The Outpost

I’ve been alone for 30 years now. Well—30 years here, about three months in Earth-time. This crimson planet travels around its sun at a mind-boggling speed—3 days to make a trip around the sun as opposed to 365—but just like on Earth, you don’t even realize you’re moving. You can really only tell by the position of the sun, or the gradual movement of the stars in the night sky. I never really thought about how my home was just a rock floating through space until I landed here.

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The first 15 years flew by. I had to familiarize myself with the Outpost, the equipment, and the new job. The Outpost is bland and bare, containing only the necessities—bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and office. Viewed from the outside it’s a simple concrete cube decorated with hundreds of dishes and antennae, surrounded by a flat, red wasteland. It’s the only building on the planet, and I’m stationed here for 60 trips around the sun, six months Earth-time.

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The boredom only started to bother me recently. The data signals I have to transmit around the galaxy are usually few and far between, so there isn’t much real work to be done. But no matter how much work I do or how busy I stay, I can’t shake this feeling of…dull. The tedium must live inside me. Writing this has helped, but I’ll have to figure something out for the rest of my stay.

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I know what I’m missing—I need a goal. Something to strive for. If my only goal is to coast through the next 30 years here, I’ll be miserable. Not something too easy—that’ll add to the monotony. Not something too difficult either—it has to be completed before I leave. When the sun comes up tomorrow it’ll be the start of year 32. I need to accomplish something before my relief arrives at year 60.

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I think I’ve got it—a New Year’s Resolution. A year is much shorter here, but on Earth Resolutions keeps the spirits up and the ball rolling from year to year. This can’t be an ordinary Resolution though, it has to be something that makes sense on this planet. Not an “exercise more,” or “no junk food,” but a monumental three-day task, one that takes the whole year, as it were.

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My Resolution: clean the entire Outpost in a year’s time. I clean a little every day as it is, but nobody’s scrubbed the whole place inside and out in under a year. Maybe I can make a game of it, too, and anyone who comes after me can try to beat my time. I’ll be sure to take a “before and after” picture of everything as proof and precedent.

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My plans are made and in the morning, the start of year 35, I’ll have my first crack at the Resolution. I’ll spend the first day inside dusting equipment, mopping floors, dredging dust out of the air filters. The works. That shouldn’t be too bad. Days two and three will be tough—the exterior of the building. The antennae are pretty grimy, and a few radio telescopes are so caked with red dirt they blend in with the landscape. But I’ve got to do it all before year 36 begins.

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It was tougher than I thought it would be. The air filters obviously hadn’t been cleaned since before I arrived, and the computers and translation equipment had far more grime-trapping locations than I anticipated. I couldn’t even move outside until midday of day two. I worked right up until the end, but I didn’t manage it this year. I can’t call it a success, but it wasn't a complete failure either. I’ve likely made my next attempt much easier by removing a lot of the time-hardened gunk buildup. Tweak some things and I’m guaranteed to knock this Resolution out of the park on my next attempt. I may even need to think of another goal for afterward.

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I tried again at the start of year 41. Everything was going spectacularly until a flood of communications came rushing in. I had to halt my cleaning and work through the night to transmit everything on time. I was exhausted from the day’s work so I slept for a couple hours, hoping to get right back on track with cleaning, but woke up to another stream of data that needed sending. By the time I had finished my actual work, the year had come and gone, and I didn’t complete my Resolution. I’ll give it a few more years before I try again.

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Some unexpected space debris knocked out several antennae. It took me 5 years—15 Earth-days—to fix everything. On top of that, I couldn’t do any cleaning at all while I worked to repair the Outpost, so an unnerving amount of soot and dirt has built up everywhere. Red dust blankets everything. It’s the middle of year 49 right now, but I still want to complete this Resolution. It’ll take some time to get everything back in order before my next attempt, but I can do it. I hate that something so far out of my control has knocked me off course for this goal, but I’ve got maybe three tries left before I’m hauled away. I can do it.

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I started year 53 with another attempt at completing the New Year’s Resolution. Everything was perfect—not a single signal the whole year, calm and clear conditions outside, and I had done some preparatory cleaning beforehand to make my life easier during the attempt. I still failed. I wasn’t even close to matching my first attempt. I took pictures of everything before I started, but after a year of work I didn’t notice any difference. The floor was still sandy, monitors and mirrors didn’t shine, and the exterior of the Outpost had a faint red dinge that I couldn’t seem to wash away. Each task seemed like it drew all the life out of me, and no matter how hard I pushed myself or how vigorously I scrubbed, I couldn’t make any progress.

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Maybe I set the bar too high. Maybe a one-year clean can’t be done. Maybe I should’ve coasted through my 60 years and dealt with boredom instead of defeat. I’ve got to start wrapping things up here anyway, doubtful I’ll make another attempt.

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I almost forgot to take the “after” picture before being jettisoned from the planet. It came down to the wire—from sunrise on the first day to sunset on the last, I broke my back making sure the place was spotless. I don’t know what got into me, but I felt like I had to do it. I had to have a final attempt. That Outpost may be cleaner now than it was the day it was built. I doubt the next person who tries will even come close.

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It’s a three week journey back home—three weeks Earth-time, guess I don’t have to clarify that anymore, though. Once I arrive I’ll tell everyone about the Resolution and challenge. Then I’ll send the pictures—proof and precedent.

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I told the wife about my New Year’s Resolution and she was thoroughly unimpressed. She squinted at my before and after pictures, and all she could muster was a, “That’s great, honey,” as if she were speaking to a toddler showing off a crayon-drawn family portrait. “Are you sure these aren’t the same picture?” she asked. I pointed out how shiny the chrome on the equipment had become, the clarity of the screens, and the scum-free antennae, but she didn’t understand.

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I sat looking at the pictures for quite some time afterward. I was proud of this accomplishment. But it wasn’t just cleaning, was it? Every time I made an attempt, got down on my hands and knees to scrub, or scaled the compound walls to wash, it felt like I was doing more. Something that I wasn’t compelled to do by anyone but myself. Even when things got hard or I felt like I couldn’t do any more, I kept trying and I did it. It may not be evidenced very well in these photos, but the work is there. The commitment is there. Something more than working—or being, existing—is there. Nobody else needs to see that. Nobody but me.