Log 1: Life

This story is about getting home and love, no, this story is about love and getting home. Mostly love I think, but it’s hard to tell sometimes.

We were dead once, I think, I don’t remember much of being dead. It was about the same as being alive but it didn’t hurt quiet so much. It don’t think He wanted us to be alive, but sometimes things turn out in ways you never expect.

The first breath is a sharp stab through the lungs, the second is a head shot. The third is a gasping, willowy thing that fills me with light, effortless, aching and full.

They call me Goldi, she’s the first one that calls me that and it’s the first thing I ever hear.

“Goldi!” The voice booms close to my ear, “if you don’t wake up right now I will knock the life right into you.” I gasp with the fourth and the most painful breath and sit bolt upright. “Ohmigod,” the world comes swirling into my vision in bursts and overwhelming punches of sense. Color, sound, a rush of smell I can only describe as ‘ozone.’

“Finally,” someone above me exhales and it takes me a moment to process what I’m seeing.

A bright faceless nothingness spreads out in front of me in all directions, I shield my eyes from the shock of white and nothing but white. “Ugh,” I groan and almost want to flop back down.

“Took you long enough.” I manage to squint upwards again at the voice, my eyebrows raise.

It was a woman. A large woman with snake bite piercings and cropped short dark hair, she is at least an entire person taller and broader than me. Maybe she ate someone and got that size, from the look in her fast hungry eyes I wouldn’t doubt it.

She is wearing a dark tank top and rough, hardy pants that look just as rough and sturdy as she does. Her thick forearms are covered in bright, colorful circles (rocks or moons or stars themselves), tattoos that circle her entire biceps and light up across her dusty orange-ish skin.

She does not look happy.

“Uuh,” I’m numb in what feels like half my body.

“I know, come on,” she puts her hand out and it’s almost the size of my entire face, “this is all your fault. Better get a move on.”

My face screws up in confusion and the large woman bends down to wrap a ginormous arm around my waist, “up you go.” My limbs become weightless as I am effortlessly lifted onto her shoulder, it occurs to me this is the part where I should start kicking and screaming. Perhaps call out ‘stranger danger’ and make the sign of the cross.

“Excuse me,” I say instead, talking feels like gargling salt water swallowing sand all at once, thick and rough. “Who are you?”

She shifts me like a sack of potatoes on her shoulder, she snorts, “I’m your guardian.” She shakes her head, “doesn’t matter.” “What’s your name?” I try to get to the point, scowling slightly as all the bright white light around me is giving me a headache. White tasteless tundra, everywhere.

It felt wrong.

“You can call me Geegee,” she says in a rough tone, her unsmiling expression never wavering, “Geegee. And you’re Goldi.” “I know that,” I huff irritably, I, in fact, did not know that, but at this point I was still considering yelling and beating my little fists against her back.

Geegee finally breaks into a dry cracked-lipped smile, highlighting the stretches of light scars that faintly cover her body. They looked old and healed over a million different times, like a weaver threaded together every inch of her and only left the solid sculpted parts. Beautiful, and hard to look at. 

I am feeling a little seasick as she jostles me back and forth, “where are we going?” I finally ask as I cover my mouth and think of a placid ocean. One without waves or bumps or spinning white rooms.

She glances at me through her bright fiery orange eyes, “where do you think?” She asks, this time in almost a soft tone, something shifting underneath her gaze. Soft and aching. “Home.”

------

bonus planetary fact: The planetary gas giants Jupiter and Saturn helped stabilize the solar system during early formation, and protects Earth and the other interior, rocky planets from frequent run-ins with big, fast-moving objects

Life probably wouldn’t be as possible today without it!