The Boulder

Written by Albert Wang from Washington, USA

The alarm rings again. Lights flicker on. The station comes to life. Another shining star in a sea of night. The man crawls out of the hard, circular cubicles they use for rest and gets to work.  Hundreds of them, shoved in a station far from any natural soil, throw themselves out of the relative safety of the station and into the cold, unforgiving void of space. With saws and lasers and bolt cutters, the engineers toil away, cutting at old hulls and dismantling old reactors. There had been a time, he remembers, when he could still clearly see the sky. The real sky, the bright blue one, covers the world in its majesty. But that was before his life was nothing but synthetic whites or emotionless blacks. 

The saw becomes overheated, and through the suit, he flinches. 

How did he end up like this? Where was he before? Back on Earth, he was always cold and hungry. His house, if you could even call it a house, was riddled with holes, and water would drip through the roof when it rained. His clothes were always torn, shaded in brownish colors that did not come from the cloth, and his table always seemed much larger than the food upon it. Still, even those days now seem better than his work up here. He remembers that in those days, he would wander to the scrap yards, picking out junk to sell in the markets. He would burn the metals down to sell; he’d disassemble old engines for the valuable parts they held; he’d fix up old, broken technology and add it to his meager belongings. In many ways, his life had always been the same, but at least on Earth, his life had belonged to him.

“Ya’ done with sawing yet?”

“Damn thing won’t work properly! Give me a minute!”

When did he stop owning his life? When did he become as valuable as the machinery he operated? It must have been the day when smoke billowed in like storm clouds, when the air grew heavy with carbon, and the rivers flowed with a rusty tint. The money had run out. He hadn’t eaten for days. In desperation and a primal lust for survival, he remembered scampering to the recruitment office in Houston. “Paradigm Industrials”, the logo said. “The business of the Final Frontier!” He remembered wandering dejectedly into one of the booths. Slumping into the seat across from the recruiter like a dying animal. 

“Name,” the interviewer said.

“Ray Freeman,” he responded, after clearing his throat.

“Age?”

“23.” 

The interviewer paused.

“Bit young ain’t cha?”

 He shrugged, unsure how to respond. 

The interviewer grunted. “Got any skills?” 

“I know how to strip and fix old machinery. Been doin' it my whole life.” 

The man checked off a box on his notepad.

“Alright, Mr. Freeman, I believe we have a position for you in the Engineering unit. How does that sound?”

“That sounds great, thank you.” After a moment of hesitation, he continued. “When will I be back?” 

The Interviewer paused for a moment before responding. 

“The contract lasts for about 50 years with a lifetime exclusivity clause. Every 10 years, your contract will be revisited for-“

“I’m sorry, Sir. Did I hear that right? 50 years?”

“Indeed, though when it is over you will receive the privilege of being moved to our state- of- the- art retirement center. Best in the system.”

“That’s all good, but 50 years? I won’t ever be able to leave? To return home?”

“Unfortunately, that is unlikely, Sir, but it's still better than staying here to starve, ain’t it?” 

He remembered pausing for a moment. Life on Earth had not always been good to him, but it had been home, hadn’t it? The sapphire skies, the emerald waters, the warm rays of the sun caressing his skin. But the skies were gray now, the waters had dried, and the sun was blotted out by ugly black clouds.

“… Very well...” he managed to choke out.

The interviewer nodded. “One more thing.” He cleared his throat. “Due to some new policies, I am obligated to inform you that the survival expectancy of all workers is 27 years on the job, on average.”

“27 years? But I’m only 23!”

“It's a hard life up there,” the interviewer responded. “But at least there is a life up there.”

With that, the interviewer gestured for the door, and after signing his signature, the man left. But all these years later, he realized that the interviewer had lied. 

With another grunt, he cut through the outer layer. 

“Breached!” he shouted. He moved to the side, as his compatriot began to fiddle with the wires behind the carved opening. After a moment, a hatch in the craft began to open. The hollow interior was dark. The Engineers quickly turned on their flashlights. Pale beams began to flood inside, and one by one, the engineers tentatively dropped in.

“The reactor’s up there, behind that blast door,” one of the engineers called out.

“Dammit. The only way to enter is through the damn door. You with the saw, handle that, will you?” 

With a feeling of defeated resignation, the man began to cut into the metal with his saw. But as he was about to complete his work, a force shook the ship.

“What the hell?” 

“One of the other teams busted a damn thruster!”

“God dammit! Open that damn door so we can grab the Reactor already!”

The man began to panic. Reacting quickly, he cut through the last of the door before kicking the sawed-off slab of metal with his leg. Another crash could be heard, and the hull began to shake again.

“Grab the reactor and let’s go!”

The man nodded, but with a crash, a piece of the hull broke the Reactor from its bolts. Sparks sprang from the scraping steel as the Reactor broke off and began to barrel down the ship and towards the man.

“Look out!”

He had to get out of there. If he didn’t move, he would surely die.

“Don’t let the Reactor break!” shouted one of his colleagues.

The damn Reactor. Of course, that was the first concern. A rusting piece of metal. For a moment, the man contemplated standing still. The collision would crush his body,without a doubt, but was this pitiful life worth living anyway? After a second, instinct caught up with him, and with a desperate leap, the man propelled himself away from the crash course. The Reactor continued down its deadly trajectory, and so the engineers began to rush to grab it. With a heave, the man managed to clasp his hand on one of the Reactor’s sides, but as it slowed down, it smashed against an unlucky engineer at the front. The man’s hand slipped from the sides, and with a great screech, the Reactor slammed against the dead body of the employee. Blood pooled around the Reactor, which was cushioned and slowed down by the body of the dead employee. Shards of glass from the shattered helmet of the corpse floated around in the interior as the men watched in silent horror. 

“Should we take him with us?” the man asks.

“We can’t; it’s company policy.”

With a final forlorn glance at the body, the scrappers float back to the station as the ship behind them, groaning and buckling from the weight of thousands of tons of metal, began to burst into flames.

The alarm rang again. Lights flick on, and the station comes to life. Another shining star in a sea of night. Hundreds of souls crawl out of circular cubicles for another day of toil. They will wake, work, and sleep, wake, work, and sleep, until the distant promise of death or the even more distant promise of retirement finds them. As the man awakens beneath clinical white lighting, this day becomes identical to the last.

The boulder rolls up again…