Sea to Sea

I go out for walks by the local boardwalk every now and then. Nice view of the ocean and sky. Makes a man think.

   Graham Scott sat on a bench, which was located on a wooden plank boardwalk, which was located by the sea. He was a lean and athletic man, tall and thin, with tawny hair and brown tinted sunglasses that eclipsed his eyes. He wore a white blazer with matching slacks as he watched the waves rise and fall from his perch. He nursed a camera on his lap but he didn't touch it. The cap was still screwed about the lens. He had come to take pictures for keepsakes, for memories but was frozen in place on the bench. It was his last day on Earth and Graham Scott could not take any pictures.
   Earth had devolved into a sadistic meritocracy, enforcing regulations, rights, laws - and punishments - based solely on an individual's merits. The more intelligent you were, the lesser your sentence or consequences tended to be. The more credentials you had, the easier your life would be. For those like Graham, the proclaimed rabble that worked with art, life wasn't easy. Art was looked down upon. It offered pleasure for some, sure, but it held no weight with the bulk of society. It produced nothing of benefit for society. It didn't build buildings or lay tram tracks. It didn't properly educate the youth. It was a luxury, nothing more, in a society when frivolity was the ultimate crime and practicality was more or less the Bible.
   The waves were a dark blue-gray under the roiling gray sky. There would be a thunderstorm tonight and Graham would be far away in a government office by then, signing forms that sealed his fate. He would not be able to take any more pictures of lightning flashes or trees bending in the wind. But he did take pictures of friends, family and his lover - Amanda. The waves crashed not too far away and Graham was thrown back into memory. He recalled the men at the door handing over the packet that would kill their wedding plans, their plans for a future together. He remembered how she wept. The mascara running down her cheeks. Her hair, red, cut in a fashion she knew he would love - and he did. But Graham didn't cry. He merely stood in silence, a human statue, indifferent to what was happening around him. He did well to mask the heart that was torn to pieces.
   He takes his hand off the camera momentarily to check his wristwatch. Seventeen after six. He puts his hands back on the antiquated device, unscrews the lens cap and snaps a final shot; a wave caught in mid-fall, it's head a rippling line of white foam. He snorts. Gets up and leaves.
   And then, finally, it hits him that he would never see this place again. He was human refuse now, no longer tolerated due to his stench, ready to be thrown away. He would never again see his beloved Brighton, with it's white sand and steel water and the buzzing summer crowd of tourists and beach goers. He would never be able to eat a hotdog again. He would miss the slickness of the boardwalk's wood under the streetlamps just after a rain. Miss the long, hot nights and summer breezes of June. The snow in winter. He would never see Amanda again. And worst of all, the thing that sunk it's claws the deepest into his heart was that he would never lay eyes on their child.
   By seven forty five, he was at the Human Traffic Administration Bureau's office. He listened to his instructions - his orders. He would be given two years worth of canned food, rations and water, be packed up on a one-man starcraft and be launched into space. If he didn't die from collision with the debris field that blocked out most of the sun and choked Earth's atmosphere (adequately, he felt, called Capitalism's Span) then he would be forced to wander the stars beyond that, condemned to death of starvation or madness. The ship would have a pre-programed course and it's controls would be locked. The ship, his only means to survive, was also, effectively, his prison.
   By nine thirty, he was given his last phone call at the small municipal launching pad. His ship was a small rectangular thing, with a pointed, triangular prow. He called Amanda to say goodbye but only got the answering machine. He hung the phone back up and turned to the ship. The governmental men looked at him with faux indifference but he knew the disdain they felt for him.
   Artist, they would say mentally, as if it were a swear. Artist trash.
   He stepped into the opened cockpit and buckled himself into the safety harness. The cockpit was just as claustrophobic and bland as the pamphlets and video instructions showed them to be. There was a small and simple control board on the craft's dashboard but he knew better; the buttons and screens were for show - they didn't actually do anything. The Bureau men closed the cockpit's canopy once he was settled in and stepped away. Beneath him, the seat vibrated to life and Graham felt the pistons maneuver the ship into takeoff position. After a second or two, he was thrown from the landing pad with no farewells, a piece of garbage that is not mourned over as it's thrown away. To friends and family, he would eventually be a distant memory. To others, he was just a fiery streak in the sky. And then he was gone.
   Capitalism's Span was worse out in space than it looked like from Earth. Graham figured that. Of course the government would want to keep it under wraps. Pieces of refuse, unidentifiable by damage and time slapped against the hull of ship. It was silent. There were no sounds here but the bumping got worse as the small craft was pelted again and again by the bits of garbage long since cast from the planet. He became afraid and thought the ship would come apart, sucking the air out through the ruptures, and he would simultaneously freeze and suffocate to death. Thankfully, the starcraft was a tough little thing and it didn't come apart or even dent regardless of the size of the junk that smacked against it. After one final slam from what looked like an old aircraft wing, Graham and his starcraft cleared the debris field.
   There were other ships out there in the sea of inky blackness and faint pinprick stars. Some were decidedly ancient; lingering hulks of varying decay. But others were more recent. Graham spotted a few skeletons seated in cockpits through the transparent plastoid viewpanels. Off to his right, something moved. He blinked. He was sure it was a mistake - his eyes unused to the difference of life that was space. But it wasn't! There were more ships. Moving ships. More recent ships. There were dozens, no, hundreds of them, swarming like bugs. He saw a woman look at him, a weary looking woman, through the viewpanel of her cockpit. Another ship drifted close and a man, not much older than himself, Chinese, waved to him from the confines of his cockpit.
   Graham waved back.