By Laurie Bell
I’m pacing a groove in the floor. It’s been four months, with another six to go. I’m not going to last. Not at this rate. The sentence was a joke. They haven’t even found the merchandise — besides there’s no way to prove I was the one to take possession. No proof. No conviction.
At least that’s what I’d thought.
Apparently, proof is a more fluid construct these days. That bastard — my ex, the copper — the one who’d saved me from dying alone in a dead spaceship stuck in deep space didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t have it. He couldn’t find it in my crappy ship, but he took me in anyway. Arrested me. When they went back to grab my ship, well … it had disappeared. I should have been free and clear at that point.
Bah! When do things ever go my way, right? The walls are closing in again. Four concrete walls. Eight steps end to end. A plank of wood pretending to be a bed to call my own. Scratches on the wall.
Plenty of those.
To mark the day.
And before me, those who occupied this cell and called it home, there’s plenty of marks from them too. I wonder about them. When I get bored out of my own mind. Who were they? The so-called criminals stuck in this cell. Were they like me? Entrepreneurs on a streak of good luck or genuinely hardened crooks; the murderers, the thieves, the liars. I flop down on the fingernail-width piece of foam disguised as a mattress and sigh.
I sigh a lot these days.
Closing my eyes I let myself loose amongst the stars. I’ve become quite creative. Once, I would have been hard pressed to entertain myself. I prefer a more physical sort of entertainment. Stuck in here? I’ve had to improvise. My head has become my canvas. I lay here and stare into the stars and imagine being out there once more. Exploring the planets, finding contraband, making money.
Good money.
Just me and my ship.
And the stars.
Endless points of light as far as I can see.
“Hello, Jess.”
Ah. Must be Wednesday.
I knew it was. I’ve kept count of the passing days. I don’t know why he comes. Every week. Wednesday. I don’t turn my head or do anything to acknowledge him.
Hope it drives him mad.
Me not talking.
A rarity to be sure.
“How are you doing?”
How do you think I’m doing! Freaking genius. I dunno what I ever saw in him. His scent drifts over me as familiar as it is enticing. I breathe through my mouth to avoid the implications.
“You could just tell me where it is.”
Ha! Not likely. Why are all the good ones so damn moral?
The sounds of his boots on the floor shuffle and then pace outside the barred wall of my cell. “You know I hate seeing you like this.”
Ugh. So sickening. Pretending to care. What did I see in him?
I turn my head.
Oh that’s right.
Muscles. That physique is to die for.
Ha! Poor choice of words. He catches me looking and his smile is broad. He thinks he’s gotten through. Why are the cute ones so easy to fool. I won’t speak. He knows it. I know it. This dance is the same one we have each week. It’ll play out the same way next week.
I shift my gaze back to the ceiling.
The stars await. I close my eyes.
He clears his throat.
This is new. I wait. Whatever it is he’ll tell me eventually.
“Jess. I want to help you.”
Ugh. I stand. I shouldn’t give him this but maybe I have to. He needs to let me go. I can see the pain in his stare. He hasn’t been sleeping. His hand grips the bars.
“You arrested me.” It’s all I say.
It’s all I have to say.
His eyes fall. I close my fingers over his and I do what I have to in order to keep my expression stoic but my heart is suddenly racing. “Jess.”
I slink back to my bunk and close my eyes. The key he slipped me is gripped tight between my fingers.
I guess he can still surprise me after all.
His slow, methodic steps take him away. For a brief moment I consider that it is a trap. To let me go and follow me to the loot.
Alleged loot.
He can’t prove it. Not yet.
Is this all a scam? If I had a window I would stare out at the stars as seen from this moon prison and ponder the question. I imagine them instead. I’ll have to wait. I mean I’m still going to escape using the key he’s given me, but I won’t go after my ship. Not until I’m sure he’s not following me.
This is the long game we’ve just entered. I have to watch the clock run out before I make any move.
I’ve got a shot.
I can’t waste it.
I raise my head and kiss my closed fist imagining that I’m kissing the key — or perhaps the warm fingers that had once held it.
Hope is a dangerous thing. My heart pounds as my next move solidifies in my mind. Will he come after me again? Is this a new dance?
I grin up at the ceiling.
I hope he does. There are things to discuss. After all, aiding in the escape of a dangerous criminal is a crime.
Oh yes, hope is a dangerous thing. And I’m not going to miss my shot.
About the Author
Laurie Bell
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
She is the author of The Butterfly Stone and The Tiger's Eye (YA/Fantasy) White Fire (Sci-Fi) and The Good, the Bad and the Undecided (a unique collection of short stories set during the events of White Fire/Sci-Fi).
You can read more of her work on her blog <www.solothefirst.wordpress.com> Look for her on Facebook <www.facebook.com/WriterLaurieBell/> or Twitter: <@LaurienotLori>
Rambles, writing and amusing musings
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<www.solothefirst.wordpress.com>
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
Geraldine Borella writes adult short stories and stories for children and has been published in anthologies for both. In 2018, one of her children’s short stories placed second in The Buzz Words Short Story Prize and she won an ASA Emerging Writer’s Mentorship. She currently works part-time as a hospital pharmacist and as an online creative writing tutor.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
Sarah Pratt is an avid fiction writer and a Marketing Consultant.
Timothy Gwyn is a professional pilot in Canada, where he flies to remote communities. During a lull in his flying career, he was a radio announcer for three years, and he is also an author.
Tim Borella has never lost his childhood passion for SF and writing in general and has been lucky enough to have worked most of his life as a pilot — in other words, he’s never properly grown up.
Nick works as a freelance writer out of Perth, Western Australia, where he likes to read unsettling fiction and complain about the sun.
Callan J. Mulligan was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1988.
Louis Evans is a sci-fi writer living in Brooklyn with his partner and two cats named after fictional European detectives, Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey.
Kaoru Sakasaki lives with his family in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.
Neil A. Hogan has been writing space fiction on and off since the '80s.
João Ventura writes short fiction, which has appeared in several websites (AntipodeanSF and Bewildering Stories among them), and also in printed form: Somnium, in Brazil; Dragão Quântico, Hyperdrivezine, Phantastes (Portuguese fanzines); Universe Pathways (in both the English and the Greek versions).
An emerging writer, James Patrik enjoys exploring the existential themes.
Steven Fritz graduated from the University of Maryland, became a Naval Aviator and flew helicopters and maritime patrol aircraft in the US Navy.
Brian has published over sixty short stories in the United States as well as internationally.
Pretty much a life-long fan of speculative fiction, Edwina Harvey is a writer, editor, silk painter and ceramic artist.
Old enough to just remember the first manned Moon landing, Kevin was so impressed he made science his life.