It is quite lonely up here by myself. Occasionally I will pick up a couple movies or books for my consumption, but this is not real human interaction. It’s entertainment. In some ways this is better for me. Entertainment is all about pleasing me. Humans are all about pleasing themselves.

I used to go back to Earth to relive moments of my life that have gone past. Or maybe they haven’t happened yet. I can’t remember. Either way, I can’t really say that I’m reliving these moments as much as rewatching them. It reminds me of Ebenezer Scrooge floating around and watching little tidbits of his life that makes him realize he’s an asshole. I wish my memories carried some clear cut message like that.

I keep coming back to my days in high school. I find myself surrounded by clouds of people, ghastly apparitions on a ghastly day. My aunt is sitting in the pew in front of me. People called her crazy, and felt the need to give her what little materialistic help they could offer. Of course she was actually crazy. My mother used to tell me that she had fried her brain on drugs and developed schizophrenia. Either way, she led a miserable existence. She burned her money on cigarettes, and, because she was legally barred from getting a job, she lived off of welfare. Thank god for the government. Anyway, so here I am, verging on a deep sadness, and here’s this woman, broken by her condition and feeding my depression. She turns around, tears rimming her eyes, and says, “Well that was just about the saddest funeral I’ve ever attended.”

I’m suddenly taken backwards a few years, and I’m standing across from a homeless man who I’ve agreed to help. Our church used to take these trips into the Center City Philadelphia to feed homeless people and listen to their stories. It was a pretty interesting experience, as much for the stories as for the service. Anyway, I’m talking to a Burmese man named Gabriel, who has been living in America for a few years and is struggling to find work. “How’s the food?” I ask. “It’s quite good. Everyone here is very thankful for your service.” The man seems nice, if a bit off, and the conversation is friendly but somewhat disjointed. We talk for about ten minutes more, and I pray with him before I send him on his way. I am quite happy to have met Gabriel. Of course two weeks later I would find out that he thought he was an angel sent from God.  

I’m taken to an innocent scene, a pinnacle of my childhood. I am sailing over a choppy lake, gripping a rubber tube that is drawn along by a yellow boat that glistens in the sun. My friend drags along next to me, and we laugh. Life was more exhilarating, more relaxed at those few days at the cabin every year. I finally relent to the forces on my body, and willingly but anxiously plunge into the black water.

In another moment I am sitting across from my crazy aunt at Christmas dinner. The dusky black of an early evening surrounds the house, the light from the windows an isolated island in a dark ocean. A plastic tree is sitting in the corner, adorned with plastic lights and plastic strings. My aunt is getting up from her seat and talking to me about self defense. “If someone comes at you with a knife, the key is to keep them at least arms length at fight from afar.” I’m not exactly listening to what she was saying. It doesn’t surprise me or worry me. Suddenly my mother and grandmother are arguing with her. My aunt leaves in a rush, abandoning her disgruntled husband and the food we all donated. On the ride home my mother would inform me that she was off her medications.

I am taken suddenly to a scene of magnificent beauty. My father and I are standing atop a great slope, gazing across a valley to a series of dominating peaks adorned in rays of light. I would swear there is nothing more beautiful than this in this world.

My eyes slowly open for their last time, and I get the sudden sense that time is as it should be. I am stuck in a round capsule, which seems to be some sort of a scanning machine. I slide out from the hollow machine and survey my surroundings. I am surrounded by white walls, a mere window to the blackness beyond and a blank screen to break the monotony. In the corner are white chests, one of which is filled with food and essentials, the other, books and movies. The screen flashes white. A gaunt man, dressed in doctors’ robes and smothered in an air of officiality, chatters incessantly at the camera.

“By now I hope you realize why you are here. At this point in time, the world’s population has reached upwards of sixteen billion people.The president of the Americas, in Executive Order 25678, has demanded that, in order to alleviate the issue of overpopulation, the mentally and physically ill be sent into space to live alone in a capsule. Here, all appropriate resources will be utilized in order to cure the person of their disability, at which time they will return to Earth. You fit into the former category, mental illness. In order to treat those with mental illness, the state has used new technology that pinpoints moments in a subject’s life that enlightens them to the source of their disability and makes clear the frivolity of the error in their mental state. If you are watching this video, then this means that the treatment is complete. Congratulations. Your return to Earth will commence in 24 hours. This screen will now display a map as to the length of your journey back to the home planet.”

The screen goes black for a moment, and flashes again to show a map of the solar system. It says at the bottom of the screen that my return to Earth will take three weeks. Joy.

I look down at the gray jump suit that hangs on my skin. There is an ID badge on the left corner of the suit, near my heart. I tear it off and look at it. It says L1018.

And such it has been for the past few days. I am lonely, and I am patient.

I wonder about my days on Earth. I remember sitting in crowded rooms and being alone. I remember being amongst friends and being alone. I remember praying to God and being alone. And yet here I am.

It makes me wonder whether or not loneliness is a good thing. People can be so irreverent. Day after day, watching them do what they do, you begin to wonder what kind of demented God would create something like this.

But of course I am never alone.