Apollo in Starlight

Chapter 1 - A quiet goodbye

This is my first story and I'm writing it for me. I  think I have been put off writing for a long time because I have felt that I either had to be an amazing writer or not write at all, but I'm actually writing this story because I enjoy it. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Most children dream of travelling into space; I would give anything to go back to Earth. 

I handle the dirt, still warm from the blinding fluorescent lights. They've started to give me a headache but the discomfort is worth staying in the growing room, talking to the plants whilst my mum potters around checking the mineral content in the different soils or recording daily plant growth.  

An intense aroma of compost and turgid green flesh feels as much as a domestic comfort as steaming coffee or fresh bread.

I know Mum talks to the plants too, but only when she's alone. A PhD in botany and she still believes that plants only grow with encouragement! She wouldn't admit this of course, but like how new strawberry plants grow from runners attached to their parent, there's a faint and slowly withering connection with me and my mum: gradually dying but still just there. So, I know she talks to the plants as she knows I do too. We both miss home more than we'd like to admit. I think that this is maybe why she still works in the research labs and not with the scientists who genetically engineer our food crops, despite the better hours and not constantly having soil stuck under your fingernails. Not because she likes talking to the plants but because they are one of her last tethers. With Earth and so with me.

"We have to go soon, Ollie. You need to make sure you have everything before you leave," Mum says, the air between us uncomfortable, not only because of the high humidity. Neither of us wants me to go and more so, neither of us wants to say goodbye. We had been expecting this for months but only today does it actually feel real. A supernova has been waiting to explode and I only really believe it when I'm engulfed in flames. I woke with my stomach heavy with doom and my head a vacuum for everything other than fear: the sensations have only worsened since.

The day when I heard the news about the scholarship was New Year's Day, 2101, well over a year earlier. 

Breaking news: Myra Moon, the innovative yet extremely secretive billionaire has announced a historic feat - the first extraplanetary school!

 If this was a cliché Hollywood movie then this would be the moment where I spit my milk out across the table. Instead, I just sat there in stunned silence. At that moment I was going to that school - applications, scholarships, essays, and interviews were all distant hurdles. I repeated the news bulletin a few times in my head before I snapped out of my trance, making my head spin. I quickly grabbed my phone and typed in "Myra Moon space school" and was greeted by a flurry of headlines.

Myra Moon school - The Kepler Institue - to invite 350 scholarship students for the last new years of high school.

Myra Moon uses her wealth to build an international school: in space.

Yet again, Myra Moon uses her wealth to bring good to society.

However, the announcement didn't go without criticism.

The biggest Myra Moon publicity stunt yet. Why are we not questioning her motives?

Myra Moon was more than an influential billionaire; her face was everywhere. Her charity work in Sub-Saharan Africa led her to be "Universe Magazine's Woman Of The Year", and the "Destination: Moon Scheme" for getting girls into STEM make her worshipped around the world. If you cannot instantly recognise Myra Moon's face, then you're more than likely a time traveller from 1950. Billboards, posters, advertisements, t-shirts and sweaters were plastered with her face and moon, as though no more needed to be said - everyone knew enough about her that no more than her face and surname was needed as a reminder of her greatness. It's hardly surprising that a woman whose New Year's resolution was opening a school in Earth's orbit was universally recognised.

Mum tapped me on the shoulder and squeezed me into a hug, holding on longer and tighter than was socially acceptable, yet neither of us cared. She clasped my wrists and stared into my eyes. A big cheesy heart-to-heart was coming and there would no doubt be tears involved.

"I'm proud of you, and I'll miss you," she let out as though it was as natural to her as an exhale. There was no tension in her jaw that those careless maternal white lies bring. Her pride couldn't have been more genuine if I came home with a PhD in plant sciences, not in biochemistry as I was planning - to which she was pleased and satisfied but still clearly disappointed . I waited in nervous anticipation for what she would say next. The past few months since the acceptance letter had been filled with passive-aggressive remarks about my soon-to-be departure. Her gaze shifted away from mine and she let me go. I was lost. I felt like I was being blown away but with no control of my path, like a dandelion seed in the wind: No choice over whether I drowned or grew.