TIME UNDER CLOUDS
It’s always like this after waking from a deep sleep. Your body half numb from the days spent adrift in the hydra freeze chamber. The muscles move slowly towards remembering their purpose. I washed my face with my tea oil rag and positioned the mirror to monitor its surface. My skin was dry, my eye’s were weepy, and as I covered my face with the rag, the memory of why I was here set in.
I had never wanted to travel this far out before. Deep inside, I secretly hated time travel and inter-galactic space flights. I wanted to do something different with my life but my father demanded that I follow in his footsteps, sending me off to one of the top Universities in the Sirius system. The boredom I suffered was unbearable at times. I could care less about the number of dimensions that now facilitated space travel, and consequently, time. Nor did I find the wonders of hydrogen-fuel cell technology particularly absorbing. All of this changed of course, when I met her.
I’d never felt the shivers of the heart fairies strumming until that day. She dropped her digitizer and I instinctually bent down to pick it up. I had not even bothered to notice how beautiful she was until she slowly floated up with me. Her pace was slow and dreamy. Her eyes were as green as the distant emeralds of Gardia, and her hair was golden and curly. We walked together and discovered we were going to the same lecture. That was five months ago, at the start of the current semester. This was now our first time trip together, and I see it as a perfect opportunity to express the feelings I have been keeping bottled inside.
I reached under the shelf and pulled out my travel bag. I had picked the furnishings for my quarters according to one of Earth’s more fashionable eras. The catalogues had described my desk as a Louis XV replica. The details of this archaic instrument were ornate and painstakingly labored, down to the gilded, filigree handles.
That was one thing I had enjoyed doing; looking over the various phases of fashion during the famed planet’s long history. I grabbed my digital photo collector and walked towards the window....