This flash fic piece was based on a prompt from Seventh Sanctum! Hope you enjoy it.
Two years too far away
The planet is my greatest betrayer. I have to see it that way, because the only other alternative is admitting that it’s my own body that is letting me down.
With a life-expectancy of 87, I was supposed to be among the first to set foot in our new home. To hunker down and brace for landing, to walk outside and feel everything for the first time. Real grass. Real wind. Real sunshine. All the things that our people have been waiting for, for so long. Generations have lived and died trapped in this hunk of metal for those things to be experienced, not by them but by their great-great-grandchildren.
I was supposed to be 43 when we arrived at our new home. Instead, I’ll be two years dead. The cancer has spread, they say. There’s nothing they can do now. For all our technology, we couldn’t quite account for the effect that living and dying in space would have on our bodies. No, let me correct that. Some of our bodies. Most of those around me will live to see our journey through to the end. Will land. Will settle. Will be buried in the earth, not flung out into space.
The planet is my greatest betrayer. Two years, two measly years too far away to let me rest in its warmth, to let my body become one with it, to let me nourish the seeds of our people’s future. Two measly year too far away to let me die in our home. And for that, I will never forgive it.