Author: Elysia Rourke

The meteoroid hurtles towards Pioneer’s cockpit every time you close your eyes. Alarms scream—you scream—and slam the controls.
All for nothing.

Today, your calculations have worn your last pencil to the eraser. That’s why you’re mixing urine and red drink powder, gathering the paste on the tip of a flimsy pipet.

Andy,

( )

Love,

You haven’t written your name since the catastrophe. 249 days. It’s almost impossible to write through the tremors. The hunger, the thirst.
But Andy will understand the brackets. You’ve kissed every passed note since high school biology. The brackets make the kisses easier to find.

You sift through the research module. Spilled mineral samples litter the ground, victims of your frustration. A plastic test tube will work. You slip the note inside.
You crawl past your bunk and the useless engine. The meteoroid obliterated the thrust chamber, leaving not a single screw to reconstruct. You’ve tried.
Priming the lavatory flush vent, you thank heaven the tube fits in the plumbing. The toilet hisses and flings your message into the expanse.

Back in the cockpit, you prop your feet on the useless controls. The display is a familiar fireworks show of warning lights. It usually makes you anxious, but tonight it reminds you of home.
A jellyfish nebula sparkles beyond the fused silica glass window, blue and pink tentacles twisting among the star field. It’s the gravesite of a supernova. One day, its glowing gases will knot together and birth a new star.
A promise you’ve clung to since the accident.
Celestial bodies twinkle light years away. Andy’s on one of them, searching, grieving, moving on. Loneliness offers half-hearted chest compressions; you’re fighting dry tears.
“I love you,” you whisper, as though somehow Andy might hear.
It’s alright. You’re waiting to move on too.