The odd shape of the station hung half in shadow, half in brilliant light. The rotation that gave gravity, or its odd approximation kept the parts illuminated and in shadow always changing, I once heard back in the old Apollo days they called it a barbeque roll.
I’d shot up from Earth this morning, a process I’ve always hated no matter how many times I’ve done it. Headquarters told me that there were shipment problems up here and it was my ass if they weren’t sorted. I’d hopped the first hypersonic up to the LEO transit station. Business on Astrolineas Argentinas, but it was still a rough ass ride. I was able to time the transfer well and got out here by the afternoon, or whatever timezone this fucking place is.
I sat with my coffee trying to find out where the fuck to begin. I’d read the files on the ship, but nothing seemed to be right. We had a contract to deliver living soil from the Argentinian Pampa to the lunar base, something so simple I was surprised it wasn’t automated like most everything else. Some regulations it seemed, disease and bacteria quarantine and quality reviews.
It had all been impounded here on Collins Station, then seemingly lost, or misplaced, or whatever the fuck euphemism they’d called it. After we docked I dropped by the agriculture sector to see what the problem was, but apparently, it should be in the import and export sector, but a drop by there only revealed that you really don’t need to be as smart as they say to work up here.
My buddy jokes that even the janitors here have PhDs, though almost every encounter I’ve ever had this side of the troposphere seemed to prove that wrong. How the fuck do you lose a one-ton shipping container?
I sighed and got up to refill my sparkling water bottle. This was the only shit that could settle my space sick stomach. The meds never quite work and give me the worst fucking case of cotton mouth. I thought the coffee might give me a little caffeine buzz and round things out but to no avail.
I walked over to a window on the other side of the torus. I looked back at the blue coin floating in the immense sea of black. All this, this technology, this progress, this incredible achievement, and humans still find ways to fill our days with mundane, pointless shit. When the original astronauts came out here did they really imagine their tardy equivalents would be up here looking for lost dirt? So much changes, so much stays the same.
I looked in my backpack for my phone, I thought I’d give a progress update to the office. Rummaging around I felt something bizarre. I pulled out a lemon muffin that my girlfriend must have packed me as a snack. I smiled. It seems that we’ve kept love and care as well in this modern age.
I guess that’s something to the cold glass and the limitless void beyond.
