You can't lead a dead turnip to water.

“Grace says he would like half of dome to be water.”

“Oh, is necessary for humans to have large amounts of water question?”

Small Eridian equivalent of a sigh. “No. Not needed for life. In fact Grace will die if he falls in water and does not get out.”

“Tell him we give him water in containers that won't kill him. Lots lots lots of water on Erid for Grace to drink.”

“No. Grace say he want water on ground. Also want it with excess sodium chloride compound so it will be unhealthy for drink.”

“Grace want this liquid for celebration.”

“Of course.” They scan it. “You have wrong liquid. This contain compounds which are poisonous for humans.”

“Yes yes yes. Grace say humans like feeling of being slightly poisoned.”

1) Belgian waffle

2) American waffle

3) Stroopwafel

4) Bubble waffle

5) HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PICK JUST ONE

6) I don't like waffles

7) Results

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

rocky was gone for about a fourth of the time he and adrian were a couple. what's it like to wait 50 years for your mate, not knowing if they're alive? was adrian close to the families of the other crew? was there any kind of support group? was adrian the last one holding out hope for a return?

and then what's it like to wait so long, with everyone thinking they're in denial, only for their mate to beat the odds and come home? except he's deeply traumatized and single-mindedly focused on the alien he brought with him.

rocky a frantic, rushing mess between mission debriefings and worrying about grace. how long is it even before rocky and adrian get to talk? really talk. does adrian attend rocky's thrum and hear everything that happened and want to talk to him, connect, reach out, but rocky can't leave grace alone for longer than he absolutely has to. apologizes, promises they will, but he doesn't stop moving towards the space elevator.

adrian understands what's going on. logically they do, but that's all it is. logic, rationality, information, empathy. but that doesn't change the way they felt all this time, the way they feel now. it doesn't bond them to grace.

but adrian does feels gratitude towards grace! they're bursting with relief and joy and endless thanks for him both solving the astrophage problem and bringing their love home to them. that he sacrificed his life and risked the certainty of his own planet's salvation to do so.

but also, in doing so, grace has stolen rocky from them.

adrian is kind to grace, respectful towards grace, works on grace's biodome as hard and as seriously as they can. but that doesn't mean they love grace. and even if they do, that doesn't erase the pain.

and what can adrian even do with this pain? what are the social implications? eridians mate for life, so adrian has to find a way to make this work. can adrian talk to others about it, or do they fear appearing ungrateful? their mate was the only one to survive, why do they complain?

will the other crew's family still accept them into their support circle, or does rocky's survival change things? will adrian be asked to leave because their presence is a painful reminder? because adrian is talking about something else now?

do people hate adrian because rocky couldn't fix it, couldn't save them? do people take their suffering out on adrian because they can't take it out on the savior? does adrian become a buffer between rocky and the real world's criticisms and critical questionings and doubts?

what's it like to be the beloved mate of erid's savior? what social pressure are they put under? what's it like for your species to see your relationship as a poetic love story? what's it like for the planet that saved your people to be named after you?

what's it like to be constantly told how lucky you are, even when your mate never leaves someone else's side? do people see rocky and grace together and feel sorry for adrian? are people angry at rocky on their behalf? angry at grace?

how long does adrian have to grin and bear it?