I Don't Seem So Bright in a Well-Lit Room

Chapter Thirty-One

When a weight is lifted from one's sore shoulders after a tumultuous situation and an extended period of time, it can be quite liberating. It can feel like finally lowering one's arms after holding up a muddy, collapsing ceiling for a spell. It can feel like seeing clean sunshine after a yearlong storm of raining mud. It can feel like stretching one's legs after driving for four hundred hours...in the mud.

These comparisons make sense to those that have been liberated from a great burden after a long time, because it takes them back to a more relaxing time when that burden didn't exist (and there was considerably less mud). They have a comparison. They had past relief to dream about.

Aye didn't know how to feel. There was never a time when he didn't have the burden, until now. He had nothing to compare it to. His father had been in pursuit of him in one way or another from infancy. He had learned how to hide before he had learned how to use the potty.

He floated about in the doldrums of space by himself. Again.

No extremely-claustrophobic-spacesuit this time. Instead he reclined in a comfy, and slightly less claustrophobic escape pod. He wondered why it had needed a comfy seat if it belonged to a robot with a tank-like tread who couldn't sit down and take advantage of its overly-plush cushioning. The truth is that it had been built when his father was humanoid, but this didn't occur to Aye. His father had always been an ugly hate machine to him.

He didn't feel like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders; he felt hollow. He felt numb. He stared blankly out the window at the beginning of a war.

He turned on the radio. He calmly watched the Shiv, countless Vexian warships, the Lyme Node prison, the Bad News Bearer, fleets of Node Guardships, a nondescript hunk of space garbage, and the flickering Garax ship as it left for greener pastures. They all came and went from view, while he listened to a Vexian signal play 1980's pre-mall Earth Brit-pop hits. Such music had just reached Vex 4. They always had been a little behind on the most recent trends.

It was like watching someone else play the most complicated, insane and hopeless video game. He watched without an ounce of concern for his own well-being or any amount of fear. Just the hollowness. Hollowness with a soundtrack by XTC, Thomas Dolby and The Thompson Twins.

~~~

On the flight deck of the Shiv, Potto sat across from the Aye clone, trying to decide if he could make the relationship work. Moments before, Knutt had reported that the Zophricaties Lab had blown up, and that there was a ninety-eight per cent chance that the original Aye went up with it. In an attempt to cheer up the Quarol, Knutt had recommended that, in his heart, he replace Aye with the clone.

"He has some of the same memories!" she told him.

"He doesn't even look the same. He looks like he's melted," Potto sulked. It felt like he had been given raw parsnips when he had asked for warm cookies.

"Well, he might like some of the same foods, anyway. He can't be any more of a dickhead than before..." she assured.

"I haaaaave the drink now? I haaaave the sex now?" the Aye clone asked.

"I want my Aye," Potto sadly told Knutt, quickly realizing that this may have hurt the clone's feelings. "No offence, I'm sure you are very nice. You look like you'd be good at...um..." Potto started to say to the clone, but trailed off. He honestly couldn't think of anything this impostor looked like he'd be good at.

He was also feeling quite guilty. He had been in such a hurry that he had grabbed the wrong Aye on his way back to the Garax ship.