I’m Homesick But I’ll Hold

“ A73, B73, C73, D73, E73, and F73. Please come up to the counter, your ship is here.`` The robotic voice came again from the speakers.

Almost shaking with how much bottled up excitement and anxiety I contained I stood from the hard plastic chair I had occupied for the last almost two hours. The room I was in contained the other people who had volunteered to live, work and complete the new establishment on the moon. I shouldered my light gray backpack onto my back and made my way to the room's gray and blue counter. I could see I was, of course, not the only one doing so.

 Five other people were coming up with me as was to be expected. I wonder what they will be working on up there, will it be to finish the wiring in the hotels, businesses, and other buildings WSI(or World Space Innovators) the space program promised would be up there. Or maybe it will be to study the moon’s environment, they could honestly be going to work on anything! I could be about to meet one of my co-workers or one of Charol’s co-workers! Ok, calm down Harper. You're 23 now, get yourself together and act at least a little professional! 

Standing a couple of feet away from the counter the five other people and I waited. Every few seconds we would glance around at each other and smile wide smiles, not quite giggling but still acting a lot like a group of young excited children.

Looking at the others in the group I can tell that most of them are not that much older than me, another not very surprising fact. The WSI had asked for young bright minds, preferably people fresh out of college with new ideas to innovate and improve our future. Though they had made some exceptions for older people who were just as smart and innovative as the younger minds. Like the woman to my left, she looks as though she could be in her 40s, though I am not good at guessing ages. 

A couple of minutes of us standing there in front of the desk and we began to get extremely awkward and two of the other people up there with me had even begun to frown. A man, a woman and I were still smiling though they were slightly smaller. A moment later and all three of us exchanged another glance at the exact same time, I held back a laugh and could tell they were too. 

 The situation we were all in was just too funny. Here we were, most of us barely out of college not even fully introduced to the world and we were about to get on a spaceship and go live on the moon. At this point in time, only the extremely wealthy could afford a spaceship and only lead space programs to the moon after it had been outlawed when a family was caught trying to steal the famous flags that had been planted there so long ago.  

Thinking about it now I can’t believe that the first human in space was 69 years ago and the first moon landing was 61 years ago. All the progress that had been made between then and now. 

Oh my gosh! I’m going to be among the first people to live on the moon! How cool is that?! I mean the people who got to build the installation to the moon have been living there for almost two years, but we are still among the first! And all the people I will get to meet and work with!

As I turn my head to share another excited glance with the woman on my right I see a man of about 30 walking towards our group of six. I know from what he’s wearing and the door he just came out of that he is the pilot of our spaceship or at least works for WSI. He’s wearing the same uniform as all the other pilots that took the other 72 groups that left before the group I am currently in. Their uniform seems to consist of a pair of baggy navy blue slacks, a button-up, collared, silver shirt with the space program’s patch and their name over where their heart is. They also have a light blue jacket covered in white paint splatters, most likely to look trendy.

The eyes of everyone in group 73 are locked on him, waiting for him to at least say something. Standing there with everyone else I could almost imagine our eyes burning tunnels through his brain and collecting the information we wanted, not needed. 

What took so long? Was everything okay? How long would it take? Was our stuff already up there? Were the people up there already getting settled or meeting each other or already working on the projects that they were assigned? What does it look like up there? Is it as beautiful as I imagine it to be? When will the actual resort open up there? Is it really going to be open to everyone in the world? How will we overcome language barriers? How many people are up there right now? Do we really get to live and work up there or is it just a scam to get people to test government projects that otherwise would have been stopped? Why do I have so many questions? Is Clara ok? Does she like it up there? Is the internet fast? Is it easy to contact family from up there if you feel homesick? I’m not even on the spacecraft yet and I’m feeling homesick. Has anyone gotten hurt yet? Are they okay? What happens if you get fired or do something wrong? Do you get sent back to Earth and go to jail there? Is there a jail up on the Moon? Are we still trying to go to Mars? Does this guy know what he’s doing? Are we going to get kidnapped by him? Could we di-!

The man spoke calmly in such a way that it seemed that he was almost as excited to be on the trip with us as we were to be on the trip. “Hello, I hope you are all having a wonderful day. I’m sorry to have kept you all waiting, I had to get the spacecraft inspected and it took longer than expected after Joe made a joke that had all of us laughing for almost five minutes!” Wait, it had only been five minutes! Nope, I don’t believe him. Not one bit. 

“Well, we should be going to the spacecraft. Because of how late we are, I will be telling you about what you will be doing when you get to the Moon and answering any questions you might have. In the meantime please follow me so we can be off.” 

With those words, he turned on his heel and began to lead us down the hallway that he had come out of, glancing back for a brief moment he flashed us a wide grin that we all returned with enthusiasm as we swiftly walked behind him to catch up.

As we got closer and closer to our destination I began to feel as though the bright baby blue and white striped walls and my thoughts were closing in on me. Does the person reading this like this? Can I grammer? What if they don’t like me? Or they decide that I’m not smart enough? Maybe they sent the letter to the wrong address and the letter was supposed to go to a much, much smarter Female with my same name? I can’t be worthy of the path in front of me, I haven’t done anything to deserve it. Any moment I’m going to wake up and this will have just been a cruel, cruel dream. Or maybe the letter and email were a prank from someone who didn’t like me and I will be escorted out of the building and revoked of everything I have for trying to copy a pass to go there. I’m not supposed to be here. What if the man up there really is trying to kidnap us? Will he kill us? What if he kills everyone but me and then blames me and then I will have to live with that guilt for the rest of my life!

Pulling my bag farther up on my shoulder I managed to finally push all the thoughts and questions that had been plaguing my mind as the spacecraft we were to take came into view. 

The spacecraft’s hull shone in the bright light the fluorescents gave off above us, from what I could see the top half of the hull had no paint coating, showing off its shiny silver body. The underside of the spacecraft, however, was a light baby blue color and the wings were the same color. As we walked along the walkways to get to the majestic piece of machinery that we would be spending the better part of 23 hours on I desperately racked my brain for the information and procedures that we would have to follow on the spacecraft. On the website the company was using to keep everyone informed about the information that everyone would need to know in order to make the decision on whether or not the person applying to go to the moon should go to the moon there was a very detailed couple pages that were required to be read about how the plane would take off and the different amounts of turbulence that the people within the spacecraft would experience at different points in time.

I knew that at the beginning of the trip right at takeoff it was to feel as though you were in a regular airplane and I knew that none of the really bad turbulence was to happen until we were two hours into the ride. The details in between I could not remember at all which worried me a little. Hopefully, the person who is flying us will explain what to do and when different things will be happening. Why haven’t they introduced themselves to us yet?

4 Months Later...

 Bleek gray rocks looked back at me through the viewing window in the museum, the window was one of a kind. Never on Earth had there been a window so large or so strange. By looking at the window you would never have guessed how many different ways it had been changed to shield the people looking out from the different types of radiation on the other side, how many different ways and times it had been tested for problems. I had no idea how much stress the people working on the window had been under when testing and changing the window.

 My friend did, George had been one of the main people working on the window when the shielding components were being constructed. It made sense for him to be on that team, he like most of the people working on it had at least one doctorate and a masters degree in another subject. George’s doctorate is in chemical engineering while his Masters degree is in biomedical.

 I met him on the way to the moon, we had been on the same ship and stayed in contact after landing and getting settled. George, unlike me, came to the moon knowing other people on his team. I had come to the moon knowing one other person, my very best friend Clara. 

We had remained friends from being in the same high school even though we had gone to completely different colleges due to our completely different interests. Throughout all of the years of us being friends Clara had and still is interested in plants/botany and how radiation affects us and our environment. While I had always been curious about how we could make electricity without fossil fuels and what renewable fuel sources we have at our disposal. Somehow our differences in interests had helped bring us closer as we both loved learning about what interested others, as well as the fact that both of us loved explaining to the other how our topic of interest affected the other without them even having known about it. 

As though she knew that my thoughts had ended up on her, Clara suddenly came around the bend that was a separating wall from the window and a row that showed the process that the large team had to work through in order to complete the wall of glass in front of me. Upon seeing me Clara’s face lit up with a smile that could surpass the radiation she works so hard to protect everyone from.

Practically skipping over to me she plopped herself down beside me on the bench in front of the glass wall. Looping her arm with mine she leaned against me as we began the conversation that always happened, though to me probably to Clara as well the conversations got more and more interesting the more we had them and always went way more in-depth than would be expected the longer they lasted. 

Like always, we start with how the radiation protection shield was, Clara had basically designed the entire thing! But as usual, she let her entire team share the glory because that’s the way she and it seems most others that I have met living here are.

One Month Later...

It was Sunday, the day Clara and I had now designated in our week to go out to the eco domes and walk for as long as we like. Like we always did we went to the pond to walk circles around it talking about nothing in particular. 

During the last month, Clara had been acting really distant and whenever the subject of Earth or our families came up she would look sad and guilty. I could understand her being sad because I also missed my family and my old normal life down on the blue planet at times. But, the guilt that kept on showing in her eyes made no sense to me. Maybe she still felt bad about leaving them to come up here?

You know what? Today is the day I’m going to ask her what’s been bothering her, maybe I can make it better. It might be that she just needs to tell someone. But, whatever it is that is bothering her I am sure that we can work it out together.

One Day Later…

No, no, oh no! How am I going to survive up here without Clara? She has been my one constant in the last five months!

Why is this happening so suddenly? Is it my fault she wants to leave and she is trying to be nice by saying that she is homesick? What is the real reason she wants to leave? Did she find out something she wasn’t supposed to know and WSI is trying to get her off of the Moon using her homesickness as an excuse? What could she have found out? Was it good or bad? Why did I not notice how sad she looked? Was it really almost an entire month she went without telling me? Will I have to move out of the two-person home we’ve been staying in and move into an apartment once she leaves? Does she really have to leave tomorrow? Why did she wait until two days before she left to tell me? Are we going to stay in contact? Does she hate me? Can she say hello to my family?

The Next Day…

A couple of tears roll down my cheeks as I hug Clara, my best friend and constant companion for the last five months goodbye. As I watch her step onto the spaceship that will take her away from me and the life she lived for five months, the spaceship that will take her back to the little blue planet everyone here knows and misses I wave goodbye. Walking out of that room so the space ship can leave only one thought hangs in my mind like my brain had been scrubbed with sanitizer and only 0.01% of my thoughts were left.

How long will I last?