V.G

The gap year students took their craft on the Galactic Highway loop with backpacks full of pot noodles, folded banknotes from summer jobs, and little ziplock bags bought from a friend of a friend. They hid the baggies in socks and sanitary towels when they passed through security, which made Jayne sweat.

“First one of the trip.” Halle held up her passport. The Earth stamp gleamed blue and fresh. “Only six to go!”

By the third night they’d come accustomed to the droning sound of their beater’s engine and the rattling of their souvenir tags that scratched the paint. Mac’s dad wouldn’t be happy with the state of the paintwork.

Auto pilot on. Retro hip-hop played too loud. “Halle, remember when you set fire to the chemistry lab?” Halle groaned while the others laughed. Ren played a fire alarm through the speakers and danced to the hypnotic beat. Mac laughed so hard he spilled his beer. “That’s when we all became friends really, that detention.” Mac raised his can “Very apt of you Jayne, to remember your only detention. So let's thank Halle’s clumsy fingers and Mrs Kathright's sternness.” Tin cans clanked together. They sang loudly and badly which drowned out Ren clogging the toilet with vomit.

Mars arrived. Then Jupiter. Then Saturn.

Halle filled memory cards with photographs. Jayne filled journals. Ren filled hotel rooms and forgot names. Mac watched every planet turn into specks.

At the Mars viewpoint station they crammed wing to wing with other tourists. Its white gleaming caps swirled at the poles like fingerprints. At Jupiter the Great Red Spot filled the glass. The icy rings of Saturn looked like upturned road rubble and its milky clouds mirrored a badly made tea.

“Overrated, we couldn’t even get close.” Ren left the Saturn gift shop empty-handed.

Restbreak came at moon motels with sagging mattresses and fluorescent lighting. They showered off the stale smell of sweat, and devoured large portions of greasy food.

Routine settled. They spent nights with their sleeping bags in the main hub. Mac lay with a constellation chart. Outside, stars freckled the darkness. They searched for familiar shapes. Major. Scorpius. The same old sky they had at home.

One afternoon, en route to Saturn, they put down their forks. A lob-sided rock drifted beyond the observation deck. It turned slowly. End over end. They held their breaths. The stone seemed like the only thing that existed. Halle took its picture.

The Loneman’s stretch was a 1.4 billion kilometre bore between Saturn and Uranus. Mac put his pinky on the window, the dot that was the sun, gone. A bright spot, slightly red, was last week a planet that lit a fire within him, but now it was smaller than a grain of rice. His own reflection looked back at him.

Jayne slammed her cabin door after the rest voted to skip the Mimas moon stop. Halle sat by her bed stroking her hair. “An excuse to come back again, together?”. Mac and Ren turned their music up as muffled clangs came from their cabin.

Ren stopped playing his music. Jayne left her journal untouched. Halle had misplaced her camera. Mac stopped tracing the stars.

Two weeks in. Mac awoke sweating to the sound of choking. Ren was sprawled on the cabin floor laying in vomit, remnants of hot dogs and beans. Four blue pills bought from a tattooed woman at a Phoebus fuel station had been downed with a fizzy drink. Mac pulled his friend upright. A thruster correction jolted them, and Ren peered up at Mac “I’m so tired.”

Uranus appeared like a crystal ball. “This one looks better than the guidebook”. It was the first thing Ren had said in days.

Halle and Jayne lay in their cabin. Neptune filled their window. White storms drifted slowly across its turquoise surface. Beyond the curve of the planet, Triton hung like a pale coin. Halle lowered her head on Jayne’s chest.

In the early hours, a small voice “Jayne?” She peered from her slumber. “Can you work the rubbish chute?” Ren outstretched his hand, seven blue pills. She let him press the button. The little bags lingered for a moment, drifting behind them, becoming indistinguishable from the stars beyond.

No rings. No storms. No giants. A frozen world and its moon. The two icy rocks faced each other at the edge of the Solar System.

All four of them stood, silent. Outside, Pluto and Charon faced one another across the darkness.

The last supper. Mac cooked his posh mac-and-cheese. Halle bought the most expensive rose from the fuel station. Flipping through photos, Halle stopped at the rock. “We should name it.” They decided on The Loneman. Ren nodded “I like that.”

Just before dawn, the Crusts got in their boats, some made from scraps, others stolen. They rowed into the night and out into the rugged North Sea. Synchronised grunts gathered pace as they fought the tide they wished they owned.

Every Crust carried something unwanted. Debt. Hunger. Warrants. Names they no longer answered to. Faces they wanted to forget.

Elbow to elbow they churned the waves. Seawater turned their vision blurry and their throats coarse. They begged for a break in the mist.

Sadness did not come as L-toft became but a speck. No necks craned to look back at a place that chewed on their fat, spat them out and threw them away. Tears fell from the elders adding to their crusted skin and scars, some broke their arms in their effort and others vomited out their woes.

The tidal barrier was down as she said it would. No riggers. No ships. Murmurs buzzed as they passed the first tidal rig and the second and saw the converted container ship drifting with spray-painted 287 on its side. She said there would be three beacons of light, and there was.

Support boats released from the main ship. A ripple of panic. Desperate ones jumped into the icy cold water, flailing arms and swallowing salt; some made it to the tender boat, while others sank down to the seabed with lungs filled with brined water.

Scaled arms pulled the survivors onto the mothership and threw them on deck, old-timers, the ones that had trusted the first call. They circled the newbies and food was shoved in their hands.

The Crusts looked up at their new home, converted shipping containers, with golden lanterns in the windows that poured out clouds of cooking steam.

There beyond the crowd, she stood. The clattering of forks halted. The woman from the square, clad in old waders, with squinted eyes and sun spot-freckled skin. One of them. Her leg missing and her neck scarred with deep slashes from the hacking of butchers’ knives.

She walked between her fellow Crusts as food dripped from their chins. She raised her fist to the air, many newcomers raised in unison. They saw the stars now, and felt the brittle air awaken an ember so long forgotten.

The mechanical clicking of buttons. The old-timers nodded and retreated from the deck, the floodlights poured on and the sirens of the harvesting boats surrounded the Crusts with large nets.

He rubbed the wheat head between his finger and thumb, grains fell too easily onto his boots, and the air stung with must. The farmer told the boy this yield would be nothing more than animal feed, the lot of it was rotting. 

Away from the drainage ditches and into the heart of his crop, the wheat sagged and a bleached sea circled them. Tips of skeletal white swayed with the gentle wind. Too quiet. Too still. The sky was birdless and the soil motionless. 

The farmer needed advice and the neighbour had a few more decades on him. He strapped into his truck and spotted him in the middle of his wheat field, hands on hips. He muttered something about tombstone grains. Said it didn’t taste right. When he turned, soil clung to his grey beard, packed into the crease of his chin. The grooves of his teeth were filled with pristine white kernels. His lips were split. Bloody. Something white and pale trickled out between them. 

He fell away from his good neighbour. Sprawled on his back, pushing against the soil with his heels. Thick sludge ran down from his collar to his spine. A prayer escaped his mouth. His legs wobbled like blighted stalks as he ran. Breath only came once he was inside the car. 

Through the tramlines, he glimpsed the neighbour on all fours. Teeth like daggers. Fingers bloodied. His mouth crammed with wheat roots. He beeped the horn in his jeep, and his old friend stared back with pupils that swallowed the light.

He pulled over with locked doors. His voice crackled and broke as he called the ambulance for his neighbour, and his wife for him. 

The harvester crunched a hum in the autumnal golden hour. In the distance dust rippled off the horizon. Other farmers with the same idea. Dry brittle stalks snapped to a rhythm which set him right. Blades sliced the base of the stems and dragged them into the churning machine. Rows disappeared in fleeting moments. The sun hid behind the hills. 

A sharp metallic crack. The combine lurched forward. He begged the machine to move and tugged at the reverse gear again and again. No movement. With a torch in his shaking hands he stepped out into the night. 

If he had let his fear hold him still for longer, he would have heard his wife’s phone call. 

Kneeling by the harvester’s reel, the torchlight reflected off the thick white roots tangled in its frame. Ooze dripped. With the torch end he prodded the seaweed like fibres. Shifting like adder snakes in unison they retreated from his combine. A milky residue left. It looked soft and crystallised in the torchlight. 

It was like a wind pushed him forward and onto his knees. He ran his hands over the soil that he had reaped many times before, and began to dig. The arthritis in his left wrist vanished in his frenzy. Worms and ants scurried over his knuckles, as he picked up the root of the crop and took a bite. And another. 

Syrup-like, it trickled down his throat and made its way to his gut. Roots tangled like hair in his mouth and his jaw locked. Just one more bite. Baring his teeth, his jaw cracked and broke. Ears popped and blood poured. Lowering his head to the soil he indulged. 

Muffled screams, heavy footsteps and a claw-like hand pulled him back. His wife sobbed as she dragged him to her car. His jaw swung loosely as the roots entered up his nose and out his eyes. She threw him into her car. 

He watched slumped in the front seat, his face pressed to the window as she threw the petrol bomb over their land. An orange blaze squinted his eyes. The farmer convulsed, heaved and his body and neck contorted like a twisted vine. His wife didn’t hear his neck crack but saw her husband’s eyes stop still. 

They turned us into data. Our DNA and brain pathways turned into code for them to dissect. Our ten digits were our golden pass through employment, mortgage approvals and insurance claims, or it was your cage.

Dating had become an equation. No longer did we need to message fifty people, for a mere “I am good, you?” back. You were given three matches, all of whom fell within your code bracket. Divorce ratings dropped, people loved again, properly loved. 

My code didn’t match with anyone. Habits loops cracked and pathways collapsed further into despair. I found myself at a club of the dejected. A rundown town hall with flickering lights that highlighted your darkness. They all swayed with desperation. People paired off into dark corners without a glance or word. Others had eyes glued to the floor, hands trembling. I wasn’t that desperate. 

Not in that way.

I grabbed a bus that took me to the swanky part of town. Water edged, the smell of chlorine rippled off smooth concrete. I knocked, my delivery bag in tow. He looked confused, checking his app. I pushed him away, closed the door and held a knife to his throat. 

It took him six hours to change my code on their system. He asked me, grin tilted, if I wanted to change anyone else's code for the fun of it.