Time and Dirt
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Day 31
Heliopause Colony on Planet Vertumna, Medbay
“Solane, why are you still here? Why are you still suffering? It’s been a month now and you seemed to have made so much progress.
...
Oh wait, ... I, I haven’t actually paid attention to you the past few days anymore, have I... I’m so sorry, I was talking so much about myself and what I had seen that ... you could have opened your eyes and maybe even si...silent-...ly cried out for help and I might have missed it in that time...
Solane, you deserve so much better than that... than someone like me. I ... I honestly thought I was better than that but, uh, I guess I’m not.
I’ll promise to you that this month I will check on you every day, not just to talk to you but to make sure you’re doing at least ... okay, and doing my best to make sure it’s more than that. Maybe I can ask Dr. Instance to get involved in nursing you back to good health. There’s got to be something I can do even if I never studied any of it, right? It might help lighten her load, too, and then her next attempt at treatment will work better than the last... At least I’d like to believe that
It’s also much more peaceful here at least. Good thing the soldiers can’t bother you here, right? Especially those from the Helios. And they’ll also leave me alone... Actually I kind of feel bad letting Rex, uh... I mean, I kind of ran away when I kept getting called names and mocked by Vace and his fellow violence worshippers. I saw Rex just letting it happen, just giving them dirty looks... I don’t know how he could bear it, maybe he’s just used to it because he had to grow up with it on the Helios spaceship.
But ... I, Solane, I felt like I was being left alone. Being called Warrior of Nature and Guardian of the Plants, and then hearing them laugh at how I like xenos ‘too much’ or something... Ugh, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t deal with it. Maybe I still need to get tougher, so I can stand up for myself more, ... and you of course, Solane. I don’t want to tell you the things they have been telling each other about you. It makes my hair stand on end.
Especially now that I don’t just hear it at the cafeteria, but also in the fields... Sure, there’s at least a chance the work is going to get done in time, since Rhett is making sure they don’t leave and actually do the weeding and cutting back of the old plants, the planting of the last few carrots and garlic... but I’m never getting a moment of peace there anymore, because our garrison leader just doesn’t seem to think that making them shut up for once is important, like at all.
It’s like we have nowhere to go anymore, Solane. It feels like you might not even recognize the world anymore at this rate. I’m trying to stay optimistic, but where is this really taking us? I don’t want to end up having to agree more with Dys...
Or, stars... I’m reminded of that nightmare you told me about when you were just ten about the whole colony being on fire and in ruins with the xenos falling in through the broken gate taking their revenge on everyone and... so much... um, I honestly don’t want to think about it. I still don’t know what made you dream that, but you were almost unconsolable for the whole day! Tammy was the one who eventually managed to calm you down when the adults were just being dismissive or even eyeing you weirdly because you kept insisting that you had seen the future...
...
That was always an issue, wasn’t it, other people not taking you seriously. I have experience with it, too, but somehow it happened much more with you until you just stopped talking about your dreams or most of your worries to everyone. And just confided them to me and Tammy, or maybe a flower you were sitting next to, and later Tiki. It was always hard seeing you like that and not knowing how to help you, not even knowing how much you were not letting us know either.
Wait, Solane, what’s wrong? You’re tossing so much again. Even more than last time. I haven’t ever seen you this... agitated before since, uh, arriving here. Wait, is this actually a good sign... please let it be one...
Don’t worry, I’m here. It’s fine.
You know, thinking of the past made me remember this song that we used to sing on the Stratos before we landed here. Remember it? I found it so... energizing and you always seemed to enjoy it a lot as well.
Way down, below the wormhole
where we wanna be, it will be
Way down, below the wormhole
where we wanna be, it will be
Way down, below the wormhole
where we wanna be, it will be
Oh, I don’t actually remember anything but the chorus, heh. Sorry! I should ask Auntie Seedent some time again if I see her. This was the song that got us hyped about where we were headed every time we sang it, every month when we celebrated one month being closer to Vertumna.
And now we’re here... and don’t even know what to do with ourselves anymore. It’s almost funny, isn’t it.
...
It’s so beautiful, this world. But we can’t even see it anymore. Maybe Dys still does, out there. I feel like they would try to even take down the sun if they could.
I mean, they already don’t care if they lose the brightest sun that ever shone inside the colony, do they? You always shone even brighter than me, with unparalleled enthusiasm for everything and everyone...Where I could sometimes enjoy talking about dirt if I discovered something interesting, you could go on for hours regardless! It’s like every day everything growing was new again for you, and we’d sometimes just lay on a field and look at tiny sprouts of crops or observe a weed or even one of the many dirtworms!
And I think they all liked our attention, too. Didn’t your father once say we seem to made the plants grow faster just by being close to them? You know, just like little suns would..."
I won’t ever need medbeds recording everything I said to remember what I said next on that day, Solane. It’ll always stay with me.
And I also don’t need to look at what the *security cameras* in the medbay recorded either to tell you what I saw next. It’s always right in front of me.
You finally stopped stirring so much, and all I could still hear was your slow breathing beneath all the soft whirring and beeping here from all the machines.
I looked out of the window and just whispered to myself.
“In this world, we’re just beginning to understand the miracle of living...”
...
...
And then I realized the sun had risen right in front of me... your eyes were open, Solane, and you were now looking me straight into the eye. The same way you always looked at a new flower or the night sky above us!
I had so much I had planned to say to you for when you wake up, but then felt unable to say anything but a single sentence in that moment... and so quietly you probably didn’t even hear it.
“Maybe I was afraid before... I’m not afraid anymore...”
But I know you *could* see the widest grin in the universe. Ha, what a nice thing to wake up to, right?
Uhh, it might have even startled you, or I was leaning over the bed too much... because you pulled away from me and it was like someone had switched off the warm water while I was taking a shower... or what being caught in a thunderstorm when you are walking alone outside the colony must feel like.
I pulled away with my shoulders slumped, but couldn’t take my eyes off you. You were still fixating me as well, but there was an oddly empty look in you. Or maybe it was more of a curious, questioning look. As if you didn’t recognize me and were trying to figure out who you were looking at.
Then you sniffed the air, like on the last quiet day of the year when the xenos start to sing again and the first flowers in our garden emerge, and smiled, your eyes radiating a warmth nicer than any sunny day.
And I realized ... you had recognized me through my smell! You always said I had smelled like sunshine and flowers, even when I was covered in dirt, but I think even the deepest scent is nothing like the one that tells you that your best friend is nearby.
“Oh, look the suns are welcoming you back as well!” I finally managed to say when I saw the sunrays hit your face, and made it glow in the softest shade of brown and your dusk-colored hair shone brightly.
But shortly after your smile disappeared and your eyes got that ... horrible piercingness back, staring right through me, as if you could look through the walls far beyond us.
“Solane?” I asked, and I couldn’t stand with how much hesitation it was.
But you gave no answer.
“Solane!”
But you still didn’t reply.
“SOLANE!”
- “Fire...”
That was your first word in over a month... Even though it made no sense to me then, I still couldn’t help but smile again. Because I was finally able to hear your voice again. And I felt you were finally properly with me again.
But ... you actually were seeing the whole room on fire, everything around us burning, the ceiling collapsed and rubble everywhere and I had no idea!
When you finally told me about that some weeks ago. I felt so terrible. If I had known that your nightmares were terrorizing you now even when awake I would have tried to say something comforting. Even if it couldn’t have helped as much as what Tammy would have told you, it would have been better than shouting at you at least. You kept telling me it’s fine, that you weren’t that scared and how used you actually already were to it by that point, but thinking back to it you didn’t *look* fine and I’m sorry, I just didn’t realize it...
Instead I just asked “Want to eat something? I still didn’t manage to show you the snacks I had brought some days ago! And now you can finally judge them for yourself and just pick what you like!”
And then we just spent the time silently eating. Do you remember what it was? I think some jarred soy porridge, vegetable preserves and soy sweets. Plus berries from the forest I had gathered with Dys! You hadn’t had real food in so long at that point, I was glad to see you still had appetite. Even if you seemed a bit ... hesitant with some foods. They were all cold and not as nice as something that Auntie Seedent would offer you in the cafeteria, but even then I always thought it tasted better than anything I had had the past month.
I had so much work left to do, and another council meeting in the evening, but I still wanted to stay the whole day with you, just enjoying having you back, even if you were so much quieter than usual now. Just so you could feel at ease knowing you aren’t actually alone. And so we both could have some peace that we both needed so much.
I even had forgotten to tell Dr. Instance you had woken up, or maybe I had just subconsciously pushed it aside, but before I could remember I noticed she was standing in the doorframe with her medical trolley when I turned to look where the squeaky noise was coming from. On it she had more weird contraptions, various containers with like pills and liquids, and some medical tools like ... syringes. Ugh... She pushed it slowly in front of her, with careful steps, to not make anything fall over, I guess.
I tried hard not to look her into the eye, until she called my name. And when I turned to her I saw that her expression was unusually soft. Not friendly, but composed, like... polite. Not angry or just fed up with the world like I usually saw her.
You would need a lot of help to continue your recovery, she said. And that I would have to fill in as nurse for ... as long as is needed.
And I just nodded. I don’t know if you could notice it at the time, or how much you listened but I’m sure you could feel it anyway. You have a sort of sixth sense for this kind of thing!
Then when I had gotten the first instructions from Dr. Instance I looked to you again and noticed you had fallen asleep again.
She said it’s better to let you rest for now and I followed her out of the room to learn about some of the stuff she had been teaching you. But like, a special program made just for you, based on Earth case studies and research! I had no idea that so many people had gone through something similar... it made me honestly feel a bit less alone in that moment. And reading about all the people who had managed to get well again, it... it gave me so much hope!
You know, I really couldn’t wait to try everything there was to try to make you feel better and bring you back to our plants where we belonged. Even now, with everything that has happened since then, that is still my dream. That we spend our lives among the flowers again, caring for them just like we always did for our children growing in the garden and the fields. That we have a future together, and befriend everyone who is at home in this world.