A creeping tundra, a silent tomb.
That's how most in the current situation would have described it. The icy darkness that was the void space of the universe. There was a balance of laws in space, where one comes to understand how infinitesimally small one is in that endless dark, and the void laughs and corrects you by letting you know you are smaller.
Air capacity at 10 percent.
Another reminder of how small we all are. Humans think that they are the apex of existence, that they live to discover all that is to be known in the universe.
How vain.
As though there were not many doing the same, this thought was not our own to claim. He was not human. Though, maybe that thought was wrong, after all, living as a human seemed to lead him to this path; A slow, methodical, calculated by percentages and seconds, death.
Air capacity at 9 percent.
Another reminder. There seemed to be 8 more awaiting him.
Callum, only muttered out a noise. As he tried to conserve oxygen but there was a mild sense of emotions that started to fight for his attention. Panic demanded it, while acceptance seemed to know to wait its turn and betrayal felt like bile in his stomach wanting to come to the surface.
He never realized when his form changed, the unknown alien blood in his veins becoming apparent as the extra facial hair stabbed at his cheeks and the mask that held in his lifeline. There was a crack in it. Since when?
Explains the oxygen disappearing so quickly.
It was a thought that came out more in a laughable way, as though it was more 'that's how it is' than a worry of what that would mean.
I don't regret this. That quiet reminder filled the silence of his mind. Maybe that's just the way I am.
Those words felt safe as though they cemented Callum's place in the universe. To be swallowed whole by the darkness that was space was one thing, but to submit to it, to act as though he never craved to see the forsaken new frontier as many had before him. As his father had. He'd be lying.
A meaningless intake of air.
Air capacity at 8 percent.
Earth was on his mind. Where he'd been and what he left was there, filling in the pieces. So he let the memories come.
---
Earth was barren. Barren was not the word most would use but when the race to colonize space and then expand those colonies happened, well not being a part of it made Earth seem barren. The fields were still lush and the world had less pollution than it had when it was the epicenter of human activity but it still felt like that. As though a new ice age had gone over and the world was bare, waiting for new life.
Perhaps it was.
Though life was still being made. When a young boy, with enough melanin in his skin to give a place of belonging at least in a nationality sense, was born, there was not much more that he felt he could attach to. In Callum's life there were not many memories of his father. He never minded that though. In the sea of his dreams and recollections, his father's face came here and there. Always a smile on that face. That did not match the amount that Callum saw his father. It was not 'here and there' it was 'then and no longer'. His mother, however, was quite present. In every memory, in every moment, she stayed in the back of his mind. He loved her and showed it as the days went by as he grew and she weakened.
They lived in a small town and his mother was not one for farming but Callum grew to enjoy it. Likely from starting from scratch he came to love it. It seemed funny that she decided to stay here while raising a child. When he was sixteen he asked her, sat on the floor, half focused on the carving knife he cleaned in his hand. He focused better when he had something to do.
"Ma, you don't even like farming."
"Hate it, yea." She replied, sat in her chair, she seemed tired but smiled at him. She always smiled even when tired or overwhelmed.
"Why didn't you leave? I mean, we have the money." A glance was all that was needed to see the string of emotions that went and left in a flash. Callum could only guess he made her angry and so that gaze stayed. Never look away from what you've done.
"Well..." Ma sat for a few moments, leaned on her hand as a tired sigh left her lips. "I made a promise that I would give him something beautiful to see when he comes back."
Then she smiled, a smile that told him she appreciated the question. She always smiled.
It shut him up. For all the mild emotions that Callum had for his father he suddenly had to realize and think about them. His mother told him that his father has left into the endless sky. He found a job as some kind of security in a colony ship that came near earth once a year. He wanted to know what made him stay away for so long, for a security job no less.
At eighteen, loss.
Ma was like no other, kind and gentle as an inevitable seeping cold crept through her. She seemed to have no fear, she always knew it was on the horizon. Visitors came in and out throughout her final day, though it was unknown to them. Offers of kindness and hugs made her more tired than she had been when it started, she was never one for theatrics. To many, she didn't look very sick.
Sit with me. It was a quiet command, quiet and calm. Callum was the last one left now and there was silence. Her bed was soft, collaged with a quilt and too many pillows, obviously presents that she felt bad to say she had too much of. That moment of silence lasted briefly, a weight finding a home on his shoulder as she rested there. Her hand sat on top of his. It was shaking, his, not hers. He didn't want to see his mother fade away.
A hand squeezed his and a small sigh of content left. A lively sigh. They sat there for hours, he could still feel the heat from her as his mother leaned her head against his shoulder. The stillness felt unbearable and yet Callum felt if he spoke, he'd break the spell his mother casted in this room without so much of a mutter of incantation. That heat faded, steadily, calmly, gently. Then she was gone.
When Callum finally looked he was surprised. She was smiling. She was always smiling.
