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I don't know where to start.
It doesn't matter, not like you're going to read this but still, I'd like for this letter (?) to make sense. (Is it a letter if I never get to send it?)(I think I’m still going to call it a letter, I can't come up with anything else that feels right.)
I don’t know how to start a letter.
Well, I do (I think I was taught how in school at some point.) but not like this. This letter.
I have no address (though I guess if you just write "the big biodome on Erid" it would make it back to me), I don’t have your adress (for all I know you’re back on the vat and lord knows you can't get letters sent there), you probably don't want me to write "Dear Stratt" and I don’t want to write that either.
You're probably gone by now. Heck! I've probably been legally dead since the launch. (Does the post office check if the sender is alive at any point of the delivery process? Probably not, that would be a waste of time and what would they do anyways, stamp it "No need to send answer, sender dead" with a big black stamp with red ink?)
The point is, I don't know what I'm doing.
I guess that's a recurring theme with me.
Anyways, Doctor Freud (I don’t want to hear anything about the name ok? II was tired! (Not really an excuse since I’m tired all the time but you’re not here so you can’t tell me what to do.)) wants me to write as a way to "externatize my complicated and convoluted feeling" about you (that's not exactly what they said but that's the closest translation).
I don't think it’s going to work.
I’ve been looking at this letter like it’s either going to bite me in the face (This is paper, paper can’t bite me, I bite the paper and the paper cuts me back,) (Well not this paper. Actually, I haven’t gotten a single paper cut with it! The science thrum made it for me when I said I missed writing on paper and they did a pretty good job ! It feels like it, though it’s thicker then what I was used to. (i dont know if its because they can’t make it thicker or if they think I’m an idiot and will cut myself with it. (I did tell them I use to get papercuts with my students copies and that’s why I don’t like it when people hand me paper.))) or come alive and start writing itself. (Maybe this letter is my horcrux. I mean for how long I’ve been staring at it on and off for the past few days it might as well contain a piece of my soul for all I know.)
I'm bad at talking about feelings so I guess I’ll tell you about Erid.
The Eridians built me a dome. I know Rocky said they would make me a space to stay and I won’t have to spend the rest of my life on Mary but I wasn’t sure they could pull it off. Well, I knew they could, they are so smart and they would have definitely figured something out. What I mean is that I didn't think they would waste that much resources on me, especially since I had Mary. But they did.
Actually, Adrian is the one in charge of the biodome, like headchief of everything with the dome. He’s also Rocky’s mate by the way. He’s super nice and has this calming voice to go with his infinity patience (and oh boy does he need it with Rocky). He’s also big ( twice Rocky’s size and height) and blue (blue-green? teal? turquoise? I Don’t Know My Colors…). The “Human Must Thrive” thrum made me a bunch of food by synthesising stuff they found on the ship. (I think you know what I mean by that so don’t make me say it.) They even synthetised meat ! They made it from my muscle cells (It’s a good thing I have nothing against ethical cannibalism. (I mean, it’s me. Actually, I don’t know if I would eat someone else but that’s me so I think it's ok (I taste really good. (Is that weird?(Yeah that’s weird.(Oh well, to late and I do taste great.)))))
They gave me back burgers. Me-burgers, just as good as cow-burgers (I don’t think I remember what beef tastes like. I mean if I eat it I’ll be like “hey, that’s beef” but i can’t explain it, like yeah, beef tastes like beef.)
They made me a beach, with fog and clouds and breeze and sand and it doesn’t feel exactly like it did on earth, like the sand grains are too uniform and the smell of sea salt isn’t perfect, but it's certainly close enough.
I have a house by the way. I don’t think my teacher salary would ever be enough to have a house.
Speaking of teaching, I have students.
The thrum made me a classroom and the eridians gave me students.
They are so smart. Eridians have crystalline brains by the way, they never forget anything. (So pop quizzes are kinda useless, but hey, less grading for me!) But that’s not what I mean when I say they are so smart. They are so bright and so curious about everything. They ask the best questions, I can’t even answer them sometimes! (We have spent more than one class period just trying to figure out an answer that makes us all happy)
So thank you in a way.
Not for the drugging (French memory lost drug was sooo not cool.) and being forced on a suicide mission I had to unsuicide like twice but I guess I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. Because of you. I don't know. I still don't forgive you for that by the way
I loved my students, and despite what you might think I loved my life.
Every time I think about it I want to be angry. And I think I was, for a little.
I was angry at you, for making me think I had a choice and then disregarding my decision and forcing me on a mission I never wanted to be on. (I got angry at everyone at that point, the whole world, for not stepping up and doing something. (It’s not very scientific of me but it definitely felt like the universe had decided that I was the butt of the joke.))
I still have nightmares about it. I think I knew, in a way, that it was always going to end up with me on the ship. You always get your way at the end don't you.
I even got mad at the astrophage. Honestly it's probably the most valid thing/being to be angry at in this situation.
I think I realised at some point I was angry at myself at myself.
If I wasn't a coward I wouldn't have made you do this. I keep thinking that if I was in your shoes I wouldn't have done what you did. And that's probably why I wasn’t. In your shoes that is. I’m a coward. And you always knew what to do. I don't think you liked what you had to do. (I hope so,) I think I know you enough to say that (or at least I like to think so.). I think we would have been good friends. (I think of you as one, I can only hope you do too. (I was never really good a making friends, I never knew if we were friends or acquaintances or just strangers forced to inhabit the same places (I wish we had that discussion, I would say something stupid and then you say something to make me understand that what I said was stupid and then I would have asked if we were friends (That’s so pathetic, I’d feel like a middle schooler (I guess I did spend too much time around them).) and you would have said something smart (I can’t come up with anything even though I played this scenario a hundred times in my head, I guess my mind Stratt can never be as smart as the real you) and it would have taken me a minute to understand (Most times, in the scenarios, you say something that makes me sound like a very annoying pet but that you still keep. ( Does that make me the dog the father never wanted but still got attached to? (Does that make you the father?))) but ultimately we would have been more than just coworkers. I wish we spoke, I wish we had a lot of different conversations.)))
There's so much I want to know about you. Stupid things that don't matter but that friends know. Like, are you more of a dog or cat person? (Because I feel like it can go both ways with you, dogs would be able to follow your instructions but you would respect cats for their boundaries (maybe you are a bit like a cat?).)
What's your favorite color ? (You only wear black, white and beige, and two of those aren't even colors!) I kept trying to figure it out but you never gave me anything, everything you used was the most standard looking thing you could find. (You probably didn't order what you used and could find on the vat or base, I'm sure you had people that did that, like logistics people.) I mean if you had, I don’t know, a purple pen or maybe blue post-its or a sticker on your laptop or on one of your cups, it would have steered me in the right direction.
More than once I (!)accidentally(!) took a sip of your coffee, black, cool and with no milk nor sugar, so it was bitter.
It's silly but maybe Mind Eva Stratt (That felt so wrong my face did the ew thing. (I don't think we would have ever gotten around to using our first names. I'll always be Grace to you and you'll always be Stratt to me.)) only drinks black coffee because we didn't have all the fancy creamers and flavoring things on board (Maybe her favorite drink is one of those pink sugar and cream filled things from places like starbucks (that's kinda funny).)
I keep trying to figure you out, call it scientific curiosity.
Maybe there isn't anything to figure out.
Maybe you don't have an opinion on pets because you are allergic to fur. Maybe you like your coffee black because it's easy and simple and delivers the caffeine you need without unnecessary additions. And maybe your favourite color is black (you would tell me again that black is a very versatile color that can be dressed up and dressed down and can easily hide stains (and then you would point out a stain on my shirt that's neither from spilled coffee nor from a stray candy piece but something totally unknown made up of both( that happened a lot)). Maybe if we had spoken more you would have told me that black actually is your favorite color.
But we never will. We will never have the time, we never did. You were always busy, and so was I.
I said that I was angry for a while, at you and everything, and me.
I think I'm mostly sad now.
You could probably tell from all the musing about never knowing you as more than coworkers. All we could have been and all we could have done.
I know that realistically you are probably gone by now. And if not you are like twice the age you were (I never asked how old you were, not that I was going to, I would never ask a woman her age). I think you might have been between early 40s and late 50s. I'm really bad at telling peoples age. (Sorry if you were younger.)(But not sorry if you were older.)(Or maybe sorry? I don’t know at this point.)
You are like scrodinger’s cat, neither dead nor alive, except I can't even see the box because it's 16 light years away. If I keep going with this metaphor, I think of you as the cat before it was put in the box. My Mind Stratt is forever stuck to what you were when we were on earth.
This is soooooo like mourning someone that isn't gone, except I guess you are.
Or as good as in this situation.
I'm mad at you, and I'm sad and I don't know if I'm mourning you or what you could have been ( or what you became once I was gone).
This is so weird.
I think I need a break.
I don't know what I need. (You probably would say a nap and less coffee, and I can’t disagree with that.)
I told you I sometimes imagine what could have been.
If Dubois and Shapiro were still with us, if I had volunteered, if you hadn't sent me, if I had stayed on earth, if I had died on the way to Tau Ceti.
I don't know if it's helping me. Most times the scenarios I make up end up the same as what actually happened. But sometimes they don't.
Daydreaming about what ifs is maybe causing more harm then good
I can't change what we did. I can't change what you did.
I’ve been told that Sol (that what we call the sun from earth since Erid has its own sun 40 Eridani A, but you know that) is slowly becoming brighter and brighter so I don't think you would have changed anything even if you had the chance. I think even knowing that I would be fine in the end I would have still ran. Maybe cowardice is engraved in my bones the way your love for humanity is in yours.
I'm sorry. And I like to think you are too. so we can both be sorry together.
Doctor Freud was right. (Kind of? I do feel, not better, but definitely not worse. Drained and empty, but maybe it's the good kind of drained and empty, the kind that leads to acceptance (or resignation) only time will tell.)
I mean I went from being mad, to sad, maybe one day I’ll be at peace with myself, with you.
I'm running out of paper, I'll have to ask Adrian for more. I think I'm going to stop here. I'll take a walk on the beach and try to stop thinking too hard about everything. Try to be “kind to myself”. I think you would benefit from it too, Stratt.
Anyways,
You'll never read this, and I'll probably never read it again. Still, I'm glad I wrote to you.
Dr. Ryland Grace
The big biodome on Erid