah. Truth be told, it took me a long time to even find the stuff. I was pretty tired, so I really didn’t read the directions either. I accidently used the hull cleaner to try and clean my jumpsuit.” He picked at the fabric, slightly dejected. 

“You know Captain, I really appreciate the gesture, but maybe next time just ask for some help.” I said with a sigh. 

“Will do, I’ll go get the supplies. Mind helping me figure out how to fix this mess?”

“Sure thing sir.” 

He left the room, and came back with all of the appropriate cleaning supplies, and a cup of water. We set out working, and I showed him how to properly dilute the solutions, and gave him advise on fixing his suit. Eventually finishing our work, a wave of relief and gratitude washed over me. For a moment, I thought everything was going to be alright, the Captain would simply need some minor help with cleaning in the future; Something I was more than happy to assist him with. The feeling of respite left me as quickly as it came however, as I looked over and saw that he had placed his water on my desk, once again, with no coaster.