“Lost about a hundred pounds today,” Zoey said, her voice tickling its way through Huisman’s earpiece.

Weight. Days. These were ideas that provided comfort through repetition, even stripped of meaning. The ship spun so rapidly that the stars rose and set at speeds too dizzying to mark time. In the airlock between the ship and Out There, gravity faded to nothing. No gravity, no weight. He loved her cleverness.

Of course, Huisman said none of that. To Zoey’s synchronized eyebrow bob requesting approval, he sighed heavily enough that her radio was sure to pick it up. Still, he secreted the joke somewhere he could pull it out when his nieces needed a giggle. Not that he told Zoey that, either.

The bulky door to Out There floated open, and the two rappelled along the ship’s skin till they reached what required repair: an asymmetrical antenna array sprouting outward. Until broken, these silly-seeming things made forgetting their importance easy.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Zoey said as green sprays tinkled at the edges of Huisman’s faceplate, warning of rapid movement. He wanted to agree, to wonder at the tiny particles dancing around, lighting up his display in verdant swirls. Some less poetic part of him wanted to remind his partner that even these minor showers could contain chunks sufficient to render catastrophe. Before he could speak, he was proven right. Stray debris smashed into Zoey’s tether.

It snapped up, wrapped around her legs, and they were gone.

Huisman breathed out heavily as he leapt for her. He only hoped she would remember to do the same despite her shaking, which continued for the seventy terrifying seconds it took to haul her frail frame back inside.

In the medical ward, watching until sure that blood loss and decompression and shock had not been enough to kill her, Huisman thought of many things to say. How sorry he was. How much she meant to him. Instead, he interrupted Zoey’s eyes staring into middle distance and said, “Good news: you lost about forty pounds today.”

“Go to hell,” she said, but a strained smile wracked her face.

He patted her shoulder and looked away. “Get some rest. We’ll talk later.”

x

Year 2, Day 122

August 4, 2015

(It says 2014 on the trading card. Maybe that makes it more of a collector’s item.)

This was performed live as part of Owen Egerton’s One Page Salon.