? Getting to play a real, actual piano instead of an electric keyboard
? Quicksand – how often do you usually get stuck in this stuff? A few times a month? It seems to happen all the time in films!
? Daisy chains
? Spiderwebs
? Climbing trees and looking into birds’ nests
? Beer. I’ve never been drunk. I can’t really work out what it’s like. Is it similar to when you wake up from a really great dream, and for a moment you can’t remember what’s real life and what are your subconscious’s darkest desires, and everything’s a bit hazy? That’s what I imagine it’s like, anyway.
? THE SEA. SWIMMING POOLS. BATHS. What’s it like, floating in water? It sounds scary.
I think mostly I just want to meet you, though. I could give Earth a miss if I got to see you in person.
R x
PS After I read your email I searched through the video archives and found some recordings of birdsong and rain. The minute the birdsong started playing, I immediately felt calmer. My brain must be hardwired to find the sound peaceful, even though I’ve never heard a bird in real life. No wonder you love it so much.
I’m sending over the recordings, so you can listen to them whenever you feel homesick. I’ve set the rainfall as my morning alarm tune, so it will be like we’re together, listening to the same rain outside our windows.
When I think about all of the possibilities that could have been, I feel sick. If the war had broken out before The Eternity was launched, I would have been left alone. I would have been completely abandoned, without J for company.
I got so lucky. In what could have been the worst, most isolating time of my life, I’ve been given the best friendship. It’s like it was fate, like J was sent to guide me through the darkness to keep me sane.
Without J, I would be nothing. I’d be less than nothing – I’d be forgotten. J cares about me. J is here for me, now that no one else is. He even put a kiss at the end of his email. A kiss, to me!
I hesitate before I send the message, and reread the part about having never been drunk. It makes me seem immature. Everyone has tried alcohol in films. Characters get drunk all the time, like it’s nothing. J will think I’m a baby for not knowing what that’s like.
I delete that paragraph before I send the email.
That evening, I find myself opening Dad’s locker to stare at his bottle of whisky. It’s in an expensive-looking box: black with embossed gold writing. It’s double my age.
Dad was saving it for when we landed on the new planet. The crew weren’t allowed to bring many personal items on board with them, but this was one of his. My mother chose to bring her sewing supplies with her.
I take the bottle to the kitchen and pour a glass of the golden liquid. I might as well put the alcohol to good use. It will be interesting to know what being drunk feels like, just for future reference. J might mention it again.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
273
Before I’m even awake, I wish I were asleep again. A sharp pain shoots across my skull when I breathe in and out. My eyelashes are gloopy with sleep, and I can actually hear the blood pounding in my ears. It’s too loud.
What happened to me?
The last thing I remember is trying to decide whether the whisky might taste less awful if I added ice. Since then, something terrible must have happened. There’s a swarm of wasps inside my skull, buzzing angrily. I feel like I’m dying. I’ve definitely caught a horrific disease. A flesh-eating fungus of some kind.
I don’t have the energy to panic just yet, though. First I need to sleep for ten years. I rub my eyelids, trying to summon the energy to get up and clean my teeth. My mouth feels fuzzy.
This can’t be the hangover that all the films talk about. It just can’t. It’s too terrible. If this is the result of drinking, then why would anyone bother?
A flash of last night crosses my mind: me, sprawled over the side of the sofa, maniacally singing show tunes and slurping whisky through a straw from a glass on the floor.
Oh. That’s why.
I lever myself into a sitting position and venture into the bathroom to try and find a paracetamol.
The living area is a complete tip. I seem to have taken every single item out of the cabinets. The sofa cushions are scattered across the room, as if I was making stepping stones to play a game of The Floor Is Lava – the way I used to with Dad.
Groaning, I dry-swallow a tablet and drop back into my bunk. I cannot deal with the mess right now. I don’t even want to see the state of the kitchen – I have vague memories of attempting to make a four-layer sandwich.
I go back to sleep.
Drunk Romy did come up with a great obstacle course made out of mushroom-soup boxes to jump over in the corridor while running. So I guess she’s not the worst ever.
I’m still going to drink less whisky next time, though.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
266
I spend the morning making origami farm animals to add to the yard of my food-container model house. Carefully folding lines of brown and white paper into chickens, pigs, horses and cows, I place them around my farm in groups of two and three. I think I might save up packaging so that I can make a barn for them – and maybe another farmhouse. I could make a pond out of foil, and some origami ducks, if I can find a pattern for them.
I’m so busy crafting that it’s mid-afternoon before I notice the new email in my inbox:
From: Earth Sent: 19/09/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 04/06/2067
There’s an enormous noise in my ears. I think it’s my own heartbeat, pounding like an alarm.
A message. From Molly? It must be.
I stare at the message, suddenly terrified to open it. I don’t know why, but I feel sick. I’ve been waiting for this moment for months. Now that it’s here, I wish it wasn’t.
My vision rattles, shuddering along with my breathing. Everything feels balanced on the head of a pin. What if it’s bad news? What if something has happened to Molly?
I was finally getting used to being out of contact with Earth. I was feeling happy again.
I have to open the message; I know I do. I want to. But what if it’s a mistake? What if the computer glitched and there’s really no new message at all? I brace myself for the worst.
I click.
A page of text fills the screen. It takes me longer than it should to work out why I can’t read it: it’s in a different language, with an unfamiliar alphabet.
I pull up a translator, pasting the text into it and waiting for the message to process into English.
From: Earth Sent: 19/09/2065
To: The Infinity Received: 04/06/2067
Subject: For Attention of The Infinity
Dear Sir/Madam,