The Loneliness of Distant Beings

Chapter Four

I don't think it's fair that Pan and Dad, aka the only people left in my actual immediate family per se, get to decide that I have a psychological issue and declare me depressed just because I go straight to my room from graduation and refuse to speak or move for a couple of days. In my opinion the very fact that I hate the way this place works just proves that I am the only one round here who isn't insane.

'You asked me how I feel and the honest truth is sometimes I think it would be better not to exist.' As soon as I've said this I know I shouldn't have done, I know that this has just pressed one of Dad's worst buttons and looking at him with this crease he gets above his top lip when he's upset I know I've Overstepped the Line.

'Seren, I am taking you to Med to see Dr Maddox, for your own good.' This is Dad, having run out of patience with me.

'No.' But I'm not angry any more, just sad, feeling like I have something as big and as hard as a coffee mug rammed in my throat where I will never be able to swallow it, let alone talk round it, and feeling that there is a crease above my top lip too, answering Dad's.

At a loss he sighs, and stretches his arms back so that they hit my shelf, where my only actual physical book, a copy of Tender Is the Night which belonged to Great Granny Bea, sits open, face down, gathering dark dust. After a moment of looking at it, he says, 'You used to read so much, Seren. And now I never see you reading.'

'Dad . . . '

But he holds his hand up, has his say. 'I could never get you off your pod. You were working your way through the whole library at one point, and you loved it. Why don't you ever do that any more?'

'There just –' I shrug '– doesn't seem any point. I mean, what even is the point in reading about a real life in a world that for all we know doesn't even exist any more, when all there really is or will ever be is this place? These grey walls, grey ceiling, grey uniform . . . this cold, this dark . . . ' I shake my head, regretting everything I say even as I say it. Not because it's not true, but because I know that every word that comes out of my mouth only makes it worse.

Dad pulls off his cap then and leans forward over his knees, rubbing his hair back and forth and back and forth so that when he stops it is all sticking up. There is a lacy patch of red along the side of his neck, spreeing he calls it, from the cold in the Production bay. I get so annoyed at him right then, letting himself get cold like that. I get so annoyed at him for being so lonely and so alone, and letting me be.

'I just can't see what the point of it all is,' I say.

He looks up at me, pushes his cap back on, tugs at his nose, looks at the floor, his face telling the story of how he's been here and done all this before.

'The point is: get up, do your work, come home, love your family, full stop. That's what the point is. Keep going. Keep going. We have to do that for our kids and for their kids and for those who come after. It's the same thing on Ventura as it would have been on a planet, Seren. You just think there's more to it than there is. You think there's something else that you're missing, but there isn't.'

'How do you know, though?'

'I just . . . ' He shrugs, slumping forward again. 'I know, baby, trust me.'

I look up at the vent in my ceiling then, so desperate not to be as trapped in this room as I know I'm about to feel.

Dad puts his hand on my knee. 'Seren, the life path you have is a good one. I don't know why you can't see that. I don't know why you won't let it unfold in front of you with a happy heart.'