Give Me Space so I Can Breathe

Milo pulls his helmet over his head. It’s too small, and makes him feel like his brains are being

squished in his skull, and the only thing stopping it from leaking out his ears is, ironically, the helmet.

It pushes his hair in front of his eyes. His hair was getting much too long, but the soldiers weren’t

given anything sharp. After weeks of doing nothing in a pod of limited space while senior officials

waltzed in and out, those higher up were scared the soldiers would come at them with some

kamikaze mission. Which is ridiculous, of course. As Alex said, “We’d have to be crazy. I long to be

crazy, I wouldn’t be so bored.” Alex was one of five other guys in the pod, and was the one always

saying dumb, deep stuff.

They were on a routine mission when suddenly they were surrounded and far out of their

element. The six men had met only 30 minutes before when they were rushed into an evacuation

pod and left there. Isaac had wanted to go out in a blaze of fire, and was likely the reason for the no

sharp objects rule. Milo hit the helmet on the top another time so that it finally popped onto his head.

I pulled my helmet on as well. The seniors had shut the airlock. They’d tried to do it quietly, but it

wasn’t hard to notice if you were paying attention.

There was never any long term plan. Like a fire in January, you just knew you had to get out of

there, not thinking about the problems you would face in the scenario. A long, slow disaster over a

quick one. Only six evacuation pods had successfully deployed, each with six soldiers and four

seniors. I was lucky enough to be shoved into one before I was completely sure of what was going

on. So, we had escaped, and got an amazing thirty more days of being alive, but we hadn’t heard a

status from the main ship in that entire time, and didn’t have food, air, or anywhere to go. I don’t

really want to say what is going to happen. It’s not pretty. I feel like if I write it it’ll be too real. And I

feel like you didn’t sign up for reading this. Just know, I’m fine. We signed up for this. Being a soldier

you prepare for these kinds of things. There are far worse ways to go. Okay?

Since nobody likes the idea of suffocating or starving knowing that the end is just at the end of

the tunnel. Just a week ago, we’d managed to make contact with another one of the pods that was

floating aimlessly through space. They’d been smart enough to start rationing their food right at the

beginning, but they were overall in the same boat as us. Everyone knew that we were not making it

out of this alive. So, we’d come up with the brilliant idea to ram our ships into each other as fast as

possible, so we can all go out quickly and painlessly. A blaze of fire. Isaac would’ve been a fan, if

there was any glory in that at all.

We hadn’t been told exactly when this would be happening, but we knew it was soon. The

helmets were a formality; they wouldn’t really do anything. The six men had made their way into a

circle, and, like girls at a sleepover, we waited for someone to speak. I suppose now is the time for

introductions. The last impression, I guess.

There’s Milo, the youngest, trying to live up to a dead brother in the eyes of his dead parents;

Alex, who, as much as he tries not to care, has an artist’s heart and was never really cut out for this;

Isaac, who very much was; Bobby, the unanimously appointed leader of the group who did his very

best in every facet of life; Sam, who told jokes to forget about the weight of living; and me, Jonah,

the observer, I guess. Back on the main ship part of my job was making the mission logs and I’d

started making them the first week in the pod, until I realized there would be no one to read it. As a

result, there was a tape recorder with a surplus of tape. I clicked it on and set it in the middle of the

circle. Who knows? Maybe in thirty years there’ll be an amazing story about someone finding the

final recording on doomed soldiers. I wasn’t going to be the one to rob that future explorer of that.

No one said anything, and since deep down I wanted a story to tell, I spoke first, “What is your

clearest memory?”

I’d learned from an old friend that that was a question you could ask of anyone and get an

interesting answer. Because they will say the memory that they return to the most, or the moment

that they wished defined their life. Alex spoke first, “When I was like twenty, this was back on Earth, I

moved to Paris with my friend because we were pretentious and thought we had savings, but we

spent a whole day making fun of tourists and, I don’t know. You can tell a lot about a person by what

they notice in other people.”

The group nodded. Sam spoke up. I guess it had been too long without anyone paying attention

to him. “I punched a kid in the face once. I was a kid, too, don’t worry. I forget what he was doing but

he probably deserved it, and it was the time that I most felt that I had an impact in the world, positive

or negative. I felt like I didn’t just exist, I had a presence.”

That was met with silence.

“This helmet used to be my brother’s.” Milo said, kind of quickly, as if he wanted to get it out as

fast as possible. “I used to steal it and run around. It’s too small now. I’m bigger than he ever was.”

“I have a dead brother, too.” Bobby said. “Younger, but smarter. Couldn’t learn to keep his

mouth shut, though.”

Alex cleared his throat. He liked to speak like a performance, so for it to work everyone had to

be paying attention to him before he began. “That friend I mentioned earlier, he killed himself six

months after that.”

“My sister had cancer when we were little. She’s fine now, but I was pretty close to being in

your guys’ sad boat.” Isaac said. After a pause, he clarified, “That came out wrong. Like, I get what

you guys mean-”

Milo, Alex, and Bobby nodded.

“Oh, shit.” Sam said quickly.

“What?” I asked. I subtly spun the tape recorder towards him.

“No, nothing. I don’t want to depress anyone. Well, I guess I can’t anymore than already. I just

realized that every single person I know is going to have a sad story like that.”

That generated a wave of silence throughout the room. I clicked the tape recorder off, realizing

that I was creating that sad story for someone else. And it belonged to us.

I couldn’t tell you what happened next. Everyone was talking at the same time but nobody was

listening. It was more about getting everything out into the air than allowing anyone else to pick it up.

For about five minutes, Isaac was in the corner screaming. Not in a scared or sad or devastated

way, just in a way like ‘I can get away with this now.’ I could feel my mouth making words but could

not hear them. Bobby put his arm around Milo’s shoulder but they didn’t look at each other. Alex

smeared chalk on his cheeks and I’m pretty sure he yelled something about war paint, but I wouldn’t

confirm that quote.

For the first time, I felt like I actually existed.

And then, all of a sudden, I didn’t.