Featured Review on this writing by Jack Cohen
"Nice twist! Hard to do in a short space, but you executed it beautifully. "
Final Frontier
Reads: 536 | Likes: 5 | Shelves: 2 | Comments: 8
Short Story by: India Emerald
The green covered “pizza” schlopped down from the vending machine and landed on Brax's plate. He rubbed his temples and tried to imagine the food looking more appetising. He missed the real thing. Fluffy, deep pan pizza overflowing with four different molten cheeses. Basil in the tomato sauce, and jalapeños. Brax sucked the drool back into his mouth. Back on Earth, he'd be pushing through the crowds to beat the lunchtime rush at Mizouli's, he had a table there every Friday at 1 pm.
Here, he was more or less alone. The original exploration team started out with 25 eager crewmembers, one by one they had dwindled and now only 5 remained. If they thought that their workday would be busy when they landed, their schedule had mushroomed after six months. Everything about space was strictly timetabled, even downtime. It had to be, to get the most out of every trip. Brax picked at the jalapeños on his Algae Pizza, if he ate them separately the rest of the meal would taste disgusting. He wanted to throw the pizza on the damned floor and be done with it but that would make a mess for the team to clear up. More work. He liked picking the jalapeños off and eating them first. Space wasn't “the final frontier”, or “a giant leap”, it sucked donkey balls.
A blue light on his smartwatch flashed and he touched the screen to answer. The grinning face of Doc. Brown, the team medic, greeted him.
“Brax, my man, how's things?”
“My man?” Brax pulled a face like he'd stepped in something. “What's with that? Some kind of new patient/doctor bonding thing? If it is, you can drop that shit. It's weird.”
“So, we good?” Brax closed his eyes and took a deep breath before answering. He couldn't fathom what Brown was up to, maybe he was bored, maybe a mid-life crisis. Who knew?
“Yeah. We good. Now, what do you want?” Brax sighed, disappointed that he'd encouraged the doctor.
“We need to talk about your butt.”
“Err, jeez Doc. I've been a bit bunged up but the diet out here's pretty rough, so... ?”
Doc. Brown slapped the desk and gave a chortle. He loved how space-crew were so uptight one minute and then “balls out” relaxed the next. It was the ex-military in them.
“Nah, dude. I was talking about your muscle mass there,” he regained his composure. “Good to know though.”
“Squats then, huh? I'll get on it at my next gym session.” Brax gave a nod. Doc. Brown smiled in return.
“Lower body's your priority, my man. That sweet little caboose keeps your spine in place, if ya don't treat her right you'll be rolling around that planet like a spooked Armadillo.”
“Thanks for the heads up, Doc. You paint a beautiful picture. Now, I gotta run. Say hi to the kids for me.” Brax tapped the smartwatch, once again, and the image of his unconventional medic blipped out of existence. Back to the peace and quiet of a Martian midday. Brax stepped forward, ready to step out of the shelter and make for the surface and heard a soft snap.
“Damn it!” he cursed out loud, despite no-one to hear him. Brax removed his boot and looked at his little toe. Another broken one. He reached for the tape in his med kit and splinted it to the next toe before replacing his boot. Brax shook his head and turned to Commander Phink. “Guess I need a better diet, huh? I'm leaking calcium into my bloodstream and that has some serious side effects.”
Brax exited the shelter, muttering about rations, leaving Phink's corpse where he'd ended him.
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Comments
Okay!! You don't paint a very appetizing picture of being in space, India, but it did make for an excellent read!
Whoa, I was not expecting that. One minute I'm enjoying some witty space banter and your great descriptions, and the next... Well done, I think you did an excellent job of portraying the darker side of space travel!
interesting how one final sentence can turn a whole story on its head. well done
I enjoyed the banter in this and that dark little twist in the ending. I had to reread it to be sure!
I also like how you take a topic that is often romanticised in popular culture and turn it on its head. That pizza, yeesh!
I can't remember if I've mentioned this in previous comments, but the craving for cheese is down to calcium deficiency (a serious problem in space). Loss of calcium causes Osteoporosis which over time can lead to Psychotic Depression (as the calcium leaks into the bloodstream). I love being a writer, the research is seriously fun :D
Thanks for reading and a special thank you for re-writing it after I accidentally deleted the comment (no more dealing with comments before my second coffee!) I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Nice twist! Hard to do in a short space, but you executed it beautifully.
Is this an excerpt? It feels like an excerpt of a book that I want to read. The name 'Doc Brown' made me think of Back to the Future though. Thanks for sharing this.
~Mike
Doc Brown was an Easter egg, I sometimes pop them in ;) It's not an excerpt, I wanted to play around with a physiological reason for the "space madness" trope in films (rather than psychological grounds- the isolation of man). The research will no doubt come in handy for later projects though. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment, I appreciate it.
I was curious about how you go about character driven plots, and dang! Had me from the get-go, even with the gnarly sounding food. The way you presented everything, how you told the story; it all flowed and kept my interest. Things were happening to him, but his reactions to the situations told the story. This was an amazing read!
Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed the gnarly food, it's based on NASA suggestions for long-term space food :) I don't write SciFi quite so much these days but this is one of my favourites. I'm glad readers are enjoying it, too. Thanks for reading and commenting :)
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