Cold Comfort

And so, slowly, I settled down to die.

I began by cleaning up, more thoroughly than I had done in the rest of my time here. The little robot swept my dust up and recycled it, then I turned him off. I will not have returned to dust by the time they find me. I wipe down the floors, the walls, the cupboard doors, which conceal the awkward curve that was neither floor nor walls but part of both, each smooth copper-coloured surface a misted version of my face. My once shaven head now haloed by thick black curls. Each corner and curve, each darkened screen, bounced the faint image of my body around. The intention of this metal was to make the most of any light and heat, when I could find it, but now it mirrored my thoughts: uneasy self-reflection from all angles.

I logged my activity, my location, the star plan – only minimally changed since yesterday – the routine minutia which used to fill my days. It had been a comfort to me: ticks on a list which showed that I still functioned, that I had fulfilled my daily purpose. After yesterday’s news, I could still fill each checkbox, but I remained hollow.

Perhaps I should eat.

The food here is as you’d expect; small and lightweight, calorie dense and nourishing, packaged and rationed – a simulation of food on earth. Just add water to turn the powder into chicken soup, the flakes into cheesy mash, to make delicious flavoured noodles in a pot. Here there is no possibility of eating my feelings from an ice-cold pot of chocolate, cream, sugar and peanut butter, there is no soul food, no home comforts, no fine dining, no jollof rice the way my grandmother made it. I consider trying it anyway – a hedonistic blowout of soupy mash and noodles in every flavour of the rainbow as my last meal.

I send messages to the friends and relatives who will out-live me, but the imbalance in our time means that the people I cared about most have already gone ahead of me. The messages are short, I tell them I would have liked to hug them one more time, to share a meal, or dance in the kitchen as we have done before – I do not lie, but I also don’t mention that these relationships are like a candle to me, the warmth is there but the flame is too small and too far away to reach me.

The library on board is electronic, of course, and compiled by someone who thought a solo trip should be spent in self-improvement: like the desert island wish list of someone who thought pages would be good for fire-starters and toilet paper: The Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Bible, War and Peace, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself which I couldn’t curl up with even if I had paper copies. And there is no blanket to snuggle in, just a thin sleeping bag, strapped to the bed in case the fake gravity should malfunction and coated in a crispy metallic layer to conserve body heat – practical but not cosy.

Without the things I would draw comfort from, without the cosy atmosphere to wrap myself in, I turn my gaze to what I do have:
Outwards and upwards to the stars I float between. The toughened, clear, convex acrylic which makes up the top of the two thirds of my craft acts like a magnifying glass; objects in space may seem closer than they really are. The pinpricks of distant suns and their orbiting planets, glimmering dust clouds of galaxies and nebulas, millennia of light turned cold and silver on its journey reaches my upturned face. I remember something I used to know, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.’

My purpose to explore the galaxy has cut me off from all other comforts – I am one of those who has gone where no one has gone before, perhaps too boldly since I can’t return, and my rescue ship has been held up. I have cut myself off from cosiness and the people who would give it to me, I have chosen a life of discomfort and of routines that cannot bring hope. But even out here I don’t feel alone. I have seen too much of the universe to believe that what I can see is all that there is.

I breathe deeply and, eyes open to the wonder, I say my last prayer.

~ Hannah Lewis