I hated to admit it, but Lee was usually right.
Not always, mind you. No one is always right. He would sometimes say stupid things like “I only got Earl Grey because I could’ve sworn you said you liked Earl Grey,” to which I would take great joy in pointing out his error, mocking his faulty memory every time I opened the cabinet. We were three months into a two year journey and I needed to talk about something.
“Well, look at this!” I would say, waiting for him to come into the ship’s tiny kitchen. “Some bozo only brought Earl Grey on a long-haul shipping job!”
He would frown and apologize but I would keep going.
“Married three years, dated how long?” I would say, omitting the fact that most of that had been spent millions of miles apart on different ships and this was our first job together.
The third time I did this he stopped apologizing. He would just shake his head slowly and walk back into the office to write a report or something. Interplanetary shipping was always boring outside of the beginning and end, but I usually found the empty solitude relaxing. Not this time. Not with this self righteous asshole who “Can’t remember I don’t like tea!”
So much for our workplace romance.
That issue aside, he was correct a frustrating amount of the time. He would say annoying things like “We should stock up on provisions at Ceres, it’s gonna be quite a journey out to Titan and you never know what could happen.” I would explain that buying anything from those asteroid vultures would cut into our profits, and our stores were adequately stocked for two to make the journey, even with a leaky thruster.
They hadn’t been, which I hated to admit. Lee didn’t force me to, but I hated admitting it to myself all the more. If he had been an asshole about it at least I could’ve been mad at him for that.
But no, Lee would never. He would just say something like “If we use the last of the fuel to tack 30 degrees Solar South West we’ll have a better chance being picked up by ice freighters,” to which I would say something like “We’re already on course to Saturn, if we can hold out we’ll get picked up long before we get there and we’ll keep our jobs.”
We ultimately hadn’t been picked up. No one had even come close to the legally mandated rescue and recovery range, so the best we got were garbled radio apologies from passers by. I couldn’t blame them. Margins are tight after all. I couldn’t blame Lee either, which I resented. He could’ve blamed me but didn’t, which I resented more.
I would yell things out of nowhere, like “You would think a pirate would want to pick us up just to take this mining equipment!” letting hot tea dribble out of my lips. The tea would cool as it slid down my face and fell off my chin, impacting and diffusing into my dark blue jumpsuit unacknowledged. I had concluded that hygiene wouldn’t save us.
“I don’t think piracy is profitable all the way out here. Not yet anyway,” Lee would calmly respond as he washed a dish or wiped down a display panel. I ground my teeth.
Saturn was still the better part of a year away when our rations had all but dried up. I found myself starting to argue with my own imaginary version of Lee, since the man himself lacked the fortitude to do so.
“If you had listened to me we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he would say.
“Shut the fuck up,” I would say back. “You wouldn’t even have this job if it wasn’t for me.”
“Yeah, and how’s that working out?” he would respond.
“Fucking fantastic! And, for the record, Earl Grey sucks ass!” I would say, at which point the real Lee would hear me talking to myself and become concerned.
“Listen, I’m sorry again about the tea,” he would tell me, being infuriatingly reasonable.
To which I tried “Shut the fuck up. You wouldn’t even have this job if it wasn’t for me.” As expected, however, the real Lee didn’t have the fight of my mental version.
“That’s true,” he would say back. “And I’m so grateful for the opportunities you’ve given me, but we really need to work out a routine or something to keep our minds occupied or we’re gonna end up killing each other.”
We hadn’t ended up killing each other, so he was wrong there. He probably never even considered what an improbable outcome that was.
As I stood over his cold body, the imaginary Lee spoke up.
“You idiot. You’re going to be so lonely without me,” he said.
“Shut the fuck up,” I told him as tears welled up around my eyes.
I hated to admit it, but Lee was usually right.
Ike Lang stays awake at night wondering where all the aliens are.
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