Termination Day
Nov 10, 2022 11:40:22 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Nov 10, 2022 11:40:22 GMT -5
It is my last day’s work at the mining installation, and I am gazing calmly at the planet’s rust-colored dunes stretching endlessly into the distance and at the semi circle of the orange star Aldeberan, as it slowly dips beneath the distant mountain-ranged horizon. I had always enjoyed watching star-set after a hard-day’s work, and today, Termination Day, will be no exception. Yet, today, my final day, is different. Today I also observe silently as my fellow workers prepare to leave me behind after having demolished my transport by repeatedly swinging their sledge hammers against its metallic frame. Weird how they also feel the urgent need to set it on fire, as I if I might somehow resurrect such a pile of wreckage and manage to get back to base.
Only after it has been transformed into a smoldering mass of molten-metal, do they finally board their transports, throttle up, the anti-grave engines, and swiftly pass me by. Some go by rapidly, eyes averted, and with horrified faces. Others do so hesitantly and in deep sadness, while still others pass by totally indifferent to what they know will follow. Soon, all of them will gradually vanish into the distance, leaving behind what they are no longer willing to tolerate.
No, I am not angered nor resentful. Is it cruel? Yes! But I understand their motive and the desperate emotional psychological necessity that motivates them. I comprehend the desperate need to avoid the bitter reminder of what inevitably awaits them all on this intensely radioactive mining moon which slowly obliterates any living thing that lingers too long on its cratered and machine-scarred surface.
So I accept my fate calmly as all others who have been abandoned before me have dutifully done on their Termination Day. No, neither am I guiltless. I also have left others behind for the same urgent reason. So I cannot condemn what I myself have approved for the past eleven years merely because now, it finally involves me.
My comrades are now mere dots in the distance, and the former roaring of their anti-grav transport engines, is barely a detectable buzz. Then suddenly, as the Star Aldeberan finally disappears below the horizon, a frigid wind whips into me from the north forcing me to snuggle into my hooded fur-lined coat as I begin the useless ritual of walking in their direction. It is an impossible four-hour trek of approx twelve miles, and at my decrepid age of 29, I know that I will not make it. During my youth, of course, I had effortlessly covered those twelve miles to work from the mining facility and back to my abode at a dead-run despite the doubled Earth gravity. But no more! Joints are not as flexible. Muscles are not as strong. Tendons and ligaments tend to tear easily.
But it isn’t all due to normal aging. It is the intense radiation which has been the main culprit striking me with baldness, ulcerations of the epidermis, constant bouts of diarrhea, and a debilitating cancerous corrosion of my lungs, until I have become what all workers here will eventually become, a constant and unnecessarily bitter reminder of an imminent and premature death, a threatening specter of festering, moribund, mortality to the detriment of the younger miners who ae desperately in need of a constant motivational reassurance.
You see, such negative reminders, as myself, had proven detrimental to mining production. The mining company discovered that young miners became fearful and distracted in the presence of fellow miners such as I and began to constantly worry. Production suffered, and the mining company lost profits. So Termination Day aso known as Abandonment Day, was eventually instituted to solve the inconvenience with one decisive and merciless fell-stroke. The purposeful abandonment of all worm-out and ill mining-employees at the mining site with no way to get back to the installation.
Yes, the sooner I am gone and have become a faint memory, the sooner they will no longer feel forced to fearfully contemplate themselves in me, and the easier it will be for them to continue denying the bitter reality of an impending doom, and to go on living as if life were eternal and guaranteed on this God-forsaken rock fifteen light-years from Earth. The easier it will also be to imagine that statistical facts are applicable only to others, but never to themselves, because they are individually special and an exception to the rigid, and unmerciful colonial mining rules which will always apply to others-but never to themselves.
The wind is picking up again as if in response to my restless ruminations, and I am barely able to remain standing. Far ahead, I can still vaguely see the dwindling lights of the hundreds of vehicles that just passed me by moments before. They twinkle faintly in the darkness of the thickening storm, and finally, slowly vanish along with the comforting purring of the anti-grav motors.
Soon, the all-pervasive and ominous silence and moonless darkness, will become suffused with the rustle of emerald sand and its incessant, corrosive pelting against the fibers of my protective garments and will gradually increase to a sand-blasting intensity. I struggle to keep my scoured and dimming eyes as steady as possible and try to imagine that I am safe in my journey and that I am somehow assured a pleasant destination. I strive to think that facts are merely rumors, and that the intimidating details of my abandonment were merely mentioned in jest.
I deliriously envision myself reaching the warmth of the colony only ten miles distant now, and once again feeling secure within my assigned abode. I fancy myself participating in, or at least listening once more to the lovemaking and laughter of the young ones nearby without their looks of disdain or fearful grimaces that they had just recently been constantly casting my way.
I prefer to believe that that this is just a nightmarish delusion, some practical joke being foisted by my irradiated, aging brain. That soon, I will miraculously awaken with the youthful vigor which I enjoyed before. After all, it was only a decade ago that I arrived here, foolishly lured by the promises of becoming rich in five short years, and not realizing that I was condemning myself to an extremely early death while stubbornly ignoring all advice to the contrary.
The wind intensifies even more, and the sand battering my eyes is blinding me. I stumble forward gasping for air as powerful gusts plug my nostrils with sand and abrade my exposed skin causing it to bleed. I feel myself fall face-first shattering my nose against small boulder. The warmth of the blood temporarily soothes my frostbitten cheeks before it congeals. Now I am lying prone, hoping death arrives quickly, praying that dawn will not find me again at the infernal mine digging for a promised glorious future that was never intended to arrive.
The sand is covering me and I feel as if I have been gradually cocooned, perhaps being cuddled by the planet itself in a sort of merciful, and motherly, concerned manner. Ironic how in the turmoil of this storm I am finally finding solace, via a blessed resignation that I had never experienced before, a sort of preternaturally calm acceptance of that inevitable and menacing eventuality of non-existence which formerly terrorized me. I am embracing it now as if it were a long-lost prodigal son who has finally regained his senses.
I find myself accepting it with the profound gladness of those who suddenly realize that a final liberation from an-intense oppression gradually draws near. I greet it with the intense appreciation of those who had never been granted a merciful moment of peace and who had always felt imprisoned in a reality not of their own choosing. I receive it with the appreciation of the downtrodden who suddenly no longer feel the unmerciful stomping from haters’ boots, haters who hate for hate’s sake or who denigrate for the mere sake of denigration.
I fervently accept it as those who have been blinded and who are suddenly allowed to see reality with regenerated eyes and who are fascinated by the shapes and colors that they never imagined could have existed.
Yes, I am finally covered in emerald sands of Aldeberan 5, and and I curl up into a fetal position as it mercifully entombs me and muffles the sound of the storm, fading it gradually as I drift away into that infinity that I once so foolishly feared, but which now is finally setting me free.
Only after it has been transformed into a smoldering mass of molten-metal, do they finally board their transports, throttle up, the anti-grave engines, and swiftly pass me by. Some go by rapidly, eyes averted, and with horrified faces. Others do so hesitantly and in deep sadness, while still others pass by totally indifferent to what they know will follow. Soon, all of them will gradually vanish into the distance, leaving behind what they are no longer willing to tolerate.
No, I am not angered nor resentful. Is it cruel? Yes! But I understand their motive and the desperate emotional psychological necessity that motivates them. I comprehend the desperate need to avoid the bitter reminder of what inevitably awaits them all on this intensely radioactive mining moon which slowly obliterates any living thing that lingers too long on its cratered and machine-scarred surface.
So I accept my fate calmly as all others who have been abandoned before me have dutifully done on their Termination Day. No, neither am I guiltless. I also have left others behind for the same urgent reason. So I cannot condemn what I myself have approved for the past eleven years merely because now, it finally involves me.
My comrades are now mere dots in the distance, and the former roaring of their anti-grav transport engines, is barely a detectable buzz. Then suddenly, as the Star Aldeberan finally disappears below the horizon, a frigid wind whips into me from the north forcing me to snuggle into my hooded fur-lined coat as I begin the useless ritual of walking in their direction. It is an impossible four-hour trek of approx twelve miles, and at my decrepid age of 29, I know that I will not make it. During my youth, of course, I had effortlessly covered those twelve miles to work from the mining facility and back to my abode at a dead-run despite the doubled Earth gravity. But no more! Joints are not as flexible. Muscles are not as strong. Tendons and ligaments tend to tear easily.
But it isn’t all due to normal aging. It is the intense radiation which has been the main culprit striking me with baldness, ulcerations of the epidermis, constant bouts of diarrhea, and a debilitating cancerous corrosion of my lungs, until I have become what all workers here will eventually become, a constant and unnecessarily bitter reminder of an imminent and premature death, a threatening specter of festering, moribund, mortality to the detriment of the younger miners who ae desperately in need of a constant motivational reassurance.
You see, such negative reminders, as myself, had proven detrimental to mining production. The mining company discovered that young miners became fearful and distracted in the presence of fellow miners such as I and began to constantly worry. Production suffered, and the mining company lost profits. So Termination Day aso known as Abandonment Day, was eventually instituted to solve the inconvenience with one decisive and merciless fell-stroke. The purposeful abandonment of all worm-out and ill mining-employees at the mining site with no way to get back to the installation.
Yes, the sooner I am gone and have become a faint memory, the sooner they will no longer feel forced to fearfully contemplate themselves in me, and the easier it will be for them to continue denying the bitter reality of an impending doom, and to go on living as if life were eternal and guaranteed on this God-forsaken rock fifteen light-years from Earth. The easier it will also be to imagine that statistical facts are applicable only to others, but never to themselves, because they are individually special and an exception to the rigid, and unmerciful colonial mining rules which will always apply to others-but never to themselves.
The wind is picking up again as if in response to my restless ruminations, and I am barely able to remain standing. Far ahead, I can still vaguely see the dwindling lights of the hundreds of vehicles that just passed me by moments before. They twinkle faintly in the darkness of the thickening storm, and finally, slowly vanish along with the comforting purring of the anti-grav motors.
Soon, the all-pervasive and ominous silence and moonless darkness, will become suffused with the rustle of emerald sand and its incessant, corrosive pelting against the fibers of my protective garments and will gradually increase to a sand-blasting intensity. I struggle to keep my scoured and dimming eyes as steady as possible and try to imagine that I am safe in my journey and that I am somehow assured a pleasant destination. I strive to think that facts are merely rumors, and that the intimidating details of my abandonment were merely mentioned in jest.
I deliriously envision myself reaching the warmth of the colony only ten miles distant now, and once again feeling secure within my assigned abode. I fancy myself participating in, or at least listening once more to the lovemaking and laughter of the young ones nearby without their looks of disdain or fearful grimaces that they had just recently been constantly casting my way.
I prefer to believe that that this is just a nightmarish delusion, some practical joke being foisted by my irradiated, aging brain. That soon, I will miraculously awaken with the youthful vigor which I enjoyed before. After all, it was only a decade ago that I arrived here, foolishly lured by the promises of becoming rich in five short years, and not realizing that I was condemning myself to an extremely early death while stubbornly ignoring all advice to the contrary.
The wind intensifies even more, and the sand battering my eyes is blinding me. I stumble forward gasping for air as powerful gusts plug my nostrils with sand and abrade my exposed skin causing it to bleed. I feel myself fall face-first shattering my nose against small boulder. The warmth of the blood temporarily soothes my frostbitten cheeks before it congeals. Now I am lying prone, hoping death arrives quickly, praying that dawn will not find me again at the infernal mine digging for a promised glorious future that was never intended to arrive.
The sand is covering me and I feel as if I have been gradually cocooned, perhaps being cuddled by the planet itself in a sort of merciful, and motherly, concerned manner. Ironic how in the turmoil of this storm I am finally finding solace, via a blessed resignation that I had never experienced before, a sort of preternaturally calm acceptance of that inevitable and menacing eventuality of non-existence which formerly terrorized me. I am embracing it now as if it were a long-lost prodigal son who has finally regained his senses.
I find myself accepting it with the profound gladness of those who suddenly realize that a final liberation from an-intense oppression gradually draws near. I greet it with the intense appreciation of those who had never been granted a merciful moment of peace and who had always felt imprisoned in a reality not of their own choosing. I receive it with the appreciation of the downtrodden who suddenly no longer feel the unmerciful stomping from haters’ boots, haters who hate for hate’s sake or who denigrate for the mere sake of denigration.
I fervently accept it as those who have been blinded and who are suddenly allowed to see reality with regenerated eyes and who are fascinated by the shapes and colors that they never imagined could have existed.
Yes, I am finally covered in emerald sands of Aldeberan 5, and and I curl up into a fetal position as it mercifully entombs me and muffles the sound of the storm, fading it gradually as I drift away into that infinity that I once so foolishly feared, but which now is finally setting me free.