Maysie's Galaxy ONC 2023

Into Madness

The first large asteroid in a month finally made its way to where Maysie was on the neck. After two weeks of modest travel and a month of hell, Maysie was tired of being stuck in this limbo. But this monster meant she would likely be days without seeing Talon.

She wasn't sure if he was real, but he insisted he was. He had just started cramming detailed schematics on how to build a  suspended animation chamber, insisting that it would be safer for them to be in contact in such a contraption. Every time she looked at the details, it scared her and left her hoping it was all very real.

Her last sleep had Talon giving her worried instructions like Alder did towards the end of his life. Then he wrapped his arms around her and brushed his lips against hers.

This was her first kiss--in a dream, nothing to compare it to.

Maysie woke very confused but could see that the new wave was almost upon her, so she had to put aside her feelings for a man who shouldn't be real.

This bulge was one she felt good enough to run a fair chunk of the way, which allowed her time to clear her mind. Hard work always had a way of honing focus.

By Maysie's first break, she noticed that she couldn't make out the shell and landmasses on the back of the bird in detail anymore because she was too close to see the whole of it--literally couldn't see the forests of Eurasia for the trees (feathers) that blocked her view of even the shell's rim.

That is what she had to stare at as her goal as the asteroid slowly overtook her pace--no focus, just an endless sea of neck and feathers.

Maysie found in this busy mindlessness that she was happy--not scared like she remembered being when so much had been piled up on her. Not in going towards people or in leaving the only world she knew behind--all of that was surreal at this moment--but content with the man in her dreams and a simple kiss.

But was it a simple kiss? It was at least kindness and learning things beyond her imagination.  Again, if it's real.

But it posed many problems that she wasn't sure she was equipped to handle. Would she ever settle down and have children while she clung to a figment of her imagination?

The things she learned are what confused the situation. She shouldn't know how to build anything like a cryogenic sleep compartment. She reconditioned car batteries for survival--that was worlds apart. There was no rational reason to believe a mind could jump that far ahead in the practical application of mechanics.

But it could just be a messed up mind spouting things it thought was rational. What she learned may not work--and if so, this was a fake man from delirium. It could affect her choosing the best future out of what's available, something Alder went over so many times that it was ingrained in her heart. That's where the fear still came into play.

If it was fake, why couldn't she go all the way? It was just fantasy, so why not enjoy her time with a hot guy and quit studying equations that had no right to exist?  That thought alone made her hands move nervously while she jogged the lonely miles away.

That would be doing exactly what she'd been warned against doing, though, not staying stable and grounded. And even if she could, she was too damned nervous at the idea of thinking out what she'd like to do to him.

She'd have to wait to talk to Talon. And that was the maddening part.

Eventually, her pace became dogmatic, thoughts of any young man would disappear under the unrelenting and unchanging landscape of the neck. The peak of the bulge hit almost a full day of plodding away into this particular run.

To make the most of what was left, she'd have to run for at least another 18 hours and she was already tired. A story Alder had told her years ago about how humans were endurance hunters, and that she was made for this jog from hell didn't do anything to lessen the agony that was every joint from her spine to her toes.

An age later, the height of this asteroid finally passed her and slowly dwindled towards nothing but neck. It was time to give up and settle down. It was aveering off to her right to relieve herself well away from where she'd sleep, another half hour of running to get a bit of extra distance in, setting up the water collector and huddling under her blanket robe as she looked back towards the head.

From this distance, there was nothing that screamed the home she knew. It looked like an endless neck whipping through the cosmos without a damn anchor to hold onto. The glow from the eyes was the only thing to make it back this far--two blazing dots at the end of a finger that inched through space. It felt so huge, growing up on it, with the hills of home stranded on its crown, but this angle rendered her childhood pitiful.

Who am I, that I should survive?

She struggled to put aside the most adult question she had ever asked herself, so she could snuggle down into her blankets and dream of Talon.

Anything had to be better than trying to set a value on herself at one of the loneliest movements of her life.