by Mya Meneceur
We’re in the middle of nowhere. I’m serious. Empty, cold, cruel and vast, that’s how I would describe space, this deafening infinity spreading all around the only home I’ve ever known. I’m a third-generation occupant on this spaceship. My mother may have passed away when I was younger, but I’m still lucky enough to hear all of my grandmother’s stories about Earth. Sometimes, she rambles a little bit and confuses the epidemic period and the climatic tumble. When she’s feeling nostalgic, just like now, we sit together and watch her favorite movie about a weird machine floating on an immense amount of water, that sinks because of an iceberg. Behind that all, there was a vague sense of romance between two protagonists, but it never mattered to us.
“My favorite character is that giant ice cube, just unapologetically sitting there, and ruining everyone’s day. They’re kind of a mood.” I point at the hologram screen, and made
Grandma Linda laugh.
“Mine has always been the captain, honey. Look at him, staying heads up and proud, the calm within the storm, never abandoning his ship and ready to die with it.” She sighs and clears her throat, sign of an upcoming anecdote. “You know, Habibi, I looked up to this kind of value so much, I had tried to escape the international army when pulled into the mother ship. I wanted to stay on our doomed, yet so dear Earth. It’s my home, I’m not leaving. It’s my home, I’m not leaving, Mom! It’s my ship…”
“Grandma… You’re losing the track of your story again.” I calm her down and smile. I’m fifteen and I might not understand much to life yet, but it still breaks my heart to force my late mother’s mom to change homes again imminently. My dad bursts into the cabin, sweaty and obviously out of breath.
“Lyn, Linda, are you two… ready?” He inquires, looking at me insistently.
“Ready for what?” Grandma asks. “The movie is almost finished, Joseph.”
“Yes, as you can see, we are definitely so, so ready, Dad. Thank you for giving me this mission, it’s really all I needed before the departure.” I said, rolling back my eyes and nervously tapping my feet on the carpet.
My dad exhales loudly and crouches down next to Grandma Linda, ignoring my intervention.
“Mom, we told you this many times.” He tries to keep his composure but then quickly spills, “The mother ship has a serious oxygen failure and declared the state of emergency two days ago. We’re living our last hour here before it becomes unbreathable, and almost everyone besides us is already evacuating on the network vessels. We need to go right now…”
“Calm down, Joseph, I’m not leaving this ship.” Grandma gets up from her chair and goes to lay on the berth. “It is my home after all.”
“Oh my god… Linda!” Oopsie, Dad is losing patience. “Linda, just this once, please don’t be so stubborn and listen to me!”
Too late, she put her headphones on, like a rebel teenager. I love this woman. She’s like… my own unremorseful iceberg. Dad is stressfully pacing in the cabin, then suddenly stops and turns to me.
“I give up.” He tilts his head towards Grandma Linda. “In the next ten minutes, I want to see both of you in the network ship number four hundred and thirty-three, access next to the fitness and spa alley. Understood?”
I don’t answer, but raise a thumb up, and it’s enough for him to run back to safety with his wife and newborn.
As soon as he leaves, Grandma grabs my sleeve and pushes off her headphones. “I’m perfectly lucid, Katerina.” She states, confident she’s not addressing to her grandchild, but to her deceased daughter. “I’m just a sick and condemned old woman, I want to leave in peace, in my ship, like a proud captain.”
“Chose your fight Grandma, are you the iceberg or the captain?” I ask, tears unconsciously tumbling down my eyes, as I am weighing the right and wrong in forcing my grandmother in a ship, as when she was a kid.
“I can be both, Habibi. But you are Rose, and your destiny is to get out of here. Now, come say goodbye to your old Linda, wait until the last moment so those suckers can’t come get me, and run, run run!”
I hug her as tightly as I held my mom on her deathbed, and kiss her forehead while crying out, “I love you.” I put her covers up to her shoulders and she whispers, “I love you too, Lyn.” I close the door and run down the halls. All lights are red, and I only have a few minutes. I guess it’s not that bad being Rose, I can get to save myself AND start a new life. Just like she hid from her family to never be found again, I join a random network vessel on the opposite side of the mother ship. Far, far, from the fitness region. Through my tears, I see the huge gate closing behind me.