Chapter 1: Looking back

A heartbroken young man leaves Earth to populate an exoplanet.

Dear Commie O’S**t-Pirate,

I’m going to address you as all horrible names I can think of because I don’t like you. Anyways, I’m on my way to Jupiter now, and I just feel like reminiscing on good old times. Good Ole times where I pleasured myself to the thought of her, not you, you're a s**t. I’m talking about your former self. God, I miss who you were to me.

 So here in this… body, no… existence, I can really get lost with reliving all the good memories. I can touch her, I can smell her, I can hear her. It isn’t memories, it’s virtual. But I can give my undivided attention to replaying these memories. Unlike how I used to recall memories before I died.

In this existence, I can play my memories like videos. But memories aren’t perfect. I can’t remember the name of the coffee shop we went to on our first date, so there are no labels on the cups. The Batista's aren’t in uniforms, so they’re in black clothes. When I think to remember something, but I can’t confirm its authenticity, it changes from a blacked out blur to whatever I guess it is, but a little transparent warning pops up that tells me the memory has been modified. 

My earliest childhood memory is filled with darkness. I remember tripping over some toy or something black and hitting my face on a yellow coffee mug that was on the brown carpeted floor. I remember my left front tooth piercing through my upper lip and the taste and smell of blood, then my own deafening babyish cries. An transparent alert popped up and I saw my mother's face and voice as I modified them to be. The transparent alert faded away when the comfort of her hands and a coldness of ice kissed my lip and made the pain fade away. I like replaying the memories without the modifications just to see how dark and quiet everything was. 

I now understand how some people can go crazy, how people can literally manufacture memories, and how eye witnesses recall events different that what happened compared to video recordings. I’ve modified one memory of my childhood so much that everything has a little transparent warning on it. It gets a little glitchy when I try to play it back. Whenever I manipulate my memories I just getting lost in my mind. I’ve spent an entire day just replaying and modifying one memory. 

So let's get to the point. I’ve gone over how this memory playback thing works, and I think my story starts here. 

You were on your phone when I was walking to you. You were waiting for me at our spot we meet every morning before class. My phone vibrated but I ignored it. You smiled and we hugged as we always did, and we kissed as we always kissed. This repetitiveness was always comforting. The familiarity of our daily habits in a world full of changes was just the best. Sure it happened a million times, and there was a million little variations in each memory, but to me it was heaven. The world and everything else around us was black in these memories. But you were clear. The smell of your favorite bubblegum, perfume, freshly laundered clothes, your leather boots and whatever shampoo and body wash you were using that month all went in symphony to ensure me that you were mine. You were the one. Nobody could have imitated what you do. Grabbing your belt and belt loops right above your butt was routine for me when I hugged you in the morning, as with feeling the back of your bra through your shirt and under your jacket. 

Then you said, “Check your phone.” I was too close to you see your whole beautiful face, but I could tell by the way your eyes shifted, you were smiling.

And then in this memory, everything went black except the light glow on your phone. There it was, you forwarded that letter to me. That letter that started all of this. I really do blame you. Even though I should be blaming myself. You got accepted into that college you’ve been talking about since freshman year. That was the first crack in our shield, the first sign of deterioration, the wound that will never completely heal. 

I knew, despite all of my dad’s money, that there’s no ticket he could buy to get me into where she’d be going. I knew I should have given all my attention to my stupid grades instead of drowning in the comfort of the love she gave me. I dug my own grave doing that. But I have no regrets. I lied to myself, I told myself she’d be willing to have a long distance relationship. 

Ohh I knew it was going to fracture. But damn. One freaking week since you left our hometown after saying you’d try?! You freaking s**t! 

From here on, my memories of you are of a completely different person. From here on, you were never the girl who always meet me in the same spot before school started. When you returned my sweater that you once stole from me, your voice wasn’t the same. Your eyes were a different shade. You didn’t smell the same. The perfume did match up and your clothes looked different. I didn’t know who you were. And our last hug goodbye, I couldn’t feel your heart beating like I always used to, I felt darkness. This is when you transformed into a Heartbreak-a-sar-us Rex. You monster.

So that summer, everything was different, to my dad’s regret, I went the local community college campus instead of the far away colleges and universities that I was accepted into.  In the mornings I worked at my favorite job I’ve been working at since I got my drivers license on the weekends. I remember my friends ask me why I even work.

 My memory played back the bright summer day with beautiful weather. We didn’t take advantage of the weather. We just stayed inside all day and played video games. Anyways, later that day, I figured out what I wanted to do. I wanted to fly helicopters, airplanes, drones, something! I wanted to F-L-Y! 

My dad funded my pilot classes... Let me take this moment to thank my dad for all the nights you left me and mom alone while you locked yourself in your office that used to be a closet. Your hard work and loss of all the countless hours of family time mom and I spent together really paid off.  

Then this part of my memory got really dark. I was really optimistic at the medical office for the pre-screening. There were three different guys who’s faces are now blacked out. I quickly made new friends with them because they’ve heard of my dad. A nurse took me back and she made me look through a microscope looking machine for both eyes, and there was three dots. The lady with a blacked out face asked me, “Which dot is closer to you, the left, middle or right.”

I had no freaking clue. A transparent modified warning popped up when I answered her question. Then she switched out the slides, and then asked me, “Ok, which triangle is closer to you? Left or right?”

Again I had no freaking idea. Another transparent warning popped up as I answered. The next thing I know, I’m walking down the hallway, the three friends with blacked out faces ask me, “What’s wrong?” “Where are you going?” “How’d it go?” And I just ignored all them and continued walking. Fighting back my tears that hurt more than that one time I broke a rib. 

Later that day I told my dad that my eyes weren't good enough. He was reading some magazine that I modified to read, “Mega Nerdy Nerdness Weekly.” I've grown to dislike how good my father always fixed things, and his ability to make the best out of every crappy situation. I modified what he said in my memories, but it was something like, “Failure is better than not trying.” Or “the difference between a master and a student is that the master failed a lot more times.” He made me feel accomplished, even thought I had failed. Every candidate had to have perfect uncorrected vision. The doorway to my dream of becoming a pilot was closed. 

I felt better for the rest of that night, I remember eating some delicious Mexican fast food with steak, rice, and the rest of the deliciousness. BRB, I’m going to eat one of these fake a*s food pill things and have my brain process it as if I was eating another one of those delicious burritos.

Ok, back, I feel better. Ohh yea, So after dropping out of the pilot thing, I figured I’d study business so that I’d get to work for my dad or maybe get promoted at where I work now. I don’t know. Everyone who doesn't know what the heck they’re going to do goes for business because it can be applied broadly in whatever kind of office you’d like to sit in. I’d imagine that I would hate sitting in cubicles and talking to customers on the phones and dealing with power hungry bosses who’d take your work and take the credit for it.

But it’s the best idea I had at that time. And here I am now, on my way to Jupiter.