I found this performance of Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy, and it gave me an idea. I encourage you to listen to the song before or while you read this, by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjnaciNT-wQ
The link there is Clair de Lune being performed on a theremin by Grégoire Blanc.
The Earth was no more than a speck behind us now. Less than that, really. Any message sent to or from us would take years – but that didn’t seem to bother them much.
Then again, they weren’t the ones who would have to stay awake, to keep the ship running smoothly. They kept telling me how lucky I was, that I would get to see all the most beautiful sights on our way out of the solar system…
but I could see in their eyes they knew how lonely it would be. Still, I had signed on for the job, and I was going to do what I had to.
We had Christmas early – or rather, we all exchanged gifts; there were only two people on the ship that celebrated Christmas. We traded songs in our own languages, and tried our best to make light of the situation.
“Don’t snoop around my stuff while I’m gone,” they said, “and wake us up if you find any aliens!”
And it was fun, it really was… but the day still came. The day I had to be the one to turn the hatch shut on their cryo-sleep pods. As I turned the last one closed I made a mental note to tell the psychologist back on Earth that they really should make the hatches close automatically – it’s too much weight to just… put someone away like that.
“Of course, then they’d have to put a manual override on it,” I thought.
The ship wasn’t quite as lonely as I thought it would be – at least, not at first. Everything was running as normal, so I made myself some food from the synth: its best imitation at grilled cheese and tomato soup.
I sat in the viewing room, the largest room on the ship, and ate my five-out-of-ten meal. The room was decorated with a fair amount of furniture; a couch, a few chairs, and a coffee table. The stars whirred past me as the ship picked up speed; if all went according to plan, it would use its reserve of solar power gathered from the Sun on our way out and away from Earth.
When that had run out, I would be the one to shift it back to regular power; they’d thought about making that automatic, but being that everyone on the design team for the ship was into old sci-fi, they decided against it, citing concern that it would malfunction.
They also vetoed the idea of having one of those new AI systems help us.
“At least then there’d be someone to talk to,” I thought.
I glanced at one of the side tables, and noticed something I hadn’t seen before. One of my crewmates had left their phone, and a pair of wireless headphones, along with a note.
To Valerie:
I know I didn’t actually give you a proper, wrapped Christmas gift, but I hope this surprise makes up for it. While I’m asleep, you can listen to it all you want.
Also, I added a little program to the synth; type in LVE42 and it should actually synth something good for once.
P.S. – I made a special playlist for you.
Happy Christmas,
Thomas
I’d be lying if I said that didn’t get to me a little. I got up and input the command into the synth –
Mint chocolate chip ice cream.
I sat back down in the viewing room and watched the stars whir by for a moment. Then I put in the wireless headphones and scrolled through the phone on its paper-thin screen. “Happy Christmas, Valerie,” was the name of the specially-made playlist. I pressed play without looking any further at the songs – I wanted to be surprised.
And I was, when “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers appeared first. I chuckled to myself before skipping it; there’d be plenty of time to hear every song over and over again, and now didn’t seem to be the time for that one.
I skipped around the more upbeat numbers, until finally –
Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy began to play.
The recording was… strange. It took me a while to understand why exactly, something in the way it was being played, until finally I realized –
“This is Thomas playing!”
He’d mentioned before that he loved piano, but I couldn’t imagine where in all our time spent training for the mission that he had time to record it.
“He must have stayed up late…”
The ice cream was a soft, melted mess, but he was right – it did taste better than the other synth-ed food. I ate the rest and sat back on the couch as the song played on.
The stars and the distant nebula around us slowed their whirring; the ship was programmed only to increase to a certain max speed at a time so as not to overload the engines. It would stay drifting like this at a relatively high speed, until sometime at dawn Earthtime, when it would speed up again.
For now, though, I got my first of those beautiful views the crew had been telling me about. We were drifting past the moons of Jupiter as the Sun reached out to touch them. It occurred to me that the same light I saw now was the same one that would be shining right in the eye of my neighbor as they woke up. The same Sun that would break through clouds on a dreary day somewhere and make someone say, “It’s finally nice out for once!”
The song was nearing its end, and my mind drifted from the view to the sound of the music itself.
“Hi Valerie,” came Thomas’s voice from the recording.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t jump a little.
“If you’re listening to this, then I’m asleep. I hope you like the ice cream – oh, have you had the ice cream yet? I hope I didn’t spoil that part of the surprise. Anyway… I don’t know what kind of views you’re going to see while we’re all in cryo, but I can’t wait to hear about them. I hope this music keeps you company…”
He continued playing; the song had returned to the same notes it had started with, only in a higher pitch. The last few notes echoed in my ears…
“When I wake up, maybe we can come to the viewing room together and share a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream together,” he said.
The song ended.
I paused the playlist and looked at my finished bowl of ice cream, at the stars and moons drifting by us.
And I felt just a little bit less lonely.
I synth-ed up just one more bowl, and played the song again.
Wallflower Showcase 