literature

A Birthday on the Rocks

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Lucille had never been camping. How this could be when she lived in Australia was beyond me. I mean, seriously, Australia is right there with Canada and arid parts of Africa in still having open space that person could go camping at unlike the sprawls of America or the Euro Union. The thought that someone from the outback could manage to never go camping was beyond me.

“I didn't live in the outback,” she interrupts my thoughts. That's what I get for not using a proper firewall. She adds in, “You lived in middle of no-where Texas. You're one to talk.”

“Well,” I say, moving about in my sleeping bag, “At least I've been camping.”

Yet for all the camping I've done, I've never had to sleep on such a hard surface as this. Our sleeping bags were on the most rocky and craggy surface possible it seemed. We didn't really worry about a tent or anything as no storms were really going to be of any danger to us on this trip. But it certainly was cold. The fusion lantern helped off-set that, but it was still a very alien sort of cold I wasn't used to.

Lucille didn't seem to really mind. And she certainly wasn't interrupting me any further.

“That's because you are being silly,” she says, “This was your idea. Shouldn't you have checked to see if you needed a mat or something to put under your sleeping bag?”

“I thought you said you've never gone camping,” I say, glancing at her quickly.

“That doesn't mean I wouldn't read up on it. Induce sleep or something. We'll be passing into the star's light in less than two hours.”

At least it would be warmer then, I thought more to myself. I got up out of the sleeping bag and stretched a bit, looking down at the fusion lamp and then stepped away from the camp for the moment. The rock itself wasn't very impressive, but the ominous dark orb that took most of our view was still quite breathtaking.

Not that there was much breath to be taken on our rock. At only a few kilometers in length, there wasn't really any atmosphere to breath in. My cyber-mind tried to give the impression of a cold air when I breathed, but it wasn't really the same. It was merely there to keep my body from freaking out at the lack of oxygen.

Lucille came to stand next to me. I hadn't even noticed her rouse from her sleeping bag. It was rather dark with the gas giant blocking out the system's star, but with my eyes low light, I could see her naked form in the dark vacuum of space, illuminated by the stars and moons of the great planet Velantris.

“Well, how am I going to sleep when your mind is so active?” she asks.

I didn't have a good response to that. I check my chronometer and see that our little rock would be clearing the planet's horizon in roughly two hours. A quick visual scan shows a good spot to watch the Velan star rise.

Lucille was already ahead of me. She had turned off the lantern already and was sliding into her uniform. It was likely a prudent procedure when you think about what would likely happen when the star's light struck the iced rock. I followed suit, pulling the uniform up and over my body as well. I felt my head was shielded enough so I didn't worry on any precautions in that fashion.

“You can stop narrating our trip anytime, Fio,” Lucille says to me in an approximation of vocalization. Obviously, it was going through our network as verbal communication was out of the question on a satellite without any atmosphere.

“I'm just recording things for later on,” I tell her. People don't understand that written records are sometimes the best form of understanding a place and time. Lucy gets caught up in the simulated too much.

“I'll remember that the next time you want to play Nilian Nights with everyone,” she replies, making fun of my hobby.

I give her a playful pout and then take her hand and lead her up towards the small rock outcropping that I had seen earlier. It was a nice, pleasant hike, as we held our hands and made our way up. There we sat and watched as the star moved into sight, its radiant light illuminating our camp site and quickly vaporizing the ice, surrounding us in a white mist that would trail the purple and blue hued planet for thirty six hours before descending back into her dark side again and freezing our rock solid. I don't care how artificial our bodies may have been and the way some people say beauty can't be judge through cyber-eyes. I looked at Lucille, in her uniform, her red hair drifting in the near zero gravity with light and water vapor around us and saw beauty. I took Lucille's hands and pressed my lips against hers, softly saying, “Happy birthday.”
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