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Evergreen Lee prefers the speculative world to reality. Her too many hobbies include gaming, spoiling cats, tie-dyeing everything, and searching for unicorns. This is her second story published by DSF. Her short fiction has also appeared at Factor Four and Departure Mirror. She is the Treasurer for Dream Foundry, a non-profit aimed at helping beginner speculative writers and artists. She very occasionally blogs at evergreenlee.com.
Thanks,
Outside the viewport of my spaceship, a young girl clung. Instead of a spacesuit, she wore a daisy-print shirt and blue shorts. She breathed, but how? We were in space. She should either be gasping for air or frozen solid. Instead she smiled, waved, and gestured towards the airlock.
Should I let her in? Was she real, or a delusion? If real, she had to be an alien, even if she appeared human. Had she modeled herself after a memory pulled from my mind? I didn't recognize her image, but perhaps she was a mashup of girls I'd known.
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She seemed friendly, but was that genuine or a trick? Did she plan to kill me? Eat me? I wasn't in any kind of distress, and my tiny ship was self-sustaining. It didn't seem worth the risk, despite my curiosity.
I ignored her, but she moved into the view of whichever direction I faced. Eventually, a sad expression replaced her smile. After many more hours, she pushed away from my ship, and drifted in the emptiness of space.
I watched as her small body vanished.
It would have been nice to have someone to talk to.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, February 4th, 2021
Author Comments
As part of the Clarion West Write-A-Thon this summer, I attended a class called Starting from Seed, taught by Tegan Moore. During the class, this story popped out. To me, it is about a character who is making the right choice, and even though they know it's the right choice, part of them still regrets not choosing the other, riskier path. In June, 2020, I hadn't left my house since 3/14, except for things like grocery pickup and medical appointments (as of February, 2021, this is still true). I know that this is the right choice, but I regret it at times. Assuming Covid-19 is still a problem when this is published, I implore everyone to make the correct choice: stay home if you can and mask up when you can't. Don't let the seductive space monster destroy us.
- Evergreen Lee
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