Paradise

Ever since I was a very young boy, I always dreamed of being an astronaut. I used to stay up late into the night just to catch a glimpse of the stars through my bedroom window. And as I would drift off to sleep, I would dream of being a daring adventurer, bolting through space at breakneck speed, discovering new lands in the name of science. But now that I’ve made it onboard the ISS, I have to say, I am a bit underwhelmed.

  “Agent, this is mission control, do you copy?” I float out of my bed, which was really just a room with four padded walls, groggy and disgruntled, and reach for the radio.

  “Yeah, I copy, what’s up?” I say, still in a half asleep daze. After what feels like an eternity of radio silence, I was ready to roll back into my bedroom, when suddenly, I hear a voice come from the radio.

  “This is mission control speaking. We need you to plant the coordinates of all the stars in the 172a9z sector into a spreadsheet. If you could send that to us by the end of the day, that’d be would be wonderful.”

  You see, for the past 2 years, I’ve hated my job, and stuff like this is the reason why. The first astronauts were fearless adventurers, looking death straight in the eye just to make the world a better place. They were heroes. I sit in a desk all day and input information into a spreadsheet. I am glorified cubicle worker. But, regardless of my feelings, I am getting paid to do this like any other job, and if I don’t do it, someone else will. So I begrudgingly march down to the data center, which is a room in the middle of the ship that is often mistaken for a closet as the door’s label fell off on the fifth day of the mission. The room itself is relatively small, it is filled to the brim with an array of tangled wires, random garbage ,and three large LCD monitors. In the middle of the room sits an uncomfortably small wooden desk. I cram myself into it, pull up the list of coordinates on one of the monitors, Microsoft Excel 2003 on another, and hunch over my keyboard and get to work.

  After about 12 hours of inputting seemingly worthless numbers into a spreadsheet, I am finally finished. I attach the spreadsheet to an email, shoot it off to mission control, and start to walk to the dining hall. While walking there, I am greeted by the captain of the ship, Cosmonaut Alexander Byzn. He is an older guy, probably mid 50’s, with greying hair and a remnant of a fire in his eyes.

  “Another day in paradise.” He says dryly through a thick Russian accent. I don’t respond, I just smile and nod my head. He said that line yesterday, and I would be willing to bet that he says it tomorrow. Regardless, I arrive at the dining hall, eat my meal, steak and potatoes today. I throw out my plastic tray, and walk down to my bedroom. As I drift off to sleep, the words “another day in paradise echo in my head.

  I wake up to the sound of my alarm, yet something feels different. The ship feels alive, with crew clamoring and scattering every which way. All of a sudden, I hear the intercom blast on.

  “Attention all agents, we believe to have found an Earth like planet in sector J72. All astronauts are advised to suit up and meet in the discovery vessel within the hour.” I can’t believe it. After all of my busywork, I finally get the chance to be a real astronaut, to discover new lands, and to lay out the building blocks of the new world. Within minutes, the whole team is suited up, and in the discovery vessel. The discovery vessel was a smaller ship docked inside the ISS, used for deep space discovery. In the captain's chair is Alexander, the twinkle in his eye lighting up like a shooting star. In the risk assessment compartment sat a portly bald man, who was constantly red in the face. I have only seen him in passing, but I think his name is Jake or Jim or maybe even Jesse. I know it's a J name though. I am sitting in the navigation unit, excitedly typing in the flight path to the new world. We would be the first three people to set foot on the new world. I finish typing in the flight path, give Alexander the go ahead, and we’re off.

 

I am pushed deeper and deeper into my chair as we approach light speed. But just as I think that I’m going to lose consciousness, the ship slows. Standing right in front of us is the future of humanity, Earth 2.0. It looks a lot like Earth, blue oceans, green jungles, sandy deserts. But the one striking difference is that all the land masses are all together on one Pangea like conglomerate. After an in depth examination, we all come to an agreement to land on the planet, and cement our place in history. But as we begin to speed up to break through the atmosphere, the ship begins to make a weird beeping sound. I turn over to J,

  “Is this some kind of risk management thing or something?” I ask. But J doesn't respond, he just stares at me, with an empty look in his eyes. Now that I look, Alexander is staring too.

  “Beep! Beep! Beep!” I reach out for the alarm clock, and slam it with all of my might. “Oh Jesus Christ no.” I mutter to myself, hoping that somehow I would wake up again and be right where I left off. But after one minute of hoping and dreaming passed, the crushing reality set in. And like clockwork, the intercom beeped on.

  “Agent, this is mission control, do you copy.” I choke back tears, approach the intercom, and feebly mutter,

  “Yeah, what’s happening.”

  “Nothing, really,” intercom responds, “slow day tell you the truth. All we need you to do is punch in a couple coordinates for some mining expedition. Other than that, you should have the day off. Have a pleasant day, Agent.”

I break down, and begin thinking of possible ways out. The thought of hijacking the ship crosses my mind, but soon I realize that mission control must have close to one million fail safes to prevent this exact situation. The idea of suicide bounces around in my head, but I wouldn’t want to put the   burden of cleaning up my mess on my fellow astronauts. So I do the only thing I can do. I roll out of my bedroom, and walk down to the dining hall, feeling heavier than usual. It takes all of my effort to put one foot in front of the other, trying my hardest not to collapse into a crying mess. After what feels like an eternity, I finally arrive at the dining hall. I check what’s for breakfast. Mixed oats today. I greet Alexander with a half nod, and he just smiles and nods back. I scarf down my meal, throw out the tray, and walk down to the data center. I jam myself into my desk, and get to work.