Page 33 of Alien Desire
I never checked the weather before I left.
Stupid girl indeed.
I’m too far out from the station to make it back before this storm descends. My only choice is to press on and hope I reach the mast in time.
Lightning crackles in the distance, the first I’ve seen on this planet, and it’s followed by great rumbles of thunder, shaking the ground and cracking the air.
Soon the sky turns gloomy above me, its fierce weight pressing down on my skull. When it finally splits, sheets of icy bullets rain down on my head. I bunk down, bracing myself against the assault, eyes locked on the mast.
By the time I reach the mast, I’m battered and bruised. But despite the plummeting temperature, I’m raging hot. Dashing off the bike, I swing my satchel over my shoulder and skid across the ice towards the mast.
The door is frozen shut and I tug and kick and pull at it until finally it gives with a violent swing and I’m propelled backwards onto my arse. The door flaps about in the violent wind and I hurry to catch it before it slams shut. Then I hurry through into the base.
It’s just one tiny room, barely bigger than a cupboard, with no light and no electronics. A ladder on the wall disappears into darkness and I guess somewhere up there is the electronics and the control panel. I’m not going to look. There was no reason to come other than to escape the station, and now I’m trapped here in this cold, dark room while I wait for the storm to pass.
My skin is still uncomfortable, my flesh still burning. The back of my neck itches like an army of ants is marching over it and my gut smarts. My journey here has done nothing to remove my irritation.
I slide down the wall and hug my knees to my chest.
My heart aches in my chest and I rub at it, then roll up my sleeves and scratch at my skin, drawing fine lines of red down my arms. Between my legs throbs and I rub my thighs together.
What is wrong with me?
I miss my mum.
I miss talking to her. I miss her advice.
I wonder what she’d make of all this. I try to picture her face and imagine her voice, try to conjure up the words she’d say. Would she tell me I’m a fool? Laugh at me? I don’t think she would ever do that.
Or perhaps she’d tell me to follow my instincts? To grab what I want by the scruff of the neck?
I simply don’t know. My memory of her seems frayed and old. I was so young when she died. I hardly knew her really. And so I can’t conjure up her words no matter how hard I try. All I remember is the warmth of her arms and her soft voice as I drifted off to sleep.
The storm lasts a day and the meagre food supplies I brought for what I thought would be a few hours’ trip at the most, are not enough. Soon, I’m hungry, weak and even more miserable.
The hours pass creepingly in the gloom, only the sounds of the raging storm to keep me company; that and my thoughts.
Time to think.
Lots of time to think.
Yet, as the howling wind dies away, and bright sunlight filters through the gaps in the door, I am no clearer. No more sure how I feel or what I want.
I should never have kissed him. It has unlocked a storm of my own, and this one has no end in sight.
But one thing I know for sure is that I miss him. We’ve been apart for only a day, I’ve known him for little more than fourteen. It’s crazy, illogical. But I do.
When I emerge from my lonely prison, I find the bike on its side, although otherwise undamaged. Huffing and puffing, I finally right it and am relieved when it starts on the first go.
The snow is all pocketed and the landscape altered, the result of the fierce storm. I find my shipwreck almost buried beneath snow, only a few remaining pieces of twisted metal protruding from the newly moved landscape.
How many other ships have crashed here, then? And are now buried beneath snow drifts or lost in the depths of the ice lakes? Perhaps we were not the first? I am relieved though. The guilt I felt for months, leaving my friends out there in the elements, is gone.
The planet has buried them for me.
This journey home feels endless. If I was anxious to get away before, now I am a million times more desperate to return.
And then I see him in the distance, a large figure trudging through the snow, a smaller fuzzy one bounding by his side.
