Raquel looked down at the paperwork in front of her and sighed. She was lucky to have it. Luck never tasted so awful as it bubbled up in her throat.
Kimmi had signed her copy right away. She was so pragmatic, always and forever. Till death do they part.
Till death or the ship?
The sun was rising out beyond the edge of the planet that Raquel and Kimmi called home, that everyone called home. For now. The star rose in the east and shining light streaked and cut through the window to Raquel's right. She'd put up modesty covers on the window in the loft that diffused the light into hundreds of little rainbows on the wall across from her as the sun shined on through. Bright colorful light contrasted the egg white papers that sat read and unsigned on the table in front of her. Raquel wanted to get up and pour herself a coffee. She wanted to stay here until she figured out what to do. She wanted to curse her wife for ever putting the decision in front of her.
Stupid, pragmatic, intelligent, wonderful Kimmi. This wasn't her idea. This was Raquel's dream through and through. She shook her head. How could she be upset at her wife for doing what she wanted? What she dreamed of? This wasn't the idle thought of the stoic woman she married, this was her thought. Her wife went ahead and committed to her dream without even asking first. To Kimmi, they’d already discussed everything once months ago. That’d been enough. Decision debated and made. Now it sat in front of Raquel, unmade, not undone, but not done.
Raquel looked out the window to the diffused rainbow of a rising sun; to leave that behind the star that birthed humanity, was that the hang up?
It wasn't her family. They had been estranged, or estranging, for years now. Her step dad had died and her mom had gone deeper and deeper off the furthest end of the rational pool. Step siblings calls got ignored. Not to mention the cousins and aunts and uncles that she hadn’t spoken to in years. They weren't keeping Raquel here.
Was it her friends? Some had even signed up for the lottery like Kimmi and she did. "Paperwork party!" had been what Ericka called the game night where they took a break to fill out their ticket with information and submit it. Everyone had been excited then: Ericka and Stephen, Dustin, Andrea and Willow, Gus and Declan. They all signed up with an electric buzz palpable in the air. Months later and Kimmi didn't want to tell their friends that they had actually gotten their ticket punched, that they won the lottery. Not until the paperwork was done and over. The friends had all agreed that initial night and Kimmi would keep Raquel to it. No one wanted their friends to be the thing that kept them from the greatest adventure in human history. But now there was no one to talk to.
Raquel stood up and opened the window revealing the sun in its full glory. Her eyes reflexively shut in that almost pain of sudden bright light. Well now, coffee wasn't quite needed to wake her up anymore. She took another forlorn look towards the paperwork at her desk before turning to head downstairs, to the closet for some shoes and a hat, and outside into the world.
She hadn’t really walked much since they had moved to their new place. it'd been months, since they had moved, but something had kept Raquel from finding a new route around their new home. The old walk was so perfect.it had just enough city, with a taste of nature as she walked passed the alpaca farm that somehow squeezed between apartments and condos. It was a mile and a half long, just enough to lose one's train of thought or get sucked into an audiobook or album. Just short enough to ease into the day, or run two laps if it was suddenly too short upon Raquel's arrival home.
It was perfect. It was gone. Behind her.
She missed it but wasn’t about to drive twenty minutes to their old place to walk it.
Raquel struck out on the sidewalk away from her and Kimmi's home, unsure where the turns and twists of the walk would take her, unsure of the thoughts in her head other than the fact that she wished some would leave her alone.
The day was starting in earnest. She saw rabbits on the side of the sidewalk, tucked in the strips of landscaping between homes and the street. Some watched her, but some darted away in fear. That was good, the fear. She felt bad for the rabbits that ran, for the stress she caused them by walking by, but that was good, normal, rabbit behavior.
Something she'd never see again if she signed those papers.
The sky was becoming blue after its brief flirtation with all the golden-red colors of the rainbow. Raquel looked up and saw fluffy white clouds dotting the sky above her. Out in the distance, wispy grey clouds floated, unmoving. There was no breeze to make the leaves dance about on the trees around her. Raquel took a turn that must lead to a park. The grass was more plentiful and the trees were getting thicker. It was cool this morning, the not-quite-cold of the last days of summer before fall finally breaks loose and requires sweaters or jackets to come out of their moving boxes. The air was crisp on Raquel's skin. It wasn't perfect, controlled or conditioned. It was the air, natural and free. Unmoving now, but ready to dance at a moment’s notice, fluttering between grass and leaves and her hair and the fur of the rabbits running behind her. It was fresh. Air. Who could miss air?
Would she miss air?
Kimmi had looked through all of the logistics of what they were signing up for the second Raquel had brought it up. That's what she did. Raquel smiled on her walk thinking of her wife. Years together so far was not long enough. It felt shorter and felt longer at the same time. It made the rest of her life, whatever that vague unknowable number of years and days that borders on eternity and nothing at the same time, bearable. Kimmi, her love. Her only love. Kimmi, who signed the paperwork already.
It wasn't submitted. Nothing was locked in until Raquel signed them too and they sent off the forms. Raquel didn't even know the rollercoaster waiting for them after that. Kimmi did. She'd told her wife the process, and Raquel mostly listened to it. Before even looking at the lottery sign up, Kimmi had known everything there is to know about the ship and the journey and the stakes of their little contest. It was everything. The long voyage out beyond. A ship sailing out to a Roanoke or Plymouth Rock, one that certainly had no humans set foot on before. No Atlantic between them save for the ocean of stars and darkness.
But they would go together. Couples who entered the lottery, entered together. If one won, both did. That's the only reason Kimmi joined up.
The logistics hadn't scared her. She was close to her family, but closer to Raquel. She'd join on an adventure with her love, wherever it went. Even to the stars.
Raquel didn't notice the small tears willing up in the corners of her eyes as she walked through the trees on a trail in the park.
This is what Raquel wanted wasn't it? The greatest adventure in human history, a journey beyond anything anyone had ever experienced, save for the few astronauts that had flown the far reaches of the solar system. But even then, none had flown this far.
The ship was a one way ticket. If there was a return from the star so distant that they looked towards, a sun that shined its own way, it would be 42 years for Kimmi and Raquel. it would be much longer for those left behind. Not left behind so much as abandoned. There was no coming back. Relativity is a bitch.
Raquel looked up at her own familiar sun. There was something to it, something so innate. It was home. It always had been home. Humanity had never left the embrace of the warm yellow glow that beset the planet every rotation. She could leave her family and her friends behind, as long as Kimmi was with her, Raquel could leave anyone behind. it was tough, but it was true. Kimmi was first. Always. But the sun? That star she and all her grandmothers and great grandmothers had known ad infinitum. Somehow it felt closer than family.
She thought of her old mile and a half walk and stopped. It wasn’t left behind. It was abandoned. Raquel looked about the park that she had been walking through aimlessly here. It was beautiful beyond compare. It was a park with a small stream and benches and a handful of trees. Epitome of small city budget paying what it can for an amenity. It wasn't much. but it was beyond compare in the absence of anything like it for the rest of her life. It was different than the old walk, but not bad. Earth was a beautiful home.
Raquel looked out at the park by her new house and knew she'd never see it again. It was an old home. Beauty is found in so many places, our planet and beyond. She and Kimmi would find some in the stars.
Raquel started her walk back to her wife.
It was a walk forward.
Thanks for giving that a read! As always, sharing or commenting below are the best ways to help my writing get some traction. Let me know your thoughts!
Love ya!
Max
Photo from pexels.com and by Mukul Gola.