Maya Bagshaw

Seven years. 

That’s how long the journey was meant to take. There will be no returns. 

I lay my eyes on the first stretch of solid land since launch. I check my watch, even though the battery has long since run out. Our ‘right on time’ arrival still doesn’t feel soon enough. I clench my fist shut to not pick the skin of my nails. Another bad habit I hope my daughter has learnt to break in my absence. 

I lean towards the intercom mic and say three glorious, long-awaited words:  

“Prepare for landing.” 

My crew bursts into commotion, infectiously cheerful about open sky (caramel instead of powder blue) and fresh soil (rust red, not oak brown). How wonderful it must be to dream when dreams are what die with this mission. 

The spaceship stills once we reach the planet’s surface. Dust clings to the air outside like sand grains in seawater. Bated breath is all we offer as we wait for it to dissipate.  

This is it. It’s everything I could’ve waited fo— 

“Captain, you might want to check this out.” My co-pilot Julio pipes up, pointing to an arbitrary flurry of dust in the distance. 

No. 

It couldn’t be. 

“Impossible,” I say, only to make myself believe it. 

“What do we do, Cap?” Julio meekly steps back to watch me pace towards the window. 

“I need a closer look,” I announce over my shoulder. 

Julio sprints over and holds a set of binoculars in front of me. I thought I couldn’t believe my eyes the first time, but I really can’t believe them now. 

It’s him. 

“Stand your ground, I’m going down.” I shoo him and his dinky little binoculars away. 

Spacesuit pulled on, I head to the airlock chamber, deaf to the clamour of my crew. I can’t believe this is going to be the first recorded form of human contact with ‘extraterrestrial life’. 

“Dad? What’s happening? Wha—where are you going?” My daughter Gia hops up from the couch as I burst through the door. She can barely keep up as I beeline for the closet. 

“I’m sorry, kid. Plans have changed.” I start packing. I define packing here as cramming all my worldly possessions into a battered leather suitcase. “I’m taking that new job offer. Once in a lifetime opportunity, you know.” 

“So you’re just leaving?” she asks in disbelief. “Forever?”  

“Yes.” 

“But what about me?!” she still objects, her body blocking off the bedroom door. 

“You’ll stay with your mother after tonight.” I nudge her aside with my overstuffed suitcase. “Think of it as a mother-daughter day, but it’s today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of your life.” 

“And what about—” 

“DON’T say his name.” I swore I’d never raise my voice at her, but after what he did? 

Gia lets me into the living room, the sharpness of her glare telling me she’s yet to give up her quarry. She’s picking at the skin of her nails again. I wish I’d be around to stop this. I nearly get to the front door before she speaks with a sudden, cold clarity. 

“You’re leaving because of him.” 

I stop dead in my tracks. “What? No! We just, we had a… minor disagreement, and then I spontaneously made some major life decisions.”  

“The kind that conveniently gets you as far from your problems as possible?” She raises an eyebrow, tapping her foot against the hardwood floors in perfect four-four time. At least I didn’t teach her that habit. He did. 

“Couple’s counsellor always said space was healthy.” I shrug my shoulders. 

“You know she didn’t mean literally.” She never misses a beat, unfortunately. 

I look down at my gold-encrusted Hublot, the only gift of his I ever kept. 7:52pm. My Uber should be here any minute now. 

“Listen, I know how difficult this is, especially with how much you looked up to… him—” God, I can’t even stand implying his name. “—But you’ll still grow up into a wonderful young lady.” Her last memories of me should end on a high, after all. 

“That’s the problem! You won’t see it happen. Neither of you will ever see it happen!” She shivers where she stands, fighting back angry tears and visibly failing. I know fifteen is meant to be an emotionally fraught age, but this might be a bit much.  

I peer out the cobwebbed front window. The Uber’s here. She may be a slow learner, but Gia knows when to end the fight. 

I twist the rusty handle and haul my suitcase down the drive. She says and does nothing to stop me. 

Even through his sunglasses, the driver stares at my ambling like I’m a worm wriggling on hot pavement. He eventually presses a button to open the boot. 

With one last heave I get my suitcase in, and I jump into the passenger seat. The Uber—a shiny black Cadillac—backs out of the drive. I look at the front porch one last time. Gia is still there, haloed by the light of the hall, reddened eyes now burning with resentment. One day she’ll learn to forgive me for this. She mouths her last words to me: 

“Hope you learn when to stop running.” 

He stands like a supermodel in the dusty red distance: tan skinned, fedora-clad, and notably NOT wearing a spacesuit. I face the figure like doing so is my greatest fear (it is). 

“Miss me?” he taunts, eyes sparkling. I don’t even know how I can hear his voice through my suit. 

“I thought I left you behind,” I mutter under my breath. 

“And yet you come here, of all planets. I’m starting to think you can’t resist me. Not that I blame you.” He casually brushes non-existent dust from his fedora’s wool-felt brim.  

I resist the urge to grit my teeth. He probably won’t even see it through my visor anyways. 

“Leave this place.” I dig my heel deep into unusually warm alien soil. 

“But I’m here for you,” he coos, but I stay strong. I won’t be deceived again by those almond-shaped long-lashed softly sparkling eternally gentle doe-brown eyes of his. 

“And I’m here because it’s the only place I won’t have to deal with you. At least, it was meant to be,” I trail off, focusing on the vast expanse of rust-red land around us. 

“Oh, how you wound me!” He presses a hand to his heart. Always the one for theatrics. 

“Cut the act. I’m not part of the life you want.” 

“But baby…” his voice wavers. “I’d catch a grenade for you.” 

“Good for you. I’d give up my entire life to ignore you— oh wait, I did,” I sass back. I’ve always got to have the last word. 

“Such irony.” There is a new gravity to his voice. “You still don’t understand, do you?” Something has changed in the unbreathable air, and it sure wasn’t the weather. A pile of nearby pebbles skitters in his direction. 

“What? That you’d choose a desolate expanse of rock over your millions of adoring fans and sold-out shows?” 

His face goes completely expressionless. In all four years I thought I’ve known him, he’s never done that before. My stomach lurches. 

“This is my domain. Every atom here bends to my will.” Him saying this like it’s an absolute fact of life is far more horrifying than I know what to do with. 

I glance back at the spaceship, my throat lodged in terror. Surely the crew, even mid-victory, can tell that something’s wrong down here. And when they do, surely they can figure out how to spam launch the missiles.  

“You say that like it even makes sense,” I say more to myself than anyone else left to listen. 

“Then tell me, Harold,” he pauses as he leans in awfully close, fedora brim bonking my visor, “what’s my last name?” 

The words take far too long to sink in.  

“And to think it could’ve been yours too,” he scoffs, more wounded than bitter. 

The vast silence of the planet is inexplicably replaced with the introductory bars of an early 2010’s pop song. Dust rushes towards him from all directions, swirling furiously around him in rings upon rings upon rings. He floats into the air like a god prepared to exact his judgement. 

“And by the way,” he tosses his fedora towards my pale and shielded face with force just short of divine. 

“You can still call me Bruno.”