357. When Alone (v 2)

Here you have a new version of a composition I had to write for my course of English, Level 8 (C-2), at Centro de Lenguas Modernas, Universidad de Granada.

The student, on this exercise, had to continue the beginning of a novel. In all, 11 beginnings appeared on the exercise of the coursebook. I chose 1984. / Photo from crux baker edu

From the Teacher’s Book – 3: Communication – Telling stories

Begun on 21 December 2009

(Version 2: 27 May 2010)

Fernando Díez Gallego

I have taken 1984, by George Orwell.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen…

Then I awoke at that sound, but remained in bed, very still, eyes wide open. I was just listening. A few more metallic strikings in the distance... So cold a morning... Windows wide open to the countryside. For granted, every day I used to hear some other clocks striking, far, in the distance, in some corner of the ship, where I was on.

By that time, April of 1984, I might be about Pegasus Nebulose. April 1984. 1984 since the year 2012. I preferred this way of counting the years, you know? 1984 after 2012. My people, most of them, preferred to say ‘3996’, so the sum which results from the addition of both numbers.

I missed my companions. I missed my people. I missed human beings. I was heading for the earth, our earth. I did know there were people there, still. I had received some signs, broken ones. The mission of our ship, farthest from the earth, very very far, had been a failure, although we, the crew, had outfitted the plan up to the minor possible error. Would people on earth know there was a being of their family about Pegasus Nebulose? Don’t think so.

Oh, I got overslept, I said to myself. Once again. Oh, still in bed, oh shhhh... I looked at the clock, put aside on my night table. It was 13.13 then. I once again remembered that the magnetic clocks of the vessel would sound according to their own wish to strike. In disorder. Not matched to one another. Yes, I had heard some of them, but I overslept again.

Totally alone. Nobody else on board. I missed my wife. Plus my children.

All I had achieved, after the ‘thing’ which had happened when we entered the circle of the Helenian Sister Stars, was to bury all my human-race mates of the spaceship. They remained buried in the garden, of course, lit by the sun of Ulysses, which zone I was travelling through. A dome of fibre of vitrium covered the garden from the outside dust, the gases, the black matter, the ‘nothing’.

Nearby, in a spot of green land, were my beloved family, all buried, as I said: Sarah, my wife (I had her image in mind, her lovely, intelligent smile, her commitment towards all our family), and my adored children, Elliott, Evelyn, Eugene, Eve, Eliza, Ettienne, Emile, Emily. Every day I went to the yard to visit them, recalling their adored names.

Alone.

If I am honest, I felt, or I would even dare to say, I knew that I was with Someone. And that Someone was with me. Not ‘materially’, like flesh, but not less real though. At those moments, was it in April 1984 I said? I started to be, to feel closer to my Father, not materially, let’s say, but not less real though. I’m referring to God, my beseeched Father, get it?

Well, and closer to my Crade 5. Yet, this latter one was No-One really, just a funny synthetic robotic being. However, that construct of screws and plates of synthetic plastic, gave me some companionship. He fulfilled most of the routines and chores a synthetic being can carry out : a lot of mechanical labour. In that way, I delegated that stuff to him, while I was committed to more human, creative tasks.

Now I see that at that moment I despised those chores and routines as something inferior, but now I think otherwise: you can provide grandeur to that everyday things. Remind me of telling about this grandeur of small daily things. Now I want to continue my story.

I did more things in that early afternoon, but they are too private to write to you right now : I think some day I’ll let someone else know all about my life; what is more, I will share the rest of my life with that person: my second wife. We will share everything. No good for man to live alone. That someone will show up, in some place amid the huge extensions of the outer space, someone sent by my Dad to me. I still have hope. Or perhaps I will meet my new wife on the very earth, when I arrive in it. She and I will try to communicate to each other. Communication within the couple, this is something of a paramount importance, to keep marriage alive.

Some days ago I saw a film of a guy who dedicated his entire life to travelling by plane, firing people from companies, and having one affair. One day that guy realized that the people with a family could endure the dire straits of life better than him, a bloody solitary selfish person, who did not have the courage to really share his life, his projects, with someone else. Poor man. That’s the way the director had chosen to depict him.

Within my ship, there were 200 square kilometres… of a garden, for me, alone. A garden beneath a big dome. Some 5 of those square kilometres were dedicated, as a little portion within the large garden, under the big semi-spheric plastic dome, to growing some livestock and ‘edible’ plants, with Crade’s help: potatoes, some wheat… I confess I have never been a person with knowledge about what goes fine for a balanced diet, or either any knowledge about farming. I knew close to nothing about animals and vegetables and lentils and peas. I had grown up far from the garden, in Section Jupiter of the vessel. Maybe I was born in Astra, you know? Astra is our ship, our ‘island’, amid the known universe. Now it’s my ship, or if you prefer, my raft in this vast bubble, which is the known universe.

Ok, so that afternoon, at 13.23 I headed for our garden (‘Our garden, Dad, thank you for this gift; I love you and you love me: I can often notice it , without any showing yourself as if by magic); as I was telling you, I went to the green lands, and reached the dashboard which controls the synthetic atmosphere: ‘What rain today?’ I suppose I should have asked my human-fellows about this stuff, before the virus thing. Ok, some gentle rain. For my vegetables. The sun, Sirius now (we had left Ulysses constellation) shone blisteringly through the transparent plastic cupola. Sirius: 100 times the size of the sun of our solar system! In my ears, I heard some lingering humming, me myself, some humming from Bob Marley’s catchy melody and voice. Soon, quite soon, I could smell the scent of the wet lawn. I breathed in, deeply. Crade right behind me, sounding his processing bowls. I tapped on top of it. ‘Crade, are we going hunting some venison today?’ Some shrieking metallic processing sound as all reply. ‘Ok, Crade, you win: We´ll go. Get ready, because I can see fewer and fewer targets, after Sirius’s sunset. Pick up the rifles. Let’s go. Go! Wakey!’

[Thanks to the film I am legend, 2007, starring Will Smith. I liked it so much. I’ve taken some ‘inspiration’ from the film]