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Distance, Chapter 1 Part 4

Inside the lounge, I couldn’t hear Mom and Dad arguing any more.  It was something to be grateful for, at least.

The only other person in the room, an older woman, sat in the middle chair of the first of two rows of seats.  She wore a loose, cream-coloured dress, and a gold scarf on her head, both of which complemented the rich, chocolate-brown of her skin.  The greyish-teal of the lounge, on the other hand, was considerably less flattering.

I stepped into the second row and sidled over to the far chair.  She looked up from her datapad to smile at me as I sat down.

I nodded to her and said, “Hi.”

She seemed to consider my acknowledgement an invitation, and her smile widened.  “Good day, young man!” she said, and reached back to offer me her hand.  “I am Isoke Nwapa.”  Her English was clear, though strongly accented — British, sort of, but clipped, and precise.

I took her hand and shook it, saying, “Um . . . Jason Borden.  It’s nice to meet you.”  I almost smiled back.

“You are travelling to Eta Cass 2 with your parents?” she said, glancing past me to where Mom and Dad were still arguing.

“Yeah,” I replied.  “We’re moving there.”

She looked at me for a few seconds, then twisted around to more directly face me.  “You do not seem happy about the prospect.”

I snorted, and glanced to the wall beside me, then back to her.  “No.  Not really.”

Her smile saddened, and she looked past me again to my parents.  She seemed to study them for several seconds before turning back to me.  “You were not consulted, I take it?”

“No,” I said.  “No I wasn’t.”

She continued to look straight at me, and I was starting to feel uncomfortable.  I took the opportunity to shift around, putting my legs up on the seats beside me, and leaned back against the side wall of the lounge.  My new position gave me a clear view of my parents, and I was surprised to find it was easier to watch them argue than to meet Isoke’s eyes.

“You will miss your friends, no?” she said.

I laughed.  “No,” I said.  “That won’t be much of an issue.”  Of their own accord, my eyes started shifting back to Isoke, but I managed to convince them to stop when they reached my feet.  Friends.  What few kids there were on Prime . . . useless Earther brats, every one.  They hated Prime, hated Jupiter, and we didn’t get along very well. 

There was Sakura.  But she’d moved back to Ganymede with her father.  I had missed her.  A lot, and more than I thought I would.  But that had been nearly a year earlier.  We had kept in touch, for a while, but a vid conversation, or even a holoprojection . . . it’s just not quite the same thing.  I don’t know, maybe it’s just that friendship needs spontaneity, and it’s hard to make that work when you aren’t physically together.  Especially when one person has new friends to hang with.

Isoke’s questions weren’t improving my mood, and I sensed she was about to ask another.  I decided not to wait.  “How ’bout you?” I said, turning back to her, “are you moving there, too?”

She smiled again, and replied, “Yes.  My husband and I had always planned to retire to Bermuda, where his family is from.  Have you ever been to Bermuda?  It is a truly beautiful place.  But Charles died a few years ago, and without his pension, I can not afford to live there on my own.  Well, an old friend of mine retired to Eta Cass 2, and she loves it, so I decided that I would go there too.”

She hadn’t paused when she’d mentioned her husband’s death, but I felt compelled to say something. “I’m sorry . . . about your husband,” was the best I could come up with.

She smiled, and said, “Thank you, Jason.  That is very kind of you.  I think you would have liked Charles. He did not have much patience for ” — she glanced at my parents again, then raised her eyebrows mischievously — “certain types of people, either.”

I laughed — I couldn’t help myself. 

On the other side of the partition, Mom seemed to be finishing up with whatever little screw she had been turning into Dad.  I watched them for a few moments more — until they returned to the check-in counter — then turned back to Isoke.

“Missus Nwapa—”

“Isoke, please,” she corrected.  “And Nwapa is my name.  Charles insisted I keep it when we married, as my parents had no other children to carry it on.”

I nodded, then continued, “Isoke, do you know anything about this plague we have to get shots for?”

She seemed genuinely surprised by the question.  “Your parents . . . they have not discussed even this with you?”

“No,” I replied, and looked over to the counter where they stood talking to the attendant.  Dad’s voice carried around the glass partition from that angle, and I could hear him discussing shipping details with her. 

“I’m not high on their list of priorities.”

I was aware of several seconds passing, during which I seemed to be staring at Dad’s back.  Isoke was the one who broke the silence.  “Well . . . ” she said, her voice soft, and sympathetic.  I didn’t dare look back to her, just then.  “It is nothing to worry about.  There is a microscopic organism, native to Eta Cass 2, that acts as a parasite when it enters the human body.  The drug is taken once a month and prevents the organism from getting hold.  It is completely effective.”  She sounded like she was trying to be reassuring.

There was another brief silence.  I found my courage, and turned back to her.  “What happens if you miss a dose?” I asked.

She shook her head sadly.  “That is not so good.  It is my understanding that the parasite causes swelling of the brain in most people, and is usually fatal within a few weeks of infection.”

I laughed, though I didn’t find it at all funny.  “Great.  Take the drugs or die.  This plan just gets better and better.”

Isoke reached back and placed her hand on my arm.  She smiled at me, but said nothing.  I glanced back to my parents, but something in what Isoke had said caught my attention.

“You said ‘most people’.  Some people don’t die from it?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding to one side.  “Strangely, a few people only get mildly ill when infected. Most of the people who live on Eta Cass 2 are descendents of those original colonists who survived, and they all seem immune.  Or so my friend has told me.  It is why there is still a colony there, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I guess that makes sense.” 

A silence followed, during which I stared into the space between my feet.  The sound of Dad’s voice droned on, occasionally broken up by higher tones from Mom, or the attendant. 

After a while, it occurred to me that I felt tired, more tired than I’d been in a long time, and that all I wanted to do, was to go home.

I looked up, and found that Isoke was still watching me.  She had this look on her face, like she wanted to hug me, or something.  My first impulse was to feel angry about it — I didn’t want her pity — but I couldn’t quite find the effort, and I think that maybe some part of me was glad, that somebody gave a damn.

She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

Afterword

Dear Reader,

Thanks for reading Distance, Chapter 1!  At present, that's all there is.  However, after some encouragement from other readers, I've recently come up with a plot for the story, and I plan to pick it up again when Winter Rain is finished.  Hopefully, you'll still be interested when I do.  :-)

Thanks, as always, for your support.

Chris.

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