Suspension pt. 13

Suspension pt. 1
Suspension pt. 12

There you have it, I guess.

I tried to turn the lander around.

That was a month ago.

Two days ago, I decided to leave the lander under the pretence of fixing something on the hull—I can’t even remember what it was going to be. I knew when I made the decision, and I was suiting up that it wasn’t the real reason I was leaving the relative safety of the lander.

I wanted to step outside, out of the tin can I was floating in, and feel the nothingness around me.

It was only when I was out there, and I realised I hadn’t tethered myself that I knew what I was going to do. What I had truly wanted to do.

I let go of the handrails that adorned the hull of the lander and pushed myself away.

Now you know.

I’m a coward who abandoned her crew mates on a hostile planet.

I’m a coward who, instead of working until I dropped from exhaustion to find someway to turn the lander around, gave up and stepped outside.

This is who I am.

And telling you all of it has only reiterated it for me.

It’s my turn now, to die.

I just dipped under an hour left. I’m still rotating, slowly drifting in the void, completely weightless.

No gravity that I can discern is acting on me. Gravity will never influence me again. Isn’t that a weird thought? The thing that humans evolved to live with for eons on Earth has now become irrelevant. Not just to me but to humanity as a whole.

We know how to create artificial gravity, and there are enough people being born in lower g’s that soon it won’t matter if there is gravity or not.

I see another species on the horizon. An offshoot of homo sapiens, that without a doubt, we will one day try to wipe out. Probably for no other reason than the differences that will no doubt crop up between us.

Ahh, there is something comforting in the predictability of humanity.

I’m glad I won’t be there to see it.

Who knows, maybe the new species will win whatever fight will inevitably happen. They’ll be more suited to space and that’s the only place humanity has left.

We keep expanding or we sit and stagnate. And when we get bored we kill each other.

It’s the same thing that has happened all throughout our history. Our civilisation is built on the remains of countless humans who died to bring us to where we are now.

Looking at the expanse of space I have to ask, what’s the point?

No, seriously, what is the point?

Do we not realise that in a few hundred years we will all be dead, and it’ll be another generation marching forward, doing the same thing that we did but slightly further out into space?

And then they will die, and so on and so forth until there is nothing left to find or there is nowhere else to go.

And then what will humanity do?

I’ll tell you what, it doesn’t fucking matter.

One day everything will die. The Universe will end and nothing, anywhere, will ever matter again.

Of course, I’m only saying this to make myself feel better considering I’m about to die.

But I guess what’s important is how you spend the time you have.

Me? I spent it leaving my family, betraying my crewmates, and committing a protracted, drawn-out suicide.

And recording this vanity project because only I would believe that someone wanted to listen to me ramble for hours about the last days of my life.

Huh.

I thought I just saw something out of the corner of my eye but I’m rotating away from it. It was probably my brain creating movement. Or reacting to one of those floaty things people sometimes get in their eyes. I don’t know. Either way I’ll be back around to see if it was anything in a little bit.

Why didn’t I throw the screwdriver with more force? I could have looked already.

I’m not going to lie to you my hearts beating pretty fast at the moment. I’ve started to sweat. Nervous butterflies are chewing through my stomach.

Why do I think something is about to happen?

Could I be saved? No, surely not. Don’t think that. Don’t let yourself believe in something so stupid.

You’re going to die. That’s right, Karla. You are. And you stepped out here wanting to, so don’t baulk at the ground halfway through the jump.

But what if it is something? What if I turn my head right now and see the plume of the Syrinx?

Even if I do see that, I won’t deserve it.

Hey, whoever is listening to this, I think it’s almost over.

One way or the other.

So, thanks for listening I guess.

I’m gonna stop recording now.

Sorry that you got all the way here for it to end like this.

Goodbye.