God, I hate revision. Going over and over the same stuff is so boring, like spinning your wheels. I need to pass this exam though, if I’m going to get out of here. I don’t want to mess up now, when I’m so close. If I can get through this advanced astrophysics I’ll be set.
Wonder how my parents will adjust when I’m gone? I can’t afford to let that derail me though. They’ll probably be glad to have some time together without me bugging them for yet another college course, and another. I think Dad is quietly proud though he never says so. Overheard him praising me to his friend on the visilink. That just increases the pressure, but I can do this. There’s much worse to come if I’m admitted to Academy.
Diamonds are formed under pressure, Mum says. That’s all very well, but what about the carbon lumps that crumbled, the ones that didn’t make it? They ended up as dust, and nobody cares about dust. It’s unremarkable, unless it gets through the envirofilters. Then it’s important all right, something that gets in the way and spoils the balance of the atmosphere. It’s something to be disposed of.
I want to be a diamond. I want to shine bright. But first I have to ace this test, and I can’t ask Ansel for help again. He thinks he’s so great at cosmology, and he is. That’s my weakness, but space physics and high-energy astrophysics are my playgrounds, plus dad’s tutored me in some biotech. Ansel doesn’t know that. Nobody really knows what’s out there, or what skills we’ll need. It’s best to diversify. Ansel never asks for my help. He underestimates me.
If I get in to Space Academy I’ll have to leave my home. If I graduate I’ll have to leave the planet that’s my home. I don’t know how to feel about that, but staying here, relying on envirofilters and a dying planet, is not an option. When they ask I’ll tell them yes. I’m ready to move beyond the red clouds.
Must be time to give up, the lights are on which means it’s dark outside. Mum said that before the Dustbowl era, residences had windows you could look through and open. What madness. How could you possibly maintain atmospheric homeostasis and structural integrity? What was there to see?
It should be okay to log in to the feed from Voyager 27 now. One day I might be orbiting one of the planets it has passed so far. One day, humans might have a new home.
They say we’re made of stars, that many of the compounds needed for life arrived here on meteors. Stars seem so distant and brilliant, and our lives here on this little blue planet are miniscule and messy by comparison.
Maybe we got the bits that space didn’t want, and like a good homemaker Earth made the best of a thin selection of ingredients. And now we’re going shopping for more. Who knows what we’ll find out there.
