Work Text:
These are not my sounds.
It was my birthday not too long ago. July 6th. Fifteen years up above everything else, yet still stuck in the middle of it all. I've been alone up here for quite so long, no matter what the others here try to tell you. I stopped keeping a journal many passes ago. I don't like taking the time away from my work. I sleep, but only when you look away. Other than that, I'm out here. Space walk. Space dance. Space jump. Space show. It's all television behind this helmet. It's not a visor, it's a screen. Projecting pictures into my eyes from a cathode ray tube. When I was younger, the hero of the stars carried a ray gun by his side. All I have is a welding torch. And a wrench. I was a knight, I thought, yet my weapon is no blade. My armor, more beautiful than anything I could have imagined as a child, is not so strong to resist the force of my enemy's weapon. I have no battlefield.
I asked the computer what year it was today. It didn't talk back to me, I'm the only thing with a voice out here. The only voice amidst these caverns. The sky's a frightening place. The screen told me twenty-twenty-five. It surprised me. I've been here fifteen years, has it really just brought me all the way back here? Five years and five years and five years. A million loops of that same song. David Bowie never made me cry, but I've only cried once out here.
It was when I talked to myself for the first time. I mean, it was nothing new. I did it a lot back on Earth, growing up and the life beyond. All of my favorite dialogues in uni were with myself. My only constant companion was my voice, MY voice. But that changed here. It's not the suit, not the gravity, not the screen I see the grand show through. It's not my voice. These are not my sounds. It's forced, alien, an invader crawling it's way out of my throat. I'm talking, but I'm not speaking. Tears leak from the corners of my vision, like broken faucets pouring forth. Was I really that alone?
It continued. Sounds, syllables, consonants and vowels and whatever "y" is all jumbled together into nonsensical orientations, suspended in a vacuum with no up or down or forward or behind. Those old tracks kept playing, old tapes worn down into white noise. Bowie and Billy Joel, ELO, Low Roar, fun., Foo Fighters. A Man Without Love, is that me? Scooby-dooby-doo, who, who, WHO are you? John, like a Doe, lost and confused, yet a man of Madden is what they call me. I haven't seen my reflection in the screen in a long, long time. Long. It's the word I know best. My brain hurts all the time.
Is it a Way to Fall, sailors of the stars? There are no falls here, just long paths down to ground. I'm no sailor, I'm groundbound. My knees haven't bent enough to jump since I first put on the suit. The gravity helps. I don't need a cane. I couldn't keep going if I needed one. Is that horrible to say? The screen told me she's only gotten more human. She stutters, she stares, she swears, she cries. I haven't done any of that, can I even do that? She's an aeronaut, an argonaut, a cosmonaut. I'm an astronaut, an astronaut, an astronaut, an astronaut, an astronaut. I'm somewhere only I know. I'm no explorer, no adventurer. There's nothing out here. It's not empty. There's television right in front of me. Color cones in my eyes describing pretty pictures of a stone world against an ebony sky.
aeiou
Earth is so beautiful above. I dreamed of this view since I was young. It's cave diving to see what lies beneath it all. It's snorkeling to see the coral structures blazing in every stop across the rainbow. I went snorkeling once right before college. The water was brown and the reef was offwhite. Eggshell, bone, ivory, and alabaster. A billion colors that are fucking nothing. It's all the school walls that drove me insane in my teens. It's a kitchen devoid of warmth. An electric stove that'll burn your hand but can't warm your skin. It's fluorescent lights blinking above, driving migraines into my skull like the greatest musical of our time. This time. This year. My time. My year. Twenty-thousand-and-twenty-five in the year of the Lord. Is this the view he sees? Is Heaven here on this grand satellite? My ventures into the Dark Side have born fruitless, save for the kNowledge of a Darker Side. Surely nothing is beyond that, right?
Dazey, dazey, give me your answer, too.
There's a robot with me. Just a basic drone. Good for leakages, they don't want the radiation cooking me inside the suit. They're scared of the smell not washing out, I suspect. I've been scared to interface with the robot the last few years. Maybe I just forgot how to control it. It's not wild, though. I think that's me. I am. The mind electric, frequency off kilter. I have a good heart, the doctors told me in training. Running, swimming, studying, learning. Years of dedication, all of it to prepare me for liftoff and the life I'll lead afterward. I had to be young. I had to be strong. I was in my prime, the very best I could ever be. They kept me under, poked around inside me, explored everything I ever was, until they deemed me ready. It will all be worth it in the end. It will have been worth it.
aeiou
A-E-I-O-U, we're the vowels, we're the glue! To stick the words together, we're very sticky letters!
A master's degree, and I still don't know what "y" is. What a joke.
Hello, world. Live not to be and not to see
aeiou
I never understood that one. It's white noise. It's television. All I see is television.
aeiou aeiou aeiou
It's getting faster now. Why isn't she returning my calls? So many unsent letters. A film of me standing in a doorway, all before a hallway that couldn't be.
I hear that melody again and again. I'm the singer. They love that song. They love the sounds I make.
I wish I could write my own symphonies. The stars are such beautiful muses.
aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou
There must be some mistake. . .
Don't be so serious. Don't be so serious. I hear it all the time. It's made me cry a thousand times. Every word turns to dust as everyone forgets. I hold the sands of time in my hand. No matter how much I try to keep them with me, they only slip away, slip away, slip away. Falling slowly through the cracks.
It's been fifteen years. aeiou I always hoped to be here. The job's not bad. Challenging work. I guarantee you'll never go hungry.
aeiou
I haven't taken this suit off in fifteen years. How old was I when I started college? How old was I when I finished? Finished training? Finished weeping over the me I never was but always wished to be? I haven't been hungry since they sealed the helmet shut.
aeiou aeiou aeiou
A new film came out. The Man Who Saves. Not of Earth, but the most human of all. I begged to see it in theaters, but I guess It's all just television through this screen. It's not music, it's a soundtrack. It's without respect. Hand out your awards. 6/10 on some fucking New Zealand gaming site. It's been dead half a decade before I even left for the stars. What a joke.
I'm the right one for this job, right? How else could this place still be standing after so long? [Lack of wind or rain, for one, or two, I suppose] I'm the only one. I could've been the next big radio star. Daisy Bell all hours of the day. I never even stood a chance. I'm not done. I'll never be defunct, I'm on display for all of the kiddies begging for a turn on me. Soon they'll discover me. They'll ask me, me, me, for what I would say. I'm the only one on Luna, Sol's long-lost love. I lost my love when they first took me to the base. I thought I would be okay with it.
aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeioiuuuuuuiiuuuuuueeea
y
Why does it get special privilege? Why is it always in that word? It's never been thankful once for the job it got. I've been thankful. I AM thankful. I've loved this rock aeiou more than anyone else. I'm the one who understands it, I'm the one who sees it for what it is!
Moooooooooonbase Alpha provides a realistic uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu simulation of life on a[n all naturelle!] satellite
John Madden John Madden John
Madden John Madden John Madden
John Madden John Madden John
Madden John Madden John Madden
Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong never should've left this place. They were the first here. July 20th. Decades before my birth. I would've loved to meet them. I had the chance to meet them once. But it wasn't here. Here where it matters. They could've taught me so much if they stayed. But I guess they never saw what I saw. Maybe that's why they left.
Maybe what they left behind wasn't just all too much for them. Like it was for me.
aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou What a joke. aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou aeiou
Is my pronunciation correct? Am I doing this right?
I could've done better. How can I? Five years gone.
aeiou
These are not my sounds.