#in a way that still persists in a lot of post-soviet states

[cabinetofotherthings]

i have a historiographical quibble with how the antisemitic campaigns in the soviet union in 1948–1953 are often framed as an extension of the holocaust in the scholarship rather than being fully considered within the context of the soviet nationalities policy. except when i'm applying for funding from institutions that do holocaust studies. then i'm fine with it

[sprites4ever]

To Gun or not to Gun

Thoughts on the fundamental morality of weapons

this is literally me when im a tool of destruction from france fr fr fr france

[IMAGE SOURCE: Forces News]

In a post-WWII, post-nuclear world, peace has become a much bigger topic in geopolitics.

Before the destruction, caused by the industrialization of warfare in WWII, war was seen as a common and good thing in Western society.

Kingdoms would go to war, have thousands kill each other at max, steal some riches and be done with it. If a monarch wanted war, they could sell it to the public, due to the specter of war not being one of major or even total destruction.

Now, it's different.

We humans have biblical destructive powers at our command.

We have weaponized plagues. (Bioweapons that spread pathogens via animals, aerosol, contact etc.)

We have built fighting automatons. (Drones with bombs)

WE COMMAND A FRACTION OF THE STARFIRE (nuclear weapons utilize nuclear fission and fusion, processes that occur naturally in the universe on a massive scale and are the reason stars exist)

And yet, we haven't shook our desire for conflict. Still, conflict is in our nature as persistent predators.

With such threats of total annihilation, geopolitics has become a lot more complex, with efforts centering around avoiding and limiting conflict.

Peace used to be a concept that was only pondered and acted on on a personal scale, now it is on an international scale (except for russia).

And thus, oh-so-often do you hear discussions about the military-industrial complex and its major role in perpetuating war, by giving people the means to fight them.

But, I believe the discussion about it actually comes from a limited, Western perspective.

First off, the Western superpower (United States of America) and great powers (United Kingdom, France and Germany) are not the only places where weapons are produced on a major, Industrial scale. The sentiment that they are stems from Cold-War-and-beyond anti-Western propaganda, which abuses the Western exceptionalist mindset and intrinsically connects war with capitalism, even though modern capitalism arose in the 1800s, and war is a much older concept than that, and despite all the wars waged by anti-capitalists.

For example, no loyalist to the Chinese Communist Party has a right to call warmongering an exclusively Western or capitalist thing, as, out of the five deadliest wars in world history, three were Chinese civil wars.

Another example is how many militias, paramilitaries, guerillias and other militant non-state actors use Soviet weaponry. The Soviet Union was, after all, the place where you had more tanks than food.

This is something that upsets me in the Western discussion of warmongering:

Once again, viewing the world from a Western exceptionalist perspective, Westerners often somehow disregard the roles of non-state actors in the starting and perpetuating of wars.

People, just because they're not the strongest, doesn't mean they can't desire war, or are incapable of starting and perpetuating wars!

(Most non-state actors are actually proxies of state actors anyway)

This is, for example, also why I advocate for more shooter video games to use mercenaries as the enemy soldiers who the player can mow down at their leisure, as, in real life and modern times, becoming a mercenary is always a choice, and one indicative of nonexistent morality at that.

Since they're non-state actors, you don't hear much about them on Western news or in political discussions, but mercenaries are arguably more of 'War Merchants', people whose business is war, than Western arms companies.

The Western arms companies may be similarly immoral,

but the reality of their selling of weapons to all sides of any conflict they can contact is the same as with any other commodity in an age of international trade:

They sell to whoever wants to buy, and whoever they CAN sell to.

Technically, the international sale of, say, German-produced guns works the same way as that of German-produced cars.

I, for one, haven't heard anyone talk about the Volkswagen-BMW complex.

Many Western countries are also democratic, which means that the economy, and that includes arms companies, often has more of an influence on the government than that the government has an influence on the economy.

In russia or China, the opposite is true:

Guns and bombs are only produced, sold and used when the Dear and Very Democratic Dictator for Life says so.

Ultimately, a weapon may be a tool of destruction, but in and for itself, it is morally neutral.

The phrase "It's the guns that kill people" is only half true.

Being man-made tools of destruction, weapons only kill anything and anyone if they are used as such by a person.

Yes, there can be lethal accidents, but you also get those in environments with entirely peaceful tools. Often more so than with weapons, as peaceful tools are underestimated in their destructive capability.

And this leads to my whole point:

While some tools are, by design, more peaceful than others, they can always be used in a destructive way.

A hammer can be used to build homes, or to break a person's skull.

Nuclear fission can be harnessed to produce a ginormous explosion that kills tens of thousands, or to produce electricity to keep tens of thousands warm and safe.

I think we Westerners have enjoyed peace for such a long time that we have forgotten how inherently dangerous the world is, and how fragile peace is. So, we no longer appreciate it.

This isn't to advocate war, but to see war and weapons with more nuance.

I will leave you with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

„I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.“

[vacuouslyfalse]

(Inspired more or less by @raginrayguns posts on the purges)

Warning: very long, very grim.

There are three main atrocities that people naively lump together when talking about the awfulness of the Stalin years: collectivization/dekulakization, the famine typically referred to as the Holodomor, and the purges (or the Terror, or the Yezhovschina). In reality, each one lends itself to very different narratives about the Soviet government under Stalin.

Collectivization and dekulakization (technically separate policies but inseparable in my view) were enacted to accomplish a straightforward goal: break the back of the peasantry to pave the way for rapid industrialization. People disagree about how brutally and how competently they were put into action, but there's consensus that they were ugly, violent, and in the long term, successful. This lends itself nicely to both anticommunist and, for lack of a better word, "tankie" narratives about the USSR as a calculated totalitarian regime which flexed violent state power to accomplish its goals - they just disagree about whether or not that's good.

The Holodomor is a lot more fraught. A historically-bankrupt narrative about the famine being intentional continues to persist, a framing that makes sense when you consider how neatly that would fit into the narrative started by collectivization. But no evidence exists to support this, and it seems like the main thing the government did to make the famines worse was not sufficiently relax existing grain requisitions, which tells us little except that the USSR favored workers over peasants when push came to shove.

Finally, we arrive at the purges. I've taken two classes on the Stalin years, I've read two books about the purges specifically, and I've had long conversations with a professional historian who spent most of their career studying them, and I still feel like the more I learn about them the less I understand them. I can, however, establish a few baseline facts:

From 1936 to 1938, around 700,000 Soviet citizens were murdered by the state as a result of political charges - things like conspiracy to overthrow the state, wrecking/sabotage, and collaboration with foreign powers. As far as anyone can tell, none of these people were guilty of what they were accused of.

These killings cut across ethnic, class, and gender divides, and even top level party officials and military officers were killed. While there is a lot of debate as to what extent this hampered the USSR's preparations for WWII, I suspect it had a substantial impact, considering many killings were concentrated in the cities, especially in major factories.

And here's the one that really blows my mind: it seems for the most part that the NKVD (Soviet secret police) and the upper echelons of the party believed that these people were guilty. If this was an intentional attempt to consolidate power, the way they went about it makes no fucking sense at all. I can elaborate on this more in another post if anyone is interested.

So how could they believe that?

Some context: in the 1930s, Stalin and his supporters outflanked and eventually removed from power two major factions within the party: a left opposition led primarily by Trotsky, and a right opposition led primarily by Bukharin. This meant that at one point or another, a huge percentage of the party had at one point or another been in opposition to Stalin. That's a lot of people who have a reason to dislike the current regime, and keep in mind that the veterans of these parties were once professional revolutionaries who successfully overthrew a government.

There was also the Kirov assassination in 1934. Think "JFK assassination, but USSR" - he was a little lower-profile, but it was equally bizarre (read up on it! it's so strange!) and set both the party and the people on edge.

Then there is the the tragedy that is mass participation in the purges. The USSR was in the midst of aggressively industrializing, a project that meant basically everyone was poor and working in shit conditions. No one paid attention if your workplace safety standards meant somebody lost an arm every month because that was how it was everywhere. The unions were co-opted by the state, workers were banned from striking, if you complained that your workplace sucked no one gave a shit.

But what if when your coworker lost an arm, you accused your manager, an arrogant asshole that you despise, of wrecking? Well, now all the sudden everyone is paying attention (this trend started with a mine accident that led to a number of managers getting shot for wrecking). So suddenly the workers get involved.

Have a petty enmity? Denounce them. Have a political rival? Denounce them. Worried that you don't appear sufficiently "vigilant" and might get denounced for that? Denounce someone. And you could denounce them simply for having a relative that at one point was a wealthy peasant or supported Trotsky in 1924 - everyone was 'guilty' if you looked deeply enough.

Finally, the role of the NKVD must be considered, and specifically, the role of confessions induced by torture. Apparently these fucking assholes hadn't realized that if you ask someone leading questions and then hurt them, they will say whatever they think you want to get you to stop. Everyone confessed, and thus everyone was guilty, and the NKVD and the party appear to have taken this logic at face value.

After all, once you've killed a few thousand people, it's a little late to ask "what if all these people might have been innocent?"

So what narrative does this tell us about the USSR? There was no coherent policy goal here, no secret agenda being fulfilled. Just the senseless, highly organized application of violence in a society made extremely fragile by the tensions of the past decade.

There is no scenario in which it makes sense to have a secret police, or to take civilian trials out of the normal court system, or to allow coerced confessions, or to torture anyone.

[kythed]

circus mirrors & stereo hearts

sugawara koushi x reader

this one goes out to my new friend, @twat-101 :) it’s a bit long, but I hope you still like it ! sending lotsa love your way <3

synopsis: (y/n) is struggling with her mental health so her best friend suga-san invites her over to study. general chaos and dumbassery ensues.

warnings: some swearing, mentions of mental health struggles, suga’s tone deaf singing.

word count: 4,226

--

Koushi always kept his windows open. Always.

In the winter, this transformed his room into a tiny Antarctica, replete with stray snowflakes, but in the summer, it meant cool tradewinds cutting through the typically stifling heat, creating a little pocket of the ideal climate. You often found yourself there in these warmer months, perched on the corner of his bed, contently listening to him blithely gossip about his teammates or playing a giggly game of Connect Four rife with not so subtle cheating.

Today, a sunny August Saturday, was no different. Koushi sat cross legged on the carpet. Sprawled out across his pale blue comforter, which smelled of fresh linen and that familiar Old Spice he’d been wearing since the eighth grade, you listened to him recite a chapter from your history book, something about post World War II foreign policy. Struggling to remain attentive, however, you found yourself spiraling into those cheerless resignations of hopelessness that had been far too frequent for you lately.

“--which resulted in Europe’s economic recovery chiefly in terms of raw materials, food, and fuel. The Soviet Union soon attempted to replicate a similar plan but ultimately-- hey, (Y/N)?”

You blinked hard and sunk back into reality, turning onto your cheek to look Koushi in his big brown eyes full of rather matronly concern. “Hmm?”

“Do you know what we’re learning about right now?” he asked, sounding both amused and disapproving. A strand of grey fell in front of his face and he quickly blew it away, smiling slightly. “Because it seems like you’ve been zoning out for the last ten or so minutes. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, but Mr. Shishido specifically said this chapter was going to be on the test.”

“Uh… something about muzzer Roosia?” you joked with an exaggerated accent.

Koushi rolled his eyes and flicked your forehead. You yelped and glared at him reproachfully. “We were talking about the Marshall Plan. The United States’ recovery aid program for Western Europe after wartime devastation.”

“Right, right, I knew that,” you protested as Koushi tugged on your forearms and you toppled off the bed, nearly landing right on top of him. With a soft laugh, he extracted his limbs from yours and plopped his head into your lap like he used to when you were kids, resting beneath the boughs of that little oak tree in his backyard, listening to a choir of cicadas croon under a late afternoon sun. The ghost of a grin flitted over your face as you looked back on those halcyon days of your childhood. Usually Koushi’s mom would come out onto the porch with a couple of already-melting lemon popsicles in hand, and the two of you would scramble out of each other’s embrace and tear towards her, breathlessly racing for a priceless reward of sweet smiles and sticky hands.

What you wouldn’t give to go back to that time of gleeful oblivion, before your world became characterized by that all too persistent self-consciousness and excruciating anxiety. What you wouldn’t give to once again feel worthy of Koushi’s innocent adoration…

“--(Y/N)!”

For the second time today, you shook yourself awake. Koushi gazed up at you, brows furrowed. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“I was asking if you needed to take a little study break. Obviously, you do. I swear, your attention span gets shorter every day.” He pointed somewhere behind you. “Mind grabbing my phone? It’s on the bed.”

You leaned over as far as you could without disturbing Koushi’s position, head still nestled in your lap, and swept your hand over the covers before it bumped into his phone, which you promptly snatched and dropped onto his stomach. He gave a soft “oomph” at the impact before pulling up his Spotify and selecting a playlist, the cover of which was a selfie of the two of you at last year’s spring carnival. A blurred sakura tree provided the perfect backdrop for your smiling faces pressed cheek-to-cheek to fit in the frame. Sugar dusted the corners of Koushi’s mouth, the last trace of the powdered donut you’d shared right before.

“What’s that? I don’t think I’ve listened to that one before.” You reached for the phone, but Koushi held it out just out of reach as music began to play, batting your hand away. “I look awful in that picture; you could’ve chosen something a little more flattering.”

“Oh, shush. You looked pretty that day, wearing that blue sundress with the little flowers on the hem… blue really suits you, you know.” Koushi smiled fondly at his screen, and you blushed despite yourself. “It’s a compilation of all our songs. I listened to this a lot last summer when you were in France with your family for a month. Whenever I missed you. You were off climbing the Eiffel Tower or making croissants and I was lounging around here, bored out of my mind and wishing you were home so we could be bored together.”

“You sappy bastard,” you said, though you really felt quite touched. “I didn’t even realize we had a song.”

“Not just a song,” he corrected. “Songs. Plural. Most of the songs we’ve ever listened to together, I reckon. Anything that reminds me of you, I put on here.”

“Why in the world would you do that?” you asked, aghast at his effort.

Koushi laughed at your surprise. “You’re my best friend, (Y/N). And believe or not, you mean a lot to me. I just like remembering the stuff we’ve done together.”

You nodded slowly, letting your fingers rest on his forehead and gently play with his grey locks. His eyes closed as you settled into a brief, comfortable almost-silence, tainted only by the soft, muffled melody trickling from tiny phone speakers. You cocked your head. “What song is this?”

“You don’t remember?” Koushi asked, sounding almost offended. He turned the volume up a few notches and held the phone closer to your ear.

Let's Marvin Gaye and get it on

You got the healing that I want

Just like they say it in the song

Until the dawn, let's Marvin Gaye and get it on

“I don’t know if--” you cut off as it dawned on you. “Wait… no way. This isn’t…?”

“It is.” Koushi laughed as your face flushed a vivid crimson. “Uchimura’s party.”

Though embarrassed, you grinned, remembering that night. “The song that played at her twelfth birthday while we were in the closet during seven minutes in heaven.”

“We were way too young for that dumb game,” Koushi said with a smile, shaking his head. “God, I was so nervous. That was my first kiss, you know.”

“It was mine too,” you admitted. You remembered sitting on the carpeted floor of Uchimura’s rather cramped closet, knees touching, just barely able to see the outline of Koushi’s face illuminated by the smallest sliver of light shining through a crack in the door. He’d leaned forward, taking your hand in his own small clammy one. “It was really just a peck, though. It might not have counted.”

“It counted,” said Koushi firmly. “Whenever I get asked about my first kiss, I say it was ours. I say it was the best one I’ve ever had, too.”

You shook your head with a soft laugh. “Now, I know that’s a lie. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

“Neither did I,” agreed Koushi. He caught your eye, crinkling his nose cutely. “That’s what made it so sweet. It was innocent. I tasted your bubblegum chapstick on my lips afterwards.”

“Bubblegum chapstick, huh?” You rolled your eyes and poked him softly in the ribs. “I couldn’t look you straight in the eyes for like three weeks after that.”

“I remember. You kept running away whenever I tried to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not sure we would’ve even stayed friends if Ms. Miyato hadn’t partnered us up for the volcano project at the end of that month.” You recalled those afternoons spent in Koushi’s kitchen, newspapers covering every visible surface and a huge, paper-mache volcano resting on the dining table, splattered with orange and yellow paint and smelling strongly of Elmer’s glue and vinegar. Oftentimes, work sessions would dissolve into paint fights, staining your school uniforms with small, colorful hand prints.

“Nah,” said Koushi confidently. “I wouldn’t have let you go that easily.”

“Maybe you should’ve,” you said under your breath.

Koushi stared at you for a second, sighing. Then he reached up to grasp your hand, interlocking his fingers with yours and softly stroking his thumb across your palm. “You know, it was Uchimura’s eighteenth last weekend. You didn’t come.”

“Yeah. I had to study.” That was a lie. You just hadn’t thought anyone really wanted you there. Uchimura had been a friend of yours for years, but she had plenty of other friends to celebrate with. Probably didn’t even notice you weren’t there…

“She asked me where you were,” Koushi continued. “I said I didn’t know because you didn’t answer my texts that night.”

“Sorry,” you said quietly, avoiding eye contact. “Studying.”

“On a Friday night?” You didn’t answer, and Koushi squeezed your hand. “I had to choose Daichi for my charades partner… do you have any idea how shit he is at charades? He flopped on the ground and started convulsing, so I guessed ‘epilepsy.’ Guess what the word really was.”

“What?”

“Orgasm. The word was orgasm. You’d think he could just execute a simple pelvic thrust and make a face, but no, he had to go ahead and act like my great uncle Kaito when he had that heart attack at his ninety-fifth birthday last year.”

You cracked a small smile, imagining Daichi violently wiggling on the floor like a fish out of water. “Sounds like I missed out, then.”

“You really did,” said Koushi, eyes twinkling. He suddenly got solemn. “I missed you. Would’ve been a million times more fun with you there.”

“I doubt it.” You fiddled with the edge of your shirt, smile fading. “I can be a real killjoy sometimes.”

“Not to me,” said Koushi. “Whenever you walk into the room, suddenly that’s the only room I wanna be in.”

Your breath caught in your throat and you swallowed thickly. “Koushi… why are you telling me this?”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said simply. He took your hand again, the one that had been playing with his hair, and held it to his chest. You felt his heart beat erratically beneath your palm. “You’ve been avoiding all our friends in general.”

“That’s not true,” you protested, though your heart sank. He had noticed. You wished you didn’t have to drag him into all your problems. “I’ve just been busy.”

“Busy with what, (Y/N)? Homework? Our physics teacher came and talked to me at my locker after school, asking if you’ve been struggling with any personal issues, because apparently you haven’t been turning in your assignments.” Koushi glanced up at you. “It seems like you’ve just been locked away in your room whenever you’re not in class. Not doing work, not going out. Remember a couple weeks ago, when I asked if you wanted to go see that movie with me at the drive-in? You said you had a family dinner in town, but later I passed by on my bike and your bedroom light was on. And today, it took four separate phone calls before you finally picked up and I managed to invite you over… I’ve been worried.”

“Maybe I’m just changing,” you protested weakly. “That’s a thing that happens. People change.”

“I agree, you have been changing. Just not for the better.” Koushi squeezed your hand again, his skin warm on your own. “I haven’t seen you smile, really smile, for ages. You’re always faking these days. What’s going on?”

“I…” you trailed off, trying to think of some excuse. The last thing you wanted was for Koushi to see what was really going on inside your head.

“The truth, (Y/N).”

You relented, shoulders sagging. “Just been tired, I guess.”

“Tired of what?”

“Tired of…” Your eyes grew moist despite your best efforts and you fought to keep from choking on the sob rising up your throat.

“Tired of…?” he pressed on, eyebrow raised.

Your next words tumbled out in a rush. “Just tired of being me, okay? It’s like… it’s just like, whenever I look in the mirror… I don’t like what I see. I don’t like myself, so I don’t want to be me anymore. I’m so tired of it. And I feel like everyone else is, too. Everyone is tired of my shit, so I thought I’d just do you all a favor and disappear.”

Your words stunned Koushi into silence. He remained resting in your lap for a few long seconds before he felt something hot and wet roll down his cheek. A tear. But not his own.

He looked up just in time for another one of your tears to land on his face, right underneath his eye. Quickly, he sat up and tenderly cupped your face in his hands, gently brushing the tears away with his thumbs. “Oh, (Y/N)... c’mere. That’s such bullshit.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you hiccupped as he pulled you into his lap by your waist-- facing him-- and gingerly tucked your head into the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this. It’s gross, I know.”

“It’s not gross,” said Koushi, fiercely hugging you to his chest. “It’s much better than watching you try to pretend like you’re fine. I don’t care if your snot gets on my shirt-- that’s a small price to pay. So long as I can be there for you right now.”

You cried harder, immense guilt racking your body at his inexplicable kindness. “I’ve been treating you terribly these past few months, but you’re still so good to me. Goddamnit, Koushi. I don’t deserve you.”

Koushi pulled you back by the shoulders, narrowed eyes searching your face, though tears continued to stream down your cheeks. “(Y/N). You don’t have to earn my love.”

“I-- love?” you asked, eyes wide. You snatched a tissue from Koushi’s bedside table and blew your nose loudly.

“Yeah,” he said firmly, without missing a beat. “I said it. I love you. And don’t ask if I mean in a friend way or a girlfriend way, because the answer is neither. I love you like you’re the person I wanna spend the rest of my life with. I don’t care if that means as, like, your husband or just as your best friend. Whatever I can get, I’m happy with, because I love you like you’re a part of me. Unconditionally. I thought you knew that.”

“Please, don’t say that,” you sobbed, covering your face with your hands. “I’m not good enough for you. I’m really not.”

Koushi pulled your hands away so he could look you in the eye. “What don't you understand about the term ‘unconditional love’? It’s unconditional. There is literally nothing you nor anyone else can say or do to change that. Unconditional love is not a feeling, it’s a choice, and I’ve made that choice. I’ve had nearly two decades to think about it, so now I’m telling you I will love you no matter what. I always have, alright? This isn’t exactly how I wanted to say it, but it’s true.”

You stared at him, disbelieving. You hadn’t known he’d felt this way. Of course, you two had been partners-in-crime your entire lives, and you couldn’t count the number of times he’d materialized at your side as soon as you were in the slightest bit of trouble. Whenever you were a dollar short at the canteen, he’d stuff a five in your hand and push you towards the front of the line. That time you went camping with his family and you forgot your sleeping bag, he’d given you his and spent the night shivering. He always carried an extra pen for you because yours often inexplicably ran out of ink in the middle of a test. He’d been there for every crush, boyfriend, and breakup, cheering you on and drying your tears when the time came. He’d been there when your pet dog died and you planned a funeral in your backyard, complete with a little cardboard headstone, holding an umbrella above your head when it began to rain but you weren’t done mourning. He’d just always been there when you needed him.

You’d tried to be there for him, too, because, as you had begun to realize, his pain was your pain and vice versa. That time when you were six and he’d lost his favorite stuffed animal (a giraffe) it had felt like you’d lost yours too. That day in junior high when he fell out of the oak tree trying to retrieve a stray frisbee and broke his arm, you swore you felt the same pain in yours. Last year when he got dumped outside the gym on Valentine’s Day and you found him sitting in a corner, trying to hide the fact he’d obviously been crying-- you’d stayed late to crack stupid jokes and eat the chocolate he meant to give to his girlfriend, because he deserved a girl who would eat the damn chocolate. Not stomp on his heart and leave it to bleed. I love you like you’re a part of me. You understood.

“It’s okay to not be okay sometimes, but it’s not okay to bundle it all up and bury it deep inside when you have someone right next to you wanting to help you bear that burden.” Koushi’s voice shook just slightly. “It just… it hurts to see you like this, okay? (Y/N), if you love me back, then let me help you. Let me be there for you. Please.”

You were silent for a moment, staring into his pleading eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes.

Then you took a deep breath and started laughing through the tears. You were sure you looked insane, puffy eyes, red nose, and mascara running down your cheeks, but it didn’t matter. “I do. I love you, too. I love you. I didn’t know I loved you before, but now I do, because if you were torn away from me that heartbreak would probably kill me. No, it would definitely kill me. And it would hurt like a motherfucker while it did.”

Koushi let out the breath he’d been holding then, after a brief pause, began to laugh with you as you laced your arms around the back of your neck. “Oh, yeah? Well, losing you would probably hurt like a father-fucker to me.”

“Is that worse than a motherfucker?” you asked, giggling at the ridiculousness of it all. Here you were, bawling on the floor of your best friend’s room while you confessed your love to one another and cussed each other out at the same time.

“For sure. It’s a million times worse than a motherfucker. It’s like, if something hurting like a motherfucker is the equivalent of getting shot by a Nerf gun, something hurting like a fatherfucker probably feels like getting run over by a tank.” Koushi intertwined his fingers with yours yet again and smiled.

“You’re a dumbass,” you said, but you laughed anyways as Koushi looked proud of himself.

“I know,” he said softly, affectionately. “But I’m your dumbass.”

You sighed and shook your head. “I’d love you to be. But you could still do so much better than me--”

“Will you stop saying that, already?” Koushi took your face in his hand, stroking his thumb right beneath your eye. “You’re the most radiant person I’ve ever met. Notice how I didn’t say ‘beautiful’ because the word beautiful doesn’t even begin to cover it. Although you are that, too.”

“Oh, goodness. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-- you’re so sappy.”

Koushi rolled his eyes with a smile. “Yeah, I am. You like it though.”

“You caught me,” you said as he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. You leaned into it, savoring the warmth of his lips on your skin. “I do.”

“But really, (Y/N),” he said seriously. “It astounds me that you don’t realize that.”

“Don’t realize what?”

“That you’re cool! You’re so cool and fun and awesome. And a zillion other adjectives I could sit here and list out for hours. You’re the only person who can make me laugh when I cry, and you make the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted, and you’re a literal god at Mario Kart, and you’ve got the prettiest eyes I’ve ever had the privilege to look into.” You flushed as Koushi thought for a moment, chewing on his lip before his eyes widened. “It’s kinda like a circus mirror, I think.”

“What?” You furrowed your brow.

“The way you see yourself is like someone looking into one of those circus mirrors. It makes you look too tall, or really squished, or just bent out of shape in general. And if that was the only mirror you’d ever looked into, you’d probably think that ugly, distorted reflection is how you actually look in real life. You can’t see yourself for how amazing you really are-- but everyone else can.”

“Well, aren’t you just full of relevant analogies today?” you teased. A circus mirror. Now that was something new. You had to give Koushi credit for the comparison-- it actually did kind of make sense.

“What can I say?” he said, puffing out his chest. “I’m a poet.”

“So I guess that would make you my real mirror then?” you offered shyly. Koushi looked confused for a second. “If the way I see myself is supposedly ‘distorted,’ then you can reflect to me how I supposedly really am.”

“Oh, yes!” he said happily. “I’m the mirror. I like that. Quit talking like you don’t believe me, though. You’re incredible. A little thick-skulled sometimes, yes, but incredible nonetheless.”

“It’s going to be hard for me,” you said quietly, gently running a hand through his hair. “Really hard. I haven’t liked myself for a long time.”

“I know. I know. But someday, you’ll be able to understand what a beautiful human being you are. I’m sure of it. I need you to promise you won’t give up until that happens.”

He held out his pinky for a pinky swear, something you two did frequently as children. You smiled and laced your pinky with his. “Alright. I promise.”

“Good.” Koushi stood up, brushed the wrinkles from his pants, and offered you his hand. You took it and he pulled you up. “Listen. Do you remember this song?”

His little playlist had been playing this entire time. You hadn’t noticed. You strained to catch the lyrics. “Turn it up a little, I can’t quite hear.”

...a stereo

It beats for you, so listen close

Hear my thoughts in every note

“Koushi.” A slow smile spread across your face. “Tell me this isn’t Stereo Hearts.”

“Oh, this is Stereo Hearts alright!” he responded gleefully. He took your hand and spun you around like a ballroom dancer, catching you before you tripped over his bedside table. “You remember when we--”

“When we performed it at the junior high talent show and got booed off the stage?” You giggled, remembering that awful night that was somehow hilarious in retrospect. “I still have nightmares about that.”

Koushi continued to swing you around in some sort of clumsy dance, pulling you this way and that while you laughed wildly. “It’s ‘cause you were such a shit singer.”

You gasped in mock offense. “No way! You’re a much worse singer than I am. At least I can carry a tune.”

Koushi just rolled his eyes and grabbed a hairbrush from his shelf, using it like a microphone. He sat you down on the edge of the bed and began to serenade you in his terrible, tone-deaf manner.

Make me your radio

Turn me up when you feel low

This melody was meant for you

Just sing along to my stereo

“God, you really do suck at this,” you said, but he just smiled and kept singing. You had to admit, it was sweet. As silly as the memory associated with the song was, it remained a nostalgic favorite even now. You had to join in a few times, just for memory’s sake.

I only pray you never leave me behind

Because good music can be so hard to find

Koushi sat down next to you and wound one arm around your waist, leaning close.

I take your hand and pull it closer to mine

Thought love was dead, but now you're changing my mind

You turned and leaned in too, nearly touching noses.

“Hey,” he said in an almost whisper. “(Y/N) (L/N), I love you.”

“Hey,” you whispered back, gaze flitting down to his lips and back up again. “I love you, too, you sappy bastard.”

...so sing along to my stereo

“I know.” He closed the remaining inch of distance. Your hand tangled itself in his hair while his tugged your body a little closer.

The kiss was almost as good as the one in Uchimura’s closet all those years ago. Almost.

[newstfionline]

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Arab spacecraft enters orbit around Mars in historic flight (AP) A spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates swung into orbit around Mars on Tuesday in a triumph for the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission. Ground controllers at the UAE’s space center in Dubai rose to their feet and broke into applause when word came that the craft, called Amal, Arabic for Hope, had reached the end of its seven-month, 300-million-mile journey and had begun circling the red planet, where it will gather data on Mars’ atmosphere. The orbiter fired its main engines for 27 minutes in an intricate, high-stakes maneuver that slowed the craft enough for it to be captured by Mars’ gravity.

Chinese spacecraft enters Mars’ orbit, joining Arab ship (AP) A Chinese spacecraft went into orbit around Mars on Wednesday on an expedition to land a rover on the surface and scout for signs of ancient life, authorities announced in a landmark step in the country’s most ambitious deep-space mission yet. China’s space agency said the five-ton combination orbiter and rover fired its engine to reduce its speed, allowing it to be captured by Mars’ gravity. If all goes as planned, the rover will separate from the spacecraft in a few months and touch down safely on Mars, making China only the second nation to pull off such a feat. The rover, a solar-powered vehicle about the size of a golf cart, will collect data on underground water and look for evidence that the planet may have once harbored microscopic life. Landing a spacecraft on Mars is notoriously difficult. Smashed Russian and European spacecraft litter the landscape along with a failed U.S. lander.

World’s second-oldest person survives COVID-19 at age 116 (AP) A 116-year-old French nun who is believed to be the world’s second-oldest person has survived COVID-19 and is looking forward to celebrating her 117th birthday on Thursday. The Gerontology Research Group, which validates details of people thought to be 110 or older, lists Frenchwoman Lucile Randon—Sister André’s birth name—as the second-oldest known living person in the world. French media report that Sister André tested positive for the virus in mid-January in the southern French city of Toulon. But just three weeks later, the nun is considered recovered. “I didn’t even realize I had it,” she told French newspaper Var-Matin.

Canada beckons again for some Hong Kongers (Reuters) A second generation of Hong Kongers is heading to Canada for refuge from political uncertainty, but unlike their parents in the 1980s and 1990s, this time seems for good. Cities such as Vancouver and Toronto are a magnet for those looking to escape as China tightens its grip on the territory of 7.5 million people. Some 300,000 already have Canadian citizenship after many families initially moved there ahead of Hong Kong’s return from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Back then, many families separated, with one parent staying in Hong Kong for work, usually fathers who were dubbed “astronauts” as they soared through the sky on visits. Among those who went to Canada, many eventually returned, lured by the booming economy and what still seemed to be a relatively free environment. With recent pro-democracy protests virtually snuffed out and Beijing enshrining control last year via a national security law, bags are being packed once more. “Staying in Hong Kong is not an option anymore,” said Maria Law, 39, who moved to Vancouver last year with her two girls ahead of her husband. “I’d rather have a free future for my daughters instead of making money while they have to keep their mouths shut.”

US pandemic surge weakens (WSJ) The most severe surge of the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. has weakened significantly, according to key metrics, though public-health experts and epidemiologists urge caution, given the spread of highly contagious new variants. Newly reported cases have dropped 56% over the past month, based on a seven-day average, marking a significantly steeper fall than the U.S. saw after the spring and summer surges. Hospitalizations have declined 38% since Jan 6. The seven-day average of Covid-19 tests returning positive fell over the past week to 6.93%, the lowest since Oct. 31.

Poll: A third of US adults skeptical of COVID shots (AP) About 1 in 3 Americans say they definitely or probably won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new poll that some experts say is discouraging news if the U.S. hopes to achieve herd immunity and vanquish the outbreak. The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that while 67% of Americans plan to get vaccinated or have already done so, 15% are certain they won’t and 17% say probably not. Many expressed doubts about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. The poll suggests that substantial skepticism persists more than a month and a half into a U.S. vaccination drive that has encountered few if any serious side effects. It found that resistance runs higher among younger people, people without college degrees, Black Americans and Republicans. Of those who said they definitely will not get the vaccine, 65% cited worries about side effects, despite the shots’ safety record over the past months. About the same percentage said they don’t trust COVID-19 vaccines. And 38% said they don’t believe they need a vaccine, with a similar share saying that they don’t know if a COVID-19 vaccine will work and that they don’t trust the government.

Facebook to temporarily reduce political content for some users (Reuters) Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it would temporarily reduce political content appearing on New Feeds for some users in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia this week and in the United States within the coming weeks. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in January that he wanted to “turn down the temperature” of political conversations on the social networking site because “people don’t want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services.” The world’s largest social network, which has received flack for not doing enough to remove hateful content from the platform, last month said it would stop recommending civic and political groups to users. Reducing the frequency of political content will mark initials steps to explore different ways to rank such content in people’s feeds using different signals. Facebook will exempt content from official government agencies and services, as well as COVID-19 information from health organizations from the drill.

For Hungary’s poor it’s wood or food (Reuters) Zoltan Berki usually wakes up before dawn, as his five small children sleep next door, to feed the old iron furnace that stands in a wall cavity to warm up both rooms. This is the only part of his house that he can afford to heat during winter. Come rain or shine, Berki, a stocky 28-year-old Roma man, cycles an hour to work to save on the bus fare, so he is up anyway. But he also has to burn some materials before daylight, to conceal the thick black smoke that billows from his chimney when he uses plastic or rubber. Such household pollution is illegal in Hungary, including in this town near the Slovakian border. People do it anyway. “Firewood is expensive,” Berki said one recent afternoon, as his family played around him, crammed into a small room. “Either I buy wood or food. So I go to the forest, or the junkyard, and if we find plastic or rubber we burn that.” Scavenging for material to burn is common for the poorest people in the small, run-down town of Sajonemeti and those nearby, among the most destitute communities in Europe since Communist-era heavy industry vanished 30 years ago, leaving thousands jobless.

Russia’s vaccine (Washington Post) Not long ago, talk of the Russian-made coronavirus vaccine provoked mockery. “There’s no way in hell the U.S. tries this on monkeys, let alone people,” a Trump administration official told CNN in August, referring to initial reports about Russia’s development of the Sputnik V drug—which bypassed traditional steps in testing before its release. Even at home, where a history of political opacity and bureaucratic incompetence has left a lingering distrust of authority, many ordinary Russians shied away from getting the jab once it was made available to the public in December. But now, Sputnik V—named after the world’s first satellite that saw the Soviets initially outpace the Americans in the space race—is starting to look like it could be a global success story. It got a boost last week after the respected British medical journal the Lancet published a peer-reviewed paper that found the vaccine had 91.6 percent efficacy 21 days after the first shot and 91.8 percent for those over 60 years old, placing it on par with the celebrated Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Sputnik V is considerably cheaper than its Western competitors and does not require the same sort of ultracold storage infrastructure that would complicate distribution of the Pfizer vaccine in much of the developing world. “It does say something about the quality and integrity of the scientific enterprise within Russia, which a lot of people disparage or dismiss as decayed and obsolete and underfinanced and underpowered,” said Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Russia detains Jehovah’s Witnesses, searches properties in new criminal case (Reuters) Russian law enforcement detained a number of Jehovah’s Witnesses and conducted searches at 16 different addresses in Moscow on Wednesday as part of a new criminal investigation against the group, state investigators said. The Investigative Committee, which handles probes into major crimes, said the people had been detained for organising and taking part in the activities of a banned religious group. It said they had met in a flat in northern Moscow and studied the teachings of the religion despite being aware of the ban on the group’s activities. Russia’s Supreme Court branded the Jehovah’s Witnesses an “extremist” organisation in 2017 and ordered it to disband. Since then the authorities have detained dozens of Jehovah’s Witnesses and convicted them on extremism charges.

What quarantine is like in Olympic-host Japan (AP) What’s it like traveling to Japan, six months ahead of the Olympics? Almost impossible, unless you’re a Japanese national or a foreigner with resident status. A state of emergency for a large part of the country means that even those special cases who are allowed in have to take multiple coronavirus tests and stay holed up in quarantine. And what could the entry process be like for thousands of Olympic athletes scheduled to show up ahead of the July games? Plans now call for the athletes to be tested 72 hours before they leave home; then again when they arrive, and then frequently when they are closed off in a “bubble” in the Athletes’ Village alongside Tokyo Bay. All athletes are being asked to arrive only five days before their first competition and leave two days after. They are being told there will be no tourism and little social contact—even in the Athletes’ Village. These will be an Olympics like no other.

Myanmar protesters back on streets despite police violence (AP) Crowds demonstrating against the military takeover in Myanmar again defied a ban on protests Wednesday, even after security forces ratcheted up the use of force against them and raided the headquarters of the political party of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Fresh protests were reported in Yangon and Mandalay, the country’s two biggest cities, as well as the capital Naypyitaw and elsewhere. The growing protests and the junta’s latest raid suggest there is little room for reconciliation. The military, which held power directly for five decades after a 1962 coup, used deadly force to quash a massive 1988 uprising and a 2007 revolt led by Buddhist monks. In Naypyitaw and Mandalay on Tuesday, police sprayed water cannons and fired warning shots to try to clear away protesters. In Naypyitaw, they shot rubber bullets and apparently live rounds, wounding a woman protester.

More on COVID-19 (Worldcrunch) Ghana parliament shuts down over outbreak that leaves 17 MPs and 151 support staff ill. The U.K. releases new quarantine guidelines that includes possible £10,000 fine or 10 years in prison for unauthorized travelers. South Africa cuts distribution of AstraZeneca after research shows its lack of efficacy on the South African variant. Healthcare workers in Bolivia go on strike to demand stricter lockdown measures, facing an average of 1,000 daily COVID-19 deaths.

Ultrawealthy givers (AP) As the world grappled with COVID-19, a recession and a racial reckoning, the ultrawealthy gave to a broader set of causes than ever before—bestowing multimillion-dollar gifts on food pantries, historically Black colleges and universities and organizations that serve the poor and the homeless, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual rankings of the 50 Americans who gave the most to charity last year. “When I look at the events of the last year, there was an awakening for the philanthropic sector,” says Nick Tedesco, president of the National Center for Family Philanthropy. “Donors supported community-led efforts of recovery and resiliency, particularly those led by people of color.” Giving experts say they think the trend toward broader giving is likely to persist. “I don’t think this approach is just a 12-month moment that started with COVID and continued following George Floyd and is going to recede,” says Melissa Berman, president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which counsels donors around the world. “There has been change building among private donors.”

[fapangel]

You've mentioned "The Big One" with China a few times now. Mind giving us your back-of-the-dust-jacket summary of what you think's gonna happen?

Short version: China gets their assholes kicked square. 

Long version: China knows they can’t possibly prevail in an all-out, knock-out brawl, but they do think they can bloody our noses bad enough to make us think twice about sticking it into “their” backyard. Imperial Japan thought that way too -  and back then, there was actually a good possibility they were right - but then they cocked it up by kicking us in the balls without provocation. Then we fucking crushed them.

America’s comparative power versus China is far greater than it was versus Imperial Japan in 1941. We’re also the end-product of a fifty-year long Cold War in which the name of the game was expanding one’s hegemony over as much of the globe as possible, through every and all means possible, which has resulted in a vast network of military bases, regional alliances and diplomatic clout that look our 1941 strength look pathetic by comparison. In 1941 it was still mostly MONROE DOCTRINE GET OUT OF MY HEMISPHERE REEEE, as evidenced by the very strong isolationist sentiment arguing against involvement in WWII. Post WWII, it was “if you don’t send the CIA in to spy, meddle and murder, you get Soviet SRBMs in Cuba, checkmate, good night, RIP America.” For five decades it was a matter of life and death to be the biggest swinging dick in as much of the world as possible - and now that Putin’s restarted the Cold War and terrorism (which is a psychological/propaganda war as much as anything else) is the second-biggest threat, that swinging-dick philosophy is once again relevant. That’s on top of it being ingrained in both American and international views of world affairs. 

That’s the fancy way of saying that if they bloody our nose - or attack Taiwan, or Japan, or the Philippines, or anyone else that has asked for and traditionally received our protection, the American public will treat it very much like Pearl Harbor. Even if they manage to sink the 7th fleet’s carrier in Yokosuka - especially if they manage that - it’s only going to lead to a hardened conviction to see America’s superpower status affirmed, and that sense of security returned - and the only way to do that would be to chew up the entire Chinese armed forces and shit them out. 

And we absolutely can do it. We have more carriers in reserve, at dock, than most nations have ever built. We can cross the largest ocean on earth and kick in their shit and it’s all they can do just to pose a credible threat to us in their own backyard. America is not someone to fuck with lightly. But they will fuck with us. There’s two reasons for that. 

The first is the nuclear deterrent. See, if you’re a non-nuclear nation, and you wind up and kick America in the balls - say, by blowing up two skyscrapers in New York - America shows up at your door, sits on your head, and shits down your throat nonstop forever. And I do mean fucking forever - not only do they keep your clay, (Okinawa, South Korea, Guantanamo Bay,) but they can singlehandedly resign your country to decades of miserable, grueling poverty (Cuba, North Korea, Iran, etc.) because you do not lightly fuck with the United States. You do not go to America. America comes to you. And sometimes they do it just because you pissed them off one too many times. If you are the leader of Fuckistan, discussing the possibility of some light-to-moderate fuckery with the US and/or their allies or interests, you - and everyone else in the room - knows that this might well end with your head popping off at the end of a hangman’s rope, like Saddam and/or being sodomized before summary execution after being pulled out of a spider hole, like Ghaddafi. You do not lightly fuck with the United States. 

Unless you have nukes. Because the entire point of nukes are to guarantee a nation’s existential survival - “destroy us, and we take you down with us.” With the possibility of being made very fucking dead off the table, all sorts of gambles become a lot more palpable. Especially if you have some economic clout to weather sanctions. Look at fucking Iran - not nearly the economic clout of China, but as hard as sanctions have been on them, they have persisted in their pursuit of WMD and are still playing fucking games after the “deal,” because having nukes will give them a much freer hand. So imagine how China, with their economy, evaluates the risks. 

Second is psychology. I’ve already explained why American Hegemony is so important to the United States that we’ll fight a war to defend it - while the renewed strategic importance is a significant factor, it owes even more to the psychology of five decades of practicing it as a matter of life-or-death. The Cold War was a prolonged dogfight, i.e. a grueling battle where winning the battle for position is everything, and weapons release is a final formality. And since America - arguably the most liberal nation on earth - formed the hegemonic core of pretty much the entire “free world” against a union of oppressive, Orwellian police state hellholes, it played right into the Good Versus Evil storyline, a concept so natural to humans that it features in most of our stories for as long as we’ve been telling them. 

Now get this - China also has a Righteous Empire narrative, but they’ve had it for longer than America has existed as a nation, and they don’t need any of that Good Versus Evil, Leader of the Free World bullshit to justify it, either. Unlike Europe, which has been one long bar brawl for most of history, China’s been like an Irish-Catholic family - always beating the shit out of each other, but still a family. There’s an ethnic, cultural, and ideological homogeneity to China that you just don’t find in the West. The “Holy Roman Empire” was considered to be a good fuckin giggle (m8) by the people who lived under it, even - China was much different. 

Look at you, Mr. White Dude reading this - you’re used to being Western, comfortable and confident in being First World, as opposed to those poor motherfuckers in Bumfuckistan who still herd fucking cattle like they’re living in 750 AD. It’s a simple matter of fact that you, and your culture, run the fucking world because you were the leader in science, math, and pretty much everything. YOU A WINNAR. It’s not a matter of pride - it’s just how it is. 

That’s how China views itself - except moreso, because besides being a cultural, scientific and technological powerhouse just as big and bad as the West for most of history, they were also an actual cohesive Empire for the most part. They view China as the Center of the World, and the current world is just The Empire regaining its rightful ascendancy over everyone else. With a generous side helping of IMPERIALISTS GET OUT REEEE, of course. They’re similar to Russia in this regard - Russia is also a massive nation who’s natural resources, size and relative cultural/ethnic homogeneity have always made it an inevitable superpower - but China has an Imperial history - and grudges - graven much deeper. And unlike Russia, they’re in an economic position to do something about it. 

This Earth ain’t big enough for two superpowers - never has been, never will be. Only so many dicks can get swung around in the South China Sea, and only for so long before they collide and the jousting match begins. (No homo.) The first reason (nuclear deterrent/homeland safe from Ultimate Defeat) is like the second in that it’s shared with the United States, you’ll note. It’s the classic unstoppable force meets immovable object. 

It’s going to be a mess. 

[dcnativegal]

Fire

Originally, I wrote about fire in July. It’s now September, and fire season in Oregon got so much worse. The fire called Eagle Creek was started by giggling 15 year  throwing firecrackers into a dry patch in the Columbia River Gorge: it became Oregon’s second largest fire, second only to the Chetco Fire on the southern western coast. Since the Eagle Creek Fire is close to Portland, and Multnomah Falls, it became national news, and maybe also because it was started by giggling teenagers.

I’m used to smog and fog on the east coast, but not smoke all summer and everywhere. Breathing smoke, smelling wood fire, has become a normal thing. I wondered if this is unusual and natives of Eastern Oregon tell me that it surely is. Apparently all the rain and snow over the winter encouraged a great growth of grass, referred to as fuel in fire lingo.

 Today is Sunday, September 9, 2017, and it feels as though the planet is having convulsions, tossing about its human parasitic invaders. Hurricane Irma is the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever, and it’s about to slam into Florida, after flattening Caribbean Islands. The biggest evacuation of that state, ever. Irma was preceded by Harvey, which basically drowned most of Houston, the USA’s 4th largest city. There was an earthquake, over 8 on the scale, that Clara felt in Guatemala, off the coast of Mexico, that hasn’t killed the huge number in the thousands that the earthquake caused 20 years ago there. But it’s bad. First rescue, then salvage.

And then there’s fire. Everywhere in the west, from Canada south to Utah. A flame.

From July:

On Saturday, July 8, a group of visitors from the wet part west of the Cascades was shooting some explosive, for fun, and set off a wildfire. This in the town of Summer Lake, just north of Paisley and south of Christmas Valley and Silver Lake. I’d just driven past that area 2 hours before the fire on my way west. First it was 600 acres, then 3,000, and finally, 6,000. As of July 14, it was 90% contained. Unlike hurricanes, there isn’t a list of names that one runs through to name it. It’s based on location. This was the Ana Fire, named after a reservoir.

Fire is not something I’ve grown up with as a persistent danger. A nuclear bomb landing on the Nation’s Capital was an abstraction and pretty scary to contemplate, but a decimated DC was only an idea, until 9/11 when a plane hit the Pentagon and another plane was unaccounted for before the passengers made it crash in Pennsylvania, killing themselves and the hijackers, while saving however many DC residents and tourists. Fire is an annual fear. A daily thing to prevent in the summer months. We, the fine people of Lake County, know what to do and what not to do. Don’t idle your engine over tall grass. Don’t burn trash until it’s officially okay to do that. Don’t pitch a cigarette anywhere. Campfire? Ha!

But then there are two kinds of knuckleheads. The kind that shoot explosives for sport, in the Oregon Outback, when they think they’re still somehow in the soggy Western part of the state. The other kind is the arsonist. Last summer’s fire that nearly consumed Paisley was set intentionally. That fire is called the Withers Fire, named after the family who owns the land it was set on, one of the long-resident, stalwart families of ranchers in Lake County. That knucklehead has been identified, but apparently there was some inter-agency foolishness, and someone went on vacation after securing some evidence, and now there’s no way to indict the dude. The Western Oregon knuckleheads are known, and although they did not intentionally cause the Ana Fire, they are liable. Financially, they are screwed.

I watched a 90-minute video of a community meeting that the firefighting agencies put together. I was fascinated, and will continue to be slightly obsessed with the whole matter of fire, now that I am in the line of it, so to speak. A woman from some agency ran the meeting, introduced all the people, mostly men, from many agencies. I will get familiar with them all over time. The designation of how serious a fire it was, who fought what when, the airplanes and helicopters, the hotshot firefighters, the cause and the legal repercussions, the backburning, all of it was gone over. A woman who sounded like a reporter asked questions to get it all down correctly on paper. There was scattered applause for the fine work that was done, with no loss of human life; only a shack and a hunting cabin burned. Now instead of watching Russian car crashes on youtube, or pimples being popped in a sterile environment, I can watch videos of fire, firefighting, and community meetings. (My actual youtube obsession is knitting and crochet techniques. Truly. I must be a menopausal chubby woman. Indeed, I am. They are riveting. Back to fire.)

It is a sad sight to drive by and see perky houses intact, in a sea of blackened, denuded land.

I am also learning to associate something that was very pleasant and a great relief in DC--the summer thunderstorm—with fire. In Paisley, a thunderstorm means lightning strikes, and thus, lots of little fires that can turn into big ones. There are several fires in Lake and Klamath counties right now, including one near enough to Tank Springs that Valerie drove up there to keep an eye out for her beloved family plot up there, and watch the firefighters. All is apparently safe, for now. I have to associate thunder and lightning with fire and possible devastation. This is a world class bummer, I can tell you. I wonder if I’ll get used to that.

Having lived in Washington DC for 56 years, I shared with all the residents the same kind of primal fear, of getting nuked by the Soviet Union. Until the Soviet Union was no more. And then it was ‘terrorism’. And the scary possibility of attack came true on September 11, 2001. I was at work, staring at the Washington Post web site, procrastinating, when I saw the very odd picture of a plane pointing toward the World Trade Center and about to hit it. Within minutes, the entire staff was watching television. Shortly after both planes hit New York, the one plane hit at the Pentagon. I got through to my then husband, who went to get the children from their elementary school that was exactly 12 blocks from the Capitol building. He scooped up some other kids from our neighborhood after reaching their parents, and held a kind of camp. I told him not to let them watch TV. In downtown DC there were a lot of sirens, and rumors about truck bombs at the State Department 12 blocks from us. The White House and Congress was evacuating to an undisclosed location.  My job’s office location was 6 blocks from the White House. We heard about the fourth plane and knew it was headed for either the Capitol building or the White House. We were all relieved to hear it had crashed in Pennsylvania because it was indeed pointed toward D.C.: I am eternally grateful to those passengers, who would have died wherever they crashed, but saved a big swath of the nation’s capital by going down in a rural area instead, not killing anyone but themselves. And the Saudi Arabian hijackers.

Eventually, I took the subway home, although I could have walked the 4 miles. The Metro was deserted by 3pm. It had been a devastating day: all sense of security and predictability blown away by the planes.

Fire season is all summer long, every summer. I now know how to keep track of fires on which web sites. I know what that yellowish haze means: smoke. I know that the most up to date information for Paisley can be found on our virtual community bulletin board called “For Sale in Paisley.”  You can buy a horse, a truck, cowboy boots, and second-hand clothes. You’ll also find information about stray dogs, weird weather, home games at the school gym, which internet companies are having trouble, and which fires are burning nearby.  

I will get used to this.

And I know what I’ll try to rescue: Val will take care of her stuff.

·     I’ll get my cat and cat food and litter.

·     My journals, kept continuously since college, which fill a trunk. They are kind of heavy. So only if I can.

·     My wallet. Phone, computer, chargers, c-pap machine. All my medicines. There are a lot of them.

·     A backpack full of jars of apple sauce and protein bars. A big water bottle.

·     My kids’ dad got all the photo albums, and that’s really fine, they are for our children. I have a couple with pictures of my ancestors. I can fit them all into a suitcase.

·     And my latest knitting projects. My needles and hooks.

·     Lots of size 11 underwear. I’m a big girl, and I need my big girl panties. Two pants, tee shirts, a sweatshirt. Since it is summer I’d need to high tail it, don’t need much. One pair of sneakers, 6 pairs of socks.

·     Would I have the luxury to be this selective? Beats me.

 My safety is tied up in my fellow Paisley residents, and I trust them. We will survive whatever befalls.

"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."                          

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ

[kidicarus13]

Ares Mission Journal, Astronaut Philip Lester

Summary: The Phan NASA AU that we’ve all been waiting for. Don’t tell me that you haven’t been waiting your whole life for this, because lets be honest, you’d be lying to yourself.

Word Count: 23,324

Warnings: Lots of pain and fluff and angst, the lovely slow burn angst so strap yourself in for that lads.

A/N: I actually originally wrote this for my astronomy final project (minus the swearing and I changed the names around so my astronomy teacher didn’t look up the people’s names and discover that I’m writing about actual people). Yes, I did write gay fanfiction and turn it into my forty-five year old male astronomy teacher with a wife. But he probably enjoyed it, honestly. Lots of inspiration from @mangothatismelancholy​‘s lovely story Misfit on Wattpad (go read it like seriously it’s won a WATTY it’s so fucking amazing please go read it).

This fic is also on wattpad exactly the same, if you wanna check it out!

Ares Mission Journal, Astronaut Philip Lester

March 23rd, 2037

They say that in life you never completely get what you want.

They say that there’s always a point where you just can’t do anything anymore, where there’s that final obstacle you will never make it over, that there is always someone better than you.

Throughout my entire life I’d chosen to ignore this outlook on life where you always assume the worst. Because if you always assume the worst thing will happen then how do you ever get the motivation to try in the first place?

This was my mindset when I applied to be an astronaut on the Ares Missions.

But people all around me, even my closest family and friends told me that it was unreasonable, that I shouldn’t get my hopes up and I should find something else to do for when I inevitably get rejected. So many people told me this, that I actually started to believe it.

But then I got the letter back from NASA.

And I’d gotten accepted to be one of the astronauts on the Ares mission.

To say that I freaked out is an understatement, really. I was so ecstatic and excited and relieved that all of my hard work and all of those long years at college had finally paid off in the best way possible. Out of millions and millions of people that applied, somehow I was one of the five selected. One of the five.

And I’ve been given the job of recording everything that happens on this mission--the training, the launch, the flight, Mars, and the departure from Mars. It’s a really important job, considering what I’m writing could end up published in newspapers and scientific articles for future generations. But no pressure (nose pressure), right?

So far I’ve heard absolutely nothing about any of the other astronauts on my team, as we are not allowed to post online that we’ve gotten accepted. I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow (our first day of training) to meet the rest of the crew. Honestly, I’m somewhere between excited and terrified to meet them. I mean, we’ll be spending the next three and a half years together, which would be a very long time if we all ended up not being able to stand each other. But just like everything else I’ve done in my life, I’m looking at this in the best way possible. NASA most likely chose people that would get along exceedingly and have traits that complemented each other so that we would work together stupendously on Mars under high-pressure and tense situations.

Who knows, maybe I’ll be meeting my four new best friends tomorrow, if NASA really did choose people in that fashion. Maybe I’ll even meet the person I’m meant to be with and we’ll fall in--no.

No, that’s absolutely crazy. Forget I ever even mentioned the whole thing. I’ll record how well everything ends up going tomorrow after the first day of training.

March 24th, 2037

I just want to reiterate my thanks to NASA for giving me this experience. Walking into the headquarters of NASA today was the most surreal thing that has ever happened to me. Just taking a step inside, watching everyone turn to me and look at me with respect, seeing the spaceship I’ll end up leaving in soon in the process of construction.

Someone needed to pinch me, because honestly, none of it felt like it could possibly be real.

And the other members of the crew were all absolutely amazing. All of us are so different yet weirdly compatible as a group (which, once again, was probably NASA’s intention). Well . . . almost. I’m sure we’ll get there soon.

The first crew member I met was Daniel Howell. From what I could gather about him, he’s calm and cool and collected, all of the time. I assume that he won’t crack under pressure (at least not noticeably), so if for any reason we get into a bad situation, he’ll help us pull through it. But on the downside, he seems to struggle with caring about people. All of us were sat in a circle, and I turned and asked him a single question.

“So, how are you? Excited for the upcoming training?” I asked cheerfully, plastering a huge smile on my face (which wasn’t hard, considering I was already bursting with happiness and bubbliness). But as a smile formed on my face, a frown appeared on his.

“Look, I know we’re both on this mission together, and you’re really excited, but . . .” he trailed off, and it looked like maybe, just for a second his eyes flickered warmly towards me. But just like a lighter, as soon as his eyes brightened, they fizzled out.

“But . . .?” I questioned, leaning my head forward in curiosity.

“I think it would be best if we only talked when absolutely necessary, Phillip.” By now everyone else in the room had turned to stare at us.

“W-what? Why?” I stuttered. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

Dan sighed, almost looking guilty--but not quite. “Philip.”

“It’s Phil, actually,” I corrected before I could stop myself.

“Phil, sorry. Look, we’re here to get to Mars, that doesn’t mean we have to be best friends,” he stated flatly.

“W . . .” I trailed off. Without a second glance back towards me, Dan stood up and pulled his over to a corner where he proceeded to get on his phone and ignore us.

One of the other three guys, Tyler, who’d been staring at me in shock for the past five minutes walked over to me and unceremoniously collapsed in a chair beside me.

“What an ass, huh?” he spectated, gesturing over at Dan.

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” I muttered, looking down at the carpeted ground.

“Hey, don’t let him get to you, alright?” Tyler said, playfully punching my shoulder. “Anyways, this is Anthony,” he pointed to a guy with dark brown hair and brown eyes (nothing like Dan’s eyes, though), which were squinting in distaste at the piece of paper he was scribbling on. “He’s clearly the smart one out of all of us. And that’s Connor over there, he’ll be the communicator between us and Earth.” I glanced over at Connor, who looked up from his computer for a moment before returning to typing at the speed of light. “You’ve already met Dan, obviously,” Tyler said, turning to scoff in his direction. Dan was hunched over in his chair over his phone, bent over just enough that his dark chocolate brown fringe fell down to cover his hazel eyes. His whole body was tense, and he seemed to be trying to draw himself in on himself to get as small as he physically could. Most likely he just heard Tyler talking about him and got flustered. But why? If he didn’t want to be friends with any of us, why did he seem to care about Tyler’s opinions of him?

Unless maybe . . . he does care, and he was lying when he said he didn’t want to be friends with us.

And that’s when I made the internal decision that no matter what, regardless of anything Dan says, I’m going to become his best friend, and I’m going to find out why he doesn’t think he can let anyone in his life.

And so I made this promise to myself, in the middle of a NASA conference room, with Tyler talking a mile a minute next to me about his entire life story. Even if it would put me through pain, I was still determined to get to know him.

April 18th, 2037

Today is the last day before we leave. Our last day on Earth before we’re shot into space in a piece of metal that may or may not explode.

For these past few weeks we’ve been training nonstop to be prepared for the strange conditions on Mars (if you’d wish to read a full in-depth long journal about all of training we did and how it affected us, then go read that document. However, this particular journal log will be dedicated to how us as a group gets along and our interactions on Mars, as well as a sort of “personal diary” for me to write down my favorite experiences of the trip). But in these weeks, I still haven’t made any progress with Dan. The rest of the group keep telling me to just let it be, let him be the silent, resilient, emotionless member of our group that can bench press 250 pounds (seriously, I’m not joking). I know that somewhere inside of him, a part of him is screaming, begging and desperately craving to show emotion, to have a friend. And so I refuse to give up, no matter how insane people tell me I’m being.

Speaking of insane, a group of Russian scientists have recently been begging NASA and Americans not to send our mission up to Mars. They say that supposedly the radiation and UV rays from the sun can make us blind, or give us cancer that makes your body slowly deteriorate from the inside. The scientists here at NASA told us that they’re just making stuff up to stop our mission from going to Mars before them. I mean seriously, Russia, previously the Soviet Union really thought that we would take there cockamammy advice about cancelling a space mission? They’ve got to be mental to believe that we’d cancel it, especially when we’ve come this far.

Seriously, we’re leaving tomorrow. Tomorrow!

To say I’m excited is an understatement--I’m ecstatic. Even though the risk of the spaceship exploding persists, I still want to go. After all, dying while trying to accomplish my dream doesn’t sound that bad. At least I’ve chased my dreams and never gave up on them, unlike other people who think their dreams being a reality is impossible. I’d much rather die trying to make a dream a reality than doing something I wouldn’t enjoy doing for the rest of my life, always wondering what if . . .

April 18th, 2037, later

I didn’t think I would be making another journal entry today, but something extraordinary just happened.

Dan and I talked.

It was around 10:45 at night, and I was walking to the kitchen to make some food, as I couldn’t sleep, when I walked past the door to his room. Usually his door is always closed and locked, but for whatever reason, today it was left open slightly. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but I’m more of a believer in fate and destiny than just writing every peculiar event like off as a coincidence. Curious, I walked towards the door and put my ear against the small open crack, careful not to put any of my weight on the door. From inside the room, I could hear soft sobbing. Intrigued, I pushed open the door, and peered through it.

Sitting on the bed with his head in his hands, whilst shaking with sobs, was Dan.

My mouth fell open at the sight of him so unraveled. Usually he was so put together and collected, like the rock that tied our group down to sanity, so seeing him like this was just odd.

Quietly, I stepped inside and precariously shut the door behind me, careful to make no noise. I crept forward towards Dan, each step harder to take than the last.

I opened my mouth, willing for words to come out--comforting words, letting him know that I was here for him, that I’d hold him until he felt better.

Instead, all that came out was, “D-Dan?”

Immediately he shot up and stared at me, my presence clearly shocking him.

“Phil?” he questioned, his voice cracking. “W-what are you doing here?”

“I-I’m sorry!” I exclaimed. “I was just walking to the kitchen when I noticed that your door was left open, then I heard crying and I got worried so I came in here to make sure you were okay and I’m sorry, really, I should’ve just stayed outside and--”

“Wow,” Dan interjected, rolling his eyes and successfully cutting me off from my embarrassing rant. His mouth quirked up at the corner in amusement and I was stunned. It was the first time I had seen him do something with his mouth that wasn’t frowning. His eyes seemed to brighten, which made my mouth drop open.

He was . . . beautiful, almost in an ironic way. Sad tears adorned his cheeks but his eyes glowed with so much warmth and yet he was still smirking mischievously. Somehow he wore each emotion better than anyone else I had ever seen.

“I just can’t figure out why you care so much,” Dan remarked, almost to himself.

“And I just can’t figure out how you don’t care,” I retorted, not even a moment later. “How does never showing any emotion and always being alone seem so appealing to you?”

Dan looked down at the bed now, shrugging, emotion gone from his face again.

After a minute or two of silence I figured he just wasn’t going to answer, but then he answered so quietly that if I hadn’t been listening closely, I would’ve missed it.

“Because then I won’t get hurt again.”

“W-what? Who hurt you?” I asked.

“That doesn’t matter,” he whispered.

We sat in silence for few more minutes, until I got the courage to speak again.

“Why were you crying?” I mumbled. Next to me, Dan tensed.

“I was just thinking about tomorrow.”

“What about tomorrow?” Dan turned his head down to stare at me, his hazel eyes stormy.

“About all of the risks, what would happen if the spaceship exploded. What if those Russians are right and being on Mars can make people go blind and get cancer? What then?” Dan exclaimed.

I rolled my eyes at him. “You really believe the Russian scientists over ours? And besides, you’re really strong, I’m sure you’ll be okay.”

Dan’s eyes flashed with an emotion I didn’t understand until he turned to stare into my eyes. Being this close to him, I could see that his eyes weren’t just brown, but flecked with gold and green. Nervously, I swallowed. Then he suddenly broke his stare towards me and turned to look at the ground.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he finally whispered. My eyes widened in shock. Was he maybe talking about . . . me?

“Then who?” I asked softly.

Dan opened his mouth, like he was going to say something, until he thought better of it and shut his mouth.

“Nothing,” he muttered, before standing up and starting to shoo me out. “As stimulating as this conversation has been, we both need to sleep before tomorrow. So get out of my room,” he snapped, startling me.

“O-okay,” I stuttered, walking out as he was pushing me to go faster. The moment I was outside, he slammed the door shut in my face causing me to flinch.

It seemed like he had opened up to me, even if it was just for a moment.

Now that I knew for sure there was something in there, I most definitely wasn’t going to stop trying now.

“Bye, Dan! See you tomorrow!” I shouted cheerfully, before skipping back to my own room for some much needed sleep.

April 20th, 2037

Well, we did it. Yesterday we launched into space for our physically and mentally exhausting 253 day long journey to Mars. And miraculously, the spacecraft did not blow up--we’ve made it into space and are on track to Mars.

But it might as well have exploded, as Dan has started ignoring me again, despite what I thought was a breakthrough yesterday.

When we boarded the spacecraft, I ran to sit by him, and turned to tell him hello. He didn’t answer, he just stayed on his phone, typing rapidly, like his life depended on this single text message. Either way, he was completely ignoring my presence.

“Hey, Dan,” I said softly. His eyes still remained focused on the screen. Finally, I tapped his shoulder wearily.

“What?!” Dan spat at me in annoyance. He had looked up from his phone finally, but his eyes were filled with anger towards me.

“I-I just wanted to see if you were doing okay because yesterday you seemed kind of worried about the launch and I was worried about you,” I said timidly, folding my hands into my lap and biting my bottom lip.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine. Worry about yourself,” Dan answered hollowly, turning to stare at the bland grey wall made of solid steel and titanium.

“But--” I protested, before Dan cut me off.

“I’m fine!” he exclaimed, turning to face the wall. Next to me Tyler whistled.

“Someone’s on their man period,” he joked, laughing.

“You don’t know what he’s going through,” I told Tyler, annoyed. Tyler’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Look, Phil, I know you’re really nice and all, but standing up for Dan? Really? He’s the biggest ass I know, and I’ve met the Kardashian family before.” Anthony and him both chuckled at that, causing me to gasp in shock.

“How could you say that? When you have absolutely no idea what he could be going through! I know you’re just trying to make a joke, but next time don’t insult other people while you do it,” I lectured.

“You don’t have to defend me!” Dan snapped angrily.

“See!” Tyler retorted.

“But I want to,” I mumbled. Dan’s eyes went wide as he turned to look at me, the hazel orbs pooled with disbelief and surprise.

“And why? I’ve never done anything for you,” Dan whispered, his voice cracking, only the second time I’d heard him speak with so much raw emotion present in his voice.

“Because I care. And I believe you will too, someday, when I’ve finally convinced you to be friends with me.”

Dan let out a dry, sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, that’s never going to happen sweetheart. I think I’d rather jump out into space and get crushed by all of the pressure than be your friend and care about you.”

Despite Dan’s biting tone and harsh insults embedded into his words, I still noticed the way his eyes flashed briefly, as if the way he had spoke to me had caused him pain.

“Astronauts, take your seats. Take off in sixty seconds. Fifty-nine . . . fifty-eight . . .” the voice droned robotically as all of us scrambled to fasten all of the buckles and bars in place.

“Well, we’re really doing this,” Anthony marveled.

Yeah,” I answered breathlessly. We were doing this. We were doing this.

And I was terrified.

“If we all die, I just want to thank you guys for at least putting in all of the effort to get here,” Connor announced, swallowing nervously.

“Me too, man,” Anthony agreed.

“Guys . . .” Tyler suddenly piped up. “I’ve never been in love before. What if I die on this mission and never get the chance to fall in love?” his voice trembled. It was odd seeing someone normally so put together and humorous just falling apart before your eyes.

At the mention of love, I found my eyes flickering towards Dan nervously, surprised to see that his eyes were already trained on me, the emotion in his eyes unreadable. I looked away, blushing.

“It’s okay,” Connor suddenly chided in. “Maybe you won’t find love in this life, but I’m sure you will one day. Everybody has that person out there for them.” A tiny smile formed on his lips and he looked up at the wall, a longing look entering his eyes.

“I think you’re lucky, Tyler,” Anthony suddenly interjected. “You’re not in love, Tyler, so it doesn’t hurt when one of you leaves.”

Connor’s head shot up and he stared at Anthony, disbelief and worry starting to cover his face.

“What are you talking about?” Connor asked sharply, his words taught and harsh.

Waving at Tyler, Anthony roared, “HE’S NOT IN LOVE! HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT WE HAD TO GO THROUGH TO GET HERE AND HOW HARD IT WAS TO MAKE THE CHOICE TO LEAVE HER FOR YEARS AND I--” his voice cracked suddenly, causing him to falter. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from, I think that the take off is just freaking me out.”

“It’s okay, I get it. That must be really hard, Anthony. I hadn’t even thought about it that way.”

For a moment the three of them remained silent, until Tyler unexpectedly blurted, “Is there someone waiting for you on Earth, Connor?”

Again the small but genuine smile appeared on Connor’s face. “Yeah.”

“And she’ll wait for you all seven years?” Anthony asked.

“He’s waited for me before, he’ll do it again.”

The robotic voice interrupted everybody before anyone had a chance to react.

“Ten.”

My heart rate shot up almost instantaneously.

“Nine.”

“Dan,” I whispered.

“Eight.”

“Yeah?” he whispered back.

“Seven.”

“I’m scared. Like, really, really scared,” I muttered frantically, my words all over the place.

“Six.”

Maybe he wouldn’t answer me.

“Five.”

Maybe I was wrong about him.

“Four.”

Maybe he really just didn’t care.

“Three.”

“Me too,” he enunciated softly.

“Two.”

On a dumb impulse, I released my death grip from one of the bars holding me down, and slowly I inched my hand towards his, closer and closer until--

“One.”

Our hands made contact--sweet, blissful contact that made my stomach swoop so badly I forgot about the spacecraft entirely.

“Phil, I--” Dan started to say, before getting interrupted by the spaceship lurching upwards so forcefully that his head shot back. I tightened my grip around his hand, clinging onto him like he was the only thing rooting me to sanity. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact his grip on my hand seemed to increase too.

“Alphis to spacecraft, do you read? Over.”

“This is Connor. I read. Over,” Connor responded in a shaky voice.

“Everything all right so far? Nothing strange? Over.”

All of us turned to look at Connor in confusion. His brow furrowed in confusion. “Um . . . no. Should there be? Over.” Connor’s voice was filled with worry.

There was a long pause of silence. I turned to look at Dan, who was biting his lip while looking at the ground thoughtfully. His hand was still tightly holding onto mine, shaking ever so slightly, so his whole “calm aura” wasn’t fooling me.

“Spacecraft to Alphis, can you hear me? Over.”

The silence that came from the speakers was almost ominous.

“Dan?” I asked softly. “What were you going to say? Before we took off, I mean.”

“Oh!” Dan exclaimed, seeming nervous to be called out. “I-I didn’t think you’d remember that.”

“Of course I did,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Now stop trying to avoid the question.”

“Um . . . I just wanted to say thank you. For, you know, being there when I needed you to be. Even though you didn’t have to be there.” A blush filled Dan’s pale cheeks as he looked down at the floor, purposefully causing his fringe to fall in his face in a failed attempt to hide his growing blush. My mouth fell open at his confession, shocked that he was showing this much emotion to me in the first place, when just before the flight he was trying to ignore my existence.

“R-really?” I stuttered. “Does that mean that you--”

“Don’t push it, Sunshine,” Dan scoffed, looking back over towards me with a small smile. My heart fluttered involuntarily in my chest.

“Sunshine? Why Sunshine?” I asked, moderately annoyed.

“Because, Sunshine, you’re always happy, smiling, and there for people when they need it,” Dan told me. Now it was my turn to blush.

“Shut up,” I mumbled.

“But also when they don’t need it. I’ve gotten many a sunburn in my day,” Dan sassed, sticking his tongue out at me.

“Excuse me? Are you an adult? Or did NASA start a program to send kids into space?”

“Oh, that must be how you got accepted. I was wondering why they chose you, Sunshine.”

The ship suddenly rattled, starting to shake violently with such force for a moment I really did fear that it would explode.

Dan laced his fingers through mine, before resuming to hold onto my hand so tightly it started to go numb. I noticed that his hand was shaking slightly, his eyes fixated on our hands like he was trying to burn the memory of them entwined in his mind. With our lives possibly about ready to end, he probably was.

“Phil . . .” Dan whispered, his voice so soft that no one else but me was able to hear him.

“What happened to Sunshine?” I asked after a moment’s hesitation, trying to lighten the mood.

“Sorry, Sunshine, but I need to tell you something if we’re going to die here..” My eyes widened and I leaned over to him as much as I could with all of the restraints around me.

“W-what?” I stuttered.

“Look, I . . . I think that--”

Abruptly, the spaceship stopped shaking

“Alphis to spacecraft, Alphis to spacecraft. Can you hear me, Connor? Over.”

“Connor to Alphis. Yes, I can hear you. We’re all okay. Over.”

“Alphis to spacecraft, thank God. Our readings were telling us that the heat shield had adjusted slightly during takeoff. It must’ve been a malfunction in our sensors. Are you sure everyone’s okay? Over.” My eyes widened and I looked over at Dan, who seemed to be breathing easier now.

“I guess your fears were warranted then, Dan,” I whispered to him. He frowned thoughtfully.

“Yes, we’re all okay up here. Can we get up and move around now? Over.”

“I don’t see why not. But if for any reason the spacecraft starts having problems, rush back to these seats to strap yourselves in. Over.”

“Hey, Dan, do you want to--” I started, looking over to Dan, but he cut me off by wrenching his hand out of my grasp and moving to unstrap himself from the seat.

“No,” he concluded tersely, before standing up and waltzing out of the room towards his room, leaving me to stare after him in confusion. Why is it that just when we start to make some progress he has to walk away, leaving me disoriented and at a loss to what had just occurred? Sighing, I began to unfasten all of the straps holding me down to the seat when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Yes, Ty--” I stopped abruptly when I looked up to see not Tyler, but Connor. “Oh . . . Connor. Sorry, I just assumed that you were Tyler--”

“It’s fine, Phil,” he reassured me. “Look, I wanted to talk to you. About Dan.”

I unbuckled the last few straps and lifted the bar from my seat and stood up, running a hand through my hair in annoyance. “If you also wanted to tell me that I’m wasting my time trying to befriend Dan and that I shouldn’t pursue him because he’s just some heartless jerk, then I really don’t want to hear it, Connor. Sorry.” Brushing off my shirt, I started to walk away in the direction of my room where I planned on sitting for the next few hours, debating what had possibly gone wrong between Dan and I and how I could fix it.

“No, Phil, I don’t think that. In fact, I think Tyler and Anthony are wrong about him and how you should treat him.”

“Really?” I asked, shocked. Well, I guess it made sense. Whenever Tyler and Anthony would insult Dan (usually in front of him too) he never did join in. He just sat quietly in the corner, often working on something on his computer, or on the phone with someone. Almost like Dan, but he gets along with everybody and actually shows emotions. “Sorry. I guess it’s not really that surprising, actually.”

“Why do you say that?” Connor questioned, his brow furrowing.

“Well, you’re really nice and I’ve never actually seen you make fun of Dan, so I guess I just jumped to conclusions. I’m sorry,” I said sheepishly.

Connor just shook his head and smiled, a look of total amazement covering his face. “You’re sorry? Really?”

“What?” I asked, confused.

He just shook his head again, laughing this time. “I just don’t see why you’re sorry, or calling me nice. Have you ever looked at yourself? You’re literally the living, breathing definition of nice. If you opened a dictionary and looked up the word ‘nice’, you would find a picture of yourself.” I rolled my eyes.

“No, I’m not Connor. If that was true, wouldn’t Dan not hate me?” My voice pitifully cracked on the last phrase and I couldn’t help but lower my head in shame. “Sorry,” I muttered as I felt tears come to my eyes. “I don’t mean to act like a child.”

“Phil, you’re not acting liking a child at all. If you weren’t acting like this, it would mean that you don’t care about Dan.” I opened my mouth to object, but Connor cut me off. “You’re really not, Phil. And believe it or not, Dan doesn’t hate you. At all. It’s just hard to see that he cares because he has so many walls up around his heart it’s near impossible to see any emotion that he feels.”

“Then how can you see it?”

“Because,” Connor started, sighing and closing his eyes as if reliving a memory. “I was once just like him. And I can see how nervous he is to be feeling anything towards you. He must’ve been hurt before, really badly. If he shows any flicker of emotion towards you, Phil, know that he’s screaming at you for help, for some way out of the fortress he’s built around himself. Somehow I think you’re the only one who can help him out now. So don’t abandon him now, even if people tell you that he’s not worth it. Because he is, even if they can’t see that now.” With that, Connor turned around and started walking to his room.

“Wait, Connor!” I exclaimed, rushing after him. “Thank you. For telling me.”

His mouth quirked up at the edges in a smirk. “Of course. Any time.” Connor strolled off to his room, opening the door before turning back to look at me again, a huge smile adorning his face. “Just don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.”

“W-wedding? What? Why would you ever suggest something like that?” I stuttered, going red.

“Talk to you tomorrow, Sunshine,” Connor told me between giggles, closing his room door behind him. Rolling my eyes, I walked away from his door and headed over to my room, my eyes lingering on Dan’s door for longer than they should’ve. I couldn’t help but wonder what he could possibly be doing in his room. Sleeping? Reading? Exercising? With him, I’m never really sure about anything. Dan wasn’t so much about being black or white, he seemed to prefer a different shade of grey every time..

But I’ll worry about him tomorrow. Today I’m going to go to my room, write all of the journal entries and documents I need to write, and then sleep. Tomorrow will be a new day, and I’m determined not to let Dan push me away then.

August 25th, 2037

Well, as it turns out, the so called “tomorrow will be a new day” was a complete lie. Dan has been busying himself with work and refusing to stop to talk to me at all these past four months. Each time I approach him, even just asking him if he wants me to grab him dinner since he’d been exercising for about eight hours straight (you think I’m joking. I’m not), he’ll just shrug me off and walk away.

I suppose Connor was right, in the sense that Dan had multiple walls that were incredibly difficult to tear down. After he let his walls down for just an instant towards me, it seemed like he got scared and was afraid of me not caring for him anymore. Instead of confronting this fear and telling me about it, he did the only thing he knows how to do, that he’s done for his whole life—shut me out.

Which hurt slightly, I suppose. But how could it not?

But what really bugged me, the thing I really wanted to know was what Dan was going to tell me when he thought we were going to die. I distinctly remember him saying my name, almost telling me something, before the radio from Earth cut him off. And then he promptly refused to tell me what he wanted to say once it was safe to get up.

It almost feels like he’s avoiding me on purpose, and nothing I do or say will make him stop. Maybe opening up to me scared him slightly, so now I have to prove to him that he won’t regret opening up to me.

Which is exactly how now, at ten o’clock months later, I was outside his door, pacing, trying to think of the best way to approach him.

Writing about it now, I can see that I was being absolutely ridiculous. If I wanted to talk to him, I should’ve just walked right up to his door and knocked on it until he came out to yell at me to shut up.

Instead, I ended up sitting on the ground next to his door, hugging my knees to my chest, hoping that he would come out eventually and be forced to interact with me. Sometime about fifteen minutes later, he opened his door, most likely to grab a late night snack from our food storage. He didn’t get very far, though, as my presence went unnoticed until he walked straight into me and tripped, slamming into the ground on top of me with a grunt.

For a moment we just laid on the ground, unmoving. It was almost as if all of the words I’d been wanting to say to him for the past months wanted to come out at once, before they all promptly decided to get lodged in my throat, causing me to stare at Dan opened mouth for the greater majority of a minute.

“Um . . . Phil?” Dan finally asked, his voice apprehensive.

“Y-yeah?” I answered after a long moment of silence.

“Why were you sitting outside my room?”

I nervously swallowed, glancing up at his confused and questioning hazel eyes for a moment before quickly diverting my eyes and focusing on the black material of his t-shirt.

“I-” I started, my voice breaking off. It felt like my throat had physically closed and I couldn’t speak or breathe. “I was waiting for you to come out,” I finally answered.

“Why didn’t you just knock?” Dan asked, looking at me like I was insane.

“Would you have answered?” I shot back, raising my eyebrows. Dan sighed in defeat, biting his lip and looking down at the ground with a sigh.

“No,” he admitted, fiddling with the thread coming off of his shirt. “Probably not.”

“Why?” I asked, my voice an octave higher than usual. Dan looked pained as he stared back towards his room, as if longing to dash back inside and not come back out again.

“Because.” Dan proclaimed flatley, emotion void from his voice, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

I rolled my eyes, refusing to accept his answer. “We both that’s not true, Dan. So you can stop lying.”

Dan glared at me, his jawline clenching. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“But you need to talk about this. Look at you, you’re falling apart! Why can’t you just talk to me?” I questioned, even though I already knew the answer (courtesy of Connor).

“Phil—” Dan started, his voice strained. “I-I’m sorry, Sunshine. But I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

Dan looked down at the ground, and I could almost see the thoughts that must’ve been flying through his head. The way he was acting, anyone else would’ve just stopped, turned away, and let him be.

And I almost did.

But then I remembered Connor’s advice.

“If he shows any flicker of emotion towards you, Phil, know that he’s screaming at you for help, for some way out of the fortress he’s built around himself. Somehow I think you’re the only one who can help him out now. So don’t abandon him now, even if people tell you that he’s not worth it. Because he is, even if they can’t see that now.”

And I knew that I couldn’t listen to Dan—I had to read between the lines, in the way his eyes seemed to look pained when he told me to back off, in the slight tremble of his bottom lip, how his hand was shaking ever so slightly, and the way his whole body was tense, as if anxiously awaiting my answer, despite claiming to not care.

“Dan,” I whispered softly. “I’m not going anywhere, no matter what you tell me. So you can stop trying to push me away, okay?”

No one else but me could’ve noticed, because they didn’t look at Dan the way I did, look at every single detail of his actions and knew exactly how to read them—but after my reassurance, he seemed to visibly breath again, his jaw relaxing, and I could almost detect a small smile trying to form on the corner of his mouth.

“Please,” I whispered, while Dan hung on to my every word. “Stop, it’s not going to push me away.”

“I don’t know how to stop,” Dan whispered back breathlessly. “I don’t know how to let anyone in, how to make people do anything but hate me—”

“I don’t hate you.”

Dan let out a small chuckle at my antics.

“I don’t hate you, too.” A real, genuine smile formed on his lips, and I noticed for the first time he had deep, adorable dimples.

“Don’t move,” I whispered, before taking a step towards him and wrapping my arms around him and pulling him into a tight embrace. My chin rested on his shoulder, and I could feel his warm breath on my ear. His whole body had tensed up, his arms frozen at his sides like he didn’t know how to react. Maybe he didn’t.

“Relax. It’s okay, I’ve got you,” I muttered into his ear, causing a shiver to run down his spine. After a few moments, I felt him place a tentative arm around my shoulders, before pulling me even closer to him.

I felt him start to shake again, but this time it wasn’t with anxiety—it was with sobs.

“It’s okay,” I whispered into his ear again. “It’s okay, Dan, I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.

“I promise.”

“You do?” he asked shakily.

“Of course.” I felt Dan pull me in even closer, until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began—we were just us.

Dan, I thought. That was all I could think, the sole thought of him making my heart race and causing my breathing to quicken.

“Will you be my friend?” I asked after a long period of silence of us just standing together, our arms wrapped around each other tightly, refusing to let go.

Dan sighed, disentangling his arms from around me and taking a step back. “I’d be a terrible friend, Phil. You know that.”

I scoffed and playfully punched his shoulder. “What are you talking about? You’d be a great friend, Dan. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“I’ve never even had a friend before,” Dan admitted, biting his lip. I could see the pain swimming in his eyes—or were those tears? “I’ll just end up hurting you or something. I have no idea how to be a friend or care for people or make them happy.”

“Then I’ll teach you,” I whispered.

“Phil,” Dan whispered, his voice cracking. “I’ve managed to make you stay away from me for so long, why are you bothering me now?”

“I was never away from you,” I answered. “You just weren’t looking, so you didn’t see me.” Dan’s lip started trembling and his eyes seemed to well up with tears.

“I-I was looking, what makes you say I wasn’t looking?” Dan stuttered, his hands starting to shake as well. Tentatively, I reached out and grabbed his hands.

“But were you really seeing?” I asked softly. For a long moment Dan just stared at me in silence, his eyes filled with an unreadable emotion. Dan opened his mouth as if to say something, his eyes shining warmly towards me for once, before he slammed his mouth shut again and started to stare at the ground again.

“Fine,” he muttered in defeat.

“What?” I asked, confused. He let out a small chuckle, his mouth quirking up at the corner as he looked at me, his eyes fond.

“Fine, I’ll be your friend,” he grumbled, clearly trying to sound annoyed but failing miserably.

“Wait, really?” I gasped, my mouth falling open in shock. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious,” Dan scoffed.

“You won’t regret it, I promise!” I exclaimed, bounding forward and for the second time, wrapping my arms around Dan. He clearly wasn’t expecting it, as he fell backwards and nearly fell onto the ground for the second time in our exchange. Quickly, I grabbed him by the waist and managed to keep him upright. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?!”

“I’m fine,” Dan mumbled, his face bright red. My face started to flush as well when I realized that his shirt had moved up slightly, so I was now pressing my hands against his bare hips. Once I made sure he was able to stand on his own, I wrenched my hands off of him and took a step back.

“S-sorry,” I stuttered, afraid that I had somehow now passed some unsaid boundary he had and that he’d take back the whole being my friend thing that he had begrudgingly agreed to.

“It’s okay,” Dan spluttered, his face still slightly red.

“So, what were you up to before we ran into each other?” I asked brightly, trying to change the subject.

“You mean before I ran into you sitting outside my door, waiting for me to come out?”

“Shut up!” I laughed, playfully punching his arm.

“You know, I have to say, your choice of pastime sounds quite fun. I also enjoy sitting outside my friends’ doors awaiting for them to exit too,” Dan teased, giggling. The noise surprised me at first, as it was the first time I really ever heard him giggle with no self-constraint, like he didn’t care about trying to hide how he truly felt around me anymore.

“So are you implying that you sit outside my door and wait for me to come out, seeing as you just told me that I am your first friend?” I shot back, smirking.

“Excuse me!?” Dan exclaimed. “Are you implying that I stalk you? Because last time I checked, this whole friendship was your idea and you wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to be your friend.”

“Oh, you thought I was going to start leaving you alone now? That’s funny, I was planning on sleeping over in your room every night now that we’re friends.” Dan’s eyes widened and his cheeks started to turn a slight hue of red.

“W-what?” he stuttered.

“I was joking, Dan, calm down,” I laughed. “No but seriously, what were you doing before you ran into me?”

“I was just going to go get some dinner before going to bed, I was kind of hungry after skipping breakfast and lunch—”

“Are you serious? You skipped breakfast and lunch after all of that exercise? Are you trying to get sick, Dan?” Dan seemed to shrink under my harsh tone. It was weird how now that he wasn’t guarding his emotions so much around me, I could actually see how much my words could affect him.

“I’ll be fine, I’m always fine.” At this statement, I just rolled my eyes, knowing how incorrect it was.

“Clearly, you’re not fine. Come on, I’m taking you to get food. Right now.” Without waiting for an answer from Dan, I grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards the kitchen in the center of the spacecraft.

“Phil, I’m fine, calm down, it’s not like I’m going to die or anything—”

“Too bad,” I retorted. After walking in silence for a peaceful minute, my arm still linked through his. “What do you want to eat?” I finally asked.

“Well, it’s not like there’s many options, is there? We’re supposed to be eating those freeze-dried packets each day—”

“Actually, Dan, we’re supposed to be eating three of those freeze-dried packets each day to keep up our nutrition intake so our muscles don’t deteriorate from the unusual gravity and pressure. However, since you have proved to be incompetent at counting to three each day, I believe I will be taking over for you in the food department,” I sassed, a small grin appearing on my face when I saw the look of bewilderment (and a tad bit of amusement as well) appear in his eyes.

“Excuse me? Did you just say I can’t count to three? I’ll have you know that I used to watch the Count on Sesame Street every day when I was kid—well, that and Winnie the Pooh—but I was incredibly proficient in maths while in school, you idiot,” Dan said in his rush to defend himself. I let out a small chuckle at his idea of an insult. Clearly, insults were another thing that his skills somewhat lack in, most likely from his limited experience with people.

“Mm, really? Just sounds like a lot of excuses, if you ask me.”

“I was four grades ahead in math at my school, Phil, more than you could say about your mathematical achievements, I’m sure!” Dan exclaimed, trying (but failing) to unlink our arms. For someone so strong he probably could’ve easily just wrenched my arm out of its socket, but something told me that he didn’t really want to break the link between our arms just yet.

“And I was valedictorian, your point?” I shot back, a few stray chuckles escaping as I struggled to hold them in and be somewhat serious. Dan just rolled his eyes.

“And here I was thinking that you had to be a well-rounded student to win valedictorian. I guess I was wrong.”

“Hey!” I exclaimed, smacking his chest playfully. “That’s offensive, I only ever had one A minus and that was in P.E. in the sixth grade!”

“Of course it was P.E. that dealt you in, you never really struck me as the athletic type,” Dan remarked, almost to himself. He wasn’t wrong, though, in school sports really just weren’t my thing. This probably had to do with the people playing the sports rather than the sports themselves, but I digress.

“Yeah whatever, Mr. Athletic and Strong and . . . Jock . . . Guy . . .” I trailed off, causing Dan to launch into a fit of giggles.

“Just call me Mr. Athletic and Strong and Jock Guy from now on, then. Forget Sunshine, that’s by far the best nickname we’ve came up with,” Dan said, a real genuine smile on his lips that I found my gaze focused on. How did one simple motion that I’d seen countless amounts of strangers do in my life seem so special on him? Maybe it was just because of the way his eyes lit up as well, and how his whole demeanor just seemed happier when he did actually smile—but either way, it was so much more entrancing than anyone else’s smile that I’d seen.

“Whatever,” I scoffed, suddenly realizing that I’d spaced out and left him without a response for too long. I unlinked our arms and crossed mine over my chest. Dan remained silent at that, and just as we reached the door to the kitchen he reached out and grabbed my arm, stopping me from walking inside.

“Phil,” he started, before freezing with his hand still gripping my arm. Nervously, I glanced down at his hand that was clamped down on my forearm before flicking my gaze back up to his nervous gaze.

“Yeah?” I asked softly.

“I-I’m sorry if that was rude or something, I just . . .” he trailed off, releasing his grip on my arm and staring at the ground.

“Yeah?” I pried, not letting him off the hook that easily.

“I, uh, actually used to be really unathletic and bad at sports when I was in high school,” Dan blurted, not pausing to breathe before continuing, “and I was, um, bullied for it a lot. You know, being the emo kid that sucked at every sport that we tried to do, even worse than the girls in the class was awful. So, um, I decided that I didn’t want that in my life, so I started working out a lot, until I’d gotten to the point where I am today. I don’t really know what I thought I had to prove to any them, they were all just a bunch of assholes, anyways,” Dan said, chuckling nervously while running a hand through his hair. “So, um, I wasn’t always Mr. Athletic and Strong and Jock Guy.”

For a moment I just stood in silence, staring at Dan in wonder. Connor definitely wasn’t lying when he said it would be worth it when I managed to break down some of Dan’s walls and see who he really was. Seeing this other side of him, the side that he hid away from everybody else except for himself was just . . . well, amazing. The fact that he trusted me, me out of anybody that he could possibly confide in as well, sent a rush of euphoria through me. Or was that just butterflies?

“But you,” Dan quickly interjected into the piercing silence that had fell between us, “you’ve always been “Sunshine”, it seems. And I don’t think that’ll ever change,” he added fondly, making my heart swell. I looked up at him, a lopsided smile on my face.

“No,” I told him, “I don’t think it ever will. Not towards you, anyways.” Without waiting for a response, I reached forward and linked our arms together again, and dragged him into the kitchen.

But I didn’t miss the prominent tomato red blush that appeared on his face.

“Hi Connor, Tyler,” I exclaimed as we walked into the kitchen. I felt Dan tense next to me. “Hey,” I whispered to him. “If you can’t handle talking to Tyler right now, I’ll make you your food and bring it to your room, if you’d like.”

A small smile appeared on Dan’s mouth, but what was most noticeable was the way his eyes lit up. They were filled with total unadulterated fondness and admiration towards me. He just shook his head slightly, all of his features lit up as a complete smile took over his face.

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” he asked rhetorically, almost to himself.

“I’ll be here all night,” I joked, before taking on a more serious tone. “Or forever, if you’d prefer?”

The tiny uplift of Dan’s lip was back, a smile drastically different from his huge smile just a few moments ago, but somehow this one seemed more real, seemed to carry much more emotion than the previous one. “I suppose I could settle for forever.”

I froze, caught in the moment staring up at his glowing hazel (but not just hazel, there was also a mix of gold, and occasional specks of green and blue sprinkled throughout) eyes, the eyes that had previously been so cold towards me. But now they were lit up, brighter and more orphic than any of the stars I could see if I just took a step to the left and looked out the window. They were somehow more complex than anything I’d ever seen, and since I worked in the astronomic field, that’s saying quite a lot. I suppose when you find someone who’s gaze towards you somehow trumps that of any other alluring star or captivating planet, you’ve found the one.

Wait, what?

“Forever sounds all right,” I finally managed to choke out after leaving him without an answer for so long.

“Hey guys, fancy seeing you two here!” Tyler suddenly exclaimed, walking by and watching us curiously. “What brings you two to this part of the ship? Together? At this time?” Tyler finished his dramatic proclamation with a wink towards us.

“It’s literally only eleven o’clock, Tyler, it’s not like we’re having a three in the morning binge eating session,” I quipped, annoyance dripping off of my words from being interrupted.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you ended up here at obscene hours of the night eating obscene amounts of food.” My jaw dropped, and I just gaped at him in disbelief.

“We agreed to keep that between us!” I hissed angrily. I swear if he tells Dan—

“Yeah, well, thanks to that sarcastic comment, I don’t really feel the obligation to keep that secret right now.”

“Shut up!” I whisper yelled, trying not to call that much attention to how much I was panicking. “Please shut—”

“So, Dan, I came in here one night about two weeks ago to grab some food at like three in the morning, as one does—”

“Tyler!” I exclaimed, this time not disguising the look of panic on my face.

“Hey, Tyler, leave him alone. I doubt Dan really even wants to hear your embarrassing story of Phil,” Connor interjected swiftly, from where he stood on the other side of the room sipping a coffee. He looked pretty indifferent towards the whole situation with his casual slouched posture and expressionless face as he took another sip of his coffee. But I didn’t miss his sly smile and coy wink at me after both Tyler and Dan stopped looking at me, which caused me to flush involuntarily.

For the first time in the past few minutes, I chanced a gaze up at Dan (okay, not really up, he’s literally only like a centimeter taller than me. I was just slouching at the time and he was standing up straight) and noticed with a jolt that his eyes were trained on me, curious filling the hazel pools. A small smile appeared on his lips when he noticed my returned gaze, before he looked back over at Tyler, the small smile turning into a mischievous smirk.

“Actually, Connor, I’d love to hear this ‘story’ Tyler knows.” My mouth dropped open, and Tyler chortled in response. Over by the wall, Connor covered the growing smile on his face with his hand, resulting in a glare from me. But right next to me, Dan was practically shaking as he chuckled, seeing my flustered reaction.

“Shut up,” I grumbled, shoving him slightly, just resulting in him not even moving an inch. He started laughing harder, leaning on me for support as he gasped for breath. Connor’s and Tyler’s eyes were fixed on the two of us, most likely scrutinizing us for being so close to each other, especially when Dan’s personality is so reserved.

“Um, so, anyways, I came to the kitchen a couple of weeks ago to grab some food, at three am, as one does, and Phil was just—get this—sitting down, eating basically all of our food. I’m pretty sure that we won’t have have enough food to last these last two months now.” Tyler was shaking with laughter by the end of his story, the rest of us just staring at him, eyebrows raised.

Dan turned to me, his eyes an unreadable emotion as he pulled me aside, placing a tentative hand on my shoulder.

“W-what?” I stuttered, confused, the contact between us causing me to be even more flustered. Sure, he’d agreed to being my friend, which involves some physical contact, but somehow each time it still caught me completely off guard and caused me to lose my breath and act completely irrationally.

“You didn’t tell me you were binge eating,” Dan finally got out, his demeanor swiftly changing to one of concern and worry.

“We weren’t really talking,” I mumbled, biting my lip and looking at the ground, the wall, my shoes—anywhere that wasn’t Dan, really.

“That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have come and talked to me!” Dan exclaimed, looking offended.

“Well, you didn’t really come across as the person to talk to about my problems at the time, Dan.” I started biting my lip nervously again, almost afraid of how he would act. This was a complete three-sixty from how he was acting just an hour ago, I wasn’t even sure how to act around him anymore. Not that I ever knew how to act around him in the first place.

“But why?” Dan finally got out. “I don’t understand.”

“It was just once!” I defended. “And it won’t happen again!” Dan just glared at me in response.

“Really? How do you know that it’s not going to happen again?” Dan blurted, before he got a lot quieter and whispered, “What if you get hurt? Eating too much at one time can really damage your health, and it’s not like I can just take you to a hospital if something bad happens? What if you start doing it regularly and there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to stop you because—”

“Dan,” I stated calmly, gently placing a finger over his lips to silence him. His eyes widened considerably and a faint blush started to appear faintly on his cheeks. “It won’t happen again. I have you now.” It seemed like for a second, Dan was just going to smile and agree, then we’d hug it out and I’d grab him his food like we’d originally intended and then we’d go back to his room and talk for a few more hours before we went to sleep. Instead, the grin faltered on his face before it could fully appear.

“It wasn’t because of me, was it?” he questioned, his voice piercing cold—but not towards me. Somehow I knew the icy tone was directed at himself.

“No!” I protested without thinking. I mean, he wasn’t wrong, I guess, when I was binge eating that night it was because of him. But now he was different, he seemed less guarded about his emotions, he’d finally decided to trust me. That wasn’t something that I wanted to lose now, after coming so far and waiting for so long to finally make any progress.

“No really Phil, was it because of me?” Dan’s piercing glare bore into me, and instead of just outright denying it again (like I had originally planned), I found that the words just got lodged in my throat. “Phil?” Dan pushed, but in a softer tone now. He almost sounded strained, like he knew the truth would hurt him.

“W-well, yeah, I mean I guess it was because of you. But it was just a one time thing, Dan. And now I have you, so now that won’t even be a problem anymore,” I found my voice getting quieter and quieter as I went on with the sentence, a light blush dusting my cheeks. How many times have I blushed today? It has to be at least 394 times.

“If for whatever reason, Phil, you want to do that again, come and talk to me about it. Okay? I’ll help you through it.” Dan’s voice was soft and gentle, fondness slowly seeping into his phrase even though it was quite obvious he had just originally intended for the phrase to be serious and firm.

“O-okay,” I stuttered. Dan cocked his head at me in confusion.

“Are you alright? Normally you don’t stutter, usually it’s me messing up my words.” After Dan’s bash towards himself I found myself chuckling quietly to myself.

“Dan, you’re the most articulate and intelligent sounding person I know. And of course I was going to stutter, Dan, I’m still not used to this whole you actually caring about me thing.” I watched Dan take all of this in, from the furrow of his brow to the slight downward curve of his mouth as he took it all in.

“I’ve always cared about you,” he finally managed, after several attempts at trying to speak.

“Really? It was kind of hard to tell,” I mumbled, remembering the cold way he’d been treating me these past few months, and the first time we’d met when he first dismissed my offer of friendship.

“Maybe you were looking, but you weren’t really seeing,” Dan remarked inquisitively. A moment later a lightbulb went off in my head as I recognized that phrase as my own from earlier.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, lightly slapping his shoulder “That’s rude. In order to use my words you have to cite your sources, and I don’t see any bibliography so . . .” Dan snickered in response as he walked over to the counter and starting to add hot water to his packet of freeze-dried food.

“Sorry,” Dan apologized (though he didn’t really sound sorry at all). “I guess I’m just one of those people who copies and pastes everything from online because they’re too afraid to use their own words.”

“Sounds pretty accurate,” I mumbled under my breath.

“Excuse me?” Dan yelled, snapping his fingers at me, before holding up a finger and downing his entire freeze-dried food pouch.

“That was definitely me in grade school,” Tyler remarked from the other side of the room. I jumped slightly as I looked back over there and noticed him and Connor both still standing there. Somewhere in my conversation with Dan I seemed to have forgotten all about their existence.

“Nice to see that you have noticed our presence finally,” Tyler said, somewhat dryly.

“Sorry,” Dan and I apologized at the same time, before turning to look at each other and start giggling.

“By all means, carry on, I’m actually quite entertained,” Connor suddenly piped up.

“Shut up,” I grumbled in annoyance.

“Well, as cute as you two are together, I’m going to bed. I have to be up at ten in the morning to run through all of the systems to ensure that they’re all functioning properly with NASA scientists,” Tyler announced as he began waltzing out of the room.

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘as cute as we are together?’” I questioned, just before Tyler could duck out of the room.

“Oh, you guys are in the stage of denial right now. I see.” My eyes widened at Tyler’s words, in both confusion and slight distress, as I’m sure none of what he was accusing Dan and I of was even remotely true. “Denial is the first stage of love, you know!”

And on that note, Tyler just waltzed out of the room, Connor following close behind, shooting me an encouraging smile.

“I have to be up at six to talk to several reporters on Earth. Tyler should stop complaining,” Connor told us, before walking out of the door, leaving the two of us alone.

“I’m kind of tired too!” Dan suddenly exclaimed. “You know, too much exercise, not enough food, that kind of thing.”

“Dan,” I said sharply, causing him to flinch.

“Y-yeah?” he stammered. His hazel eyes widened and I could see the panic in them.

“Don’t shut me out again, okay? Remember I’m here for you, always.” At the end of my proclamation I shot him a small timid smile, unsure of how he was going to react. He still seemed a bit on the fence about feeling and being open about said feelings, so I really had no clue how he was going to react to me expressing my feelings.

“I won’t,” Dan promised me, hesitating a moment before reaching up and clasping my shoulder. “I don’t know if I even can anymore,” he added as an after thought, his voice much smaller. His confession made the side of my mouth quirk up in a lopsided smile as I just looked at him fondly.

“I’m glad,” I whispered. “I really am.” Dan’s eyes seemed to light up at this, like he had been half-expecting me to react badly to his confession (I have no idea why he would’ve thought that, considering every time he showed me genuine emotion I felt like bursting with joy). Nervously, I reached up and brushed his fringe to the side, revealing his forehead. Without hesitation, I leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to his forehead, though my lips lingered for a moment longer than they probably should have for the kiss to be considered platonic.

The moment I leaned away from Dan, he seemed to jump twenty feet away as he rushed towards the door.

“Good night!” he yelled, before slamming the door that separated the hallway from the kitchen shut. I let out a small chuckle at his antics, knowing that he’d rushed to leave because he hadn’t wanted me to see his reaction. Unfortunately for him, however, it was pretty hard to miss the way his entire face flushed and turned such a dark shade of red he could’ve blended in with the NASA logo on the wall behind him.

A huge grin broke out on my face as I found myself reliving Dan’s reaction over and over again. I brought my hand up to my face in an attempt to stifle the grin slightly, stop it from completely overtaking my face, but it was already a lost cause. With a slight skip in my step, I too walked out of the kitchen, heading towards my room to get some much needed sleep.

September 2nd, 2037

I woke up to incessant knocking on my door, banging against it in no particular pattern.

“Phil!” they yelled, before continuing to bang against my door.

“What?” I grumbled in annoyance, pulling the blanket up over my head, determined to ignore whoever had decided to wake me up this early after my late night with Dan last night.. We’d stayed up until when normally the rays of the sun would start to peek out from over the horizon. However, since we’re on a spacecraft, we don’t really have a sunrise or sunset like on Earth. I remember confessing to Dan somewhere around four in the morning that I missed seeing the sun on Earth, seeing the sunrises and sunsets every day.

Dan just laughed in response to that, leaning back against the pillows of my bed, putting his hands behind his head.

“Really?” he asked, still chuckling quietly to himself.

“Yeah,” I answered, my brow furrowing as I walked over and sat next to him, my gaze locked on him until he looked over at me. “What, do you not miss it?”

“No,” Dan responded without a moment of hesitation. “How could I when I have you? You’re the literal human embodiment of a star, and more beautiful if you ask me.” My breath caught in my throat at that, and I sat with my mouth gaping at him. Dan hadn’t shied away though, in fact he seemed to grow more confident under my stare. His mouth was lifted up at the corners in a small grin, as his tired eyes stared back at me, full of warmth. On his lap, he’d laced his hands together over his crossed legs, and as always he was wearing all black—except for his socks, which were a bright blue that he’d had to borrow from me when he’d found a hole in his black ones. His hair was messy and curly atop his head, as he hadn’t taken the time to straighten the long brown locks that morning.

“I know that you don’t believe me when I say that, Phil, because for whatever reason you can’t accept the fact that you are an amazing person—but you are, Phil, you really are.”

“O-oh,” I had stuttered in response, at a complete loss for words. That had seemed to happen more and more lately, Dan telling me something, actually expressing his emotions more and more as he grew comfortable with me that ended up rendering me speechless and unable to respond. He didn’t even realize the effect his words had on me when he said them, he didn’t even notice the way my whole face would light up with a huge smile, and how a light blush would coat my cheeks as my heart would skip a beat.

And then there was the way he’d just dismiss my words when I tried to tell him the same, explain to him that he was just as extraordinary as he claimed I was, even more so in fact. I still wasn’t quite sure why he seemed to harbor so much hatred toward himself, but I was determined to find out, just as I was determined to find out everything about him, no matter how trivial it was.

“PHIL!” the person screamed outside my door, startling me out of my flashback. Groaning, I sat up and got out of bed and stumbled over to the door, only tripping and falling over once (which was quite impressive, in my opinion).

“What!?” I spat in annoyance as soon as I flung open the door. Standing in my doorway with a smug grin on his face was not Dan, like I’d originally been hoping for, but instead was Tyler.

“Phil!” he exclaimed. Without waiting for a response he just waltzed into my room, turning to look at me with a confused look. “Did you forget what today was?”

“Um . . .” I mumbled, my mind reeling as I tried to remember what he was talking about. “What?” Tyler rolled his eyes in response, but he didn’t really seem all that upset. In fact, he seemed like he expected it.

“Well, I guess you have been distracted recently by Dan.” At that I opened my mouth to protest, but Tyler raised an eyebrow, causing me to fall silent.

“Yeah, whatever,” I scoffed, but I found the scowl on my face turn into a grin that took over my entire face as my thoughts went back to that of Dan. How could they not, with someone as endlessly fascinating as Dan? Even if I sat and just thought about Dan for days straight, I still wouldn’t be able to fully grasp why everything he did was so captivating to me. Just arguing with Dan about the silliest of things is a past time that I’ve found myself enjoying more than anything I used to do with friends back on Earth. Somehow it seems that Dan had, without even trying, managed to steal the spot of the most important person in my life. It’s not like he even tried to become that person, that he made a conscientious effort to become such a significant person in my life. Maybe he’s had that spot secured since the first moment we really talked to each other, in his bedroom on our last day on Earth.

We’ve made so much progress since then, became so much closer. Not only had he become the most important figure in my life, but I liked to think that I became that person in his life, too.

“Phil?” Tyler demanded, waving an insistent hand in my face, yanking me out of my thoughts for the second time.

“Sorry, what? I was spacing out,” I explained, feeling a slight flush take over my face and neck as I realized I had literally just spaced out in the middle of a conversation thinking about Dan.

“Today’s our board game night, remember? NASA wants footage of us doing normal things to show people that spaceflight has progressed and is now actually quite comfortable with the artificial gravity system we’ve created and such,” Tyler recited, a small grin forming on his face. “Do you think Dan will join us? We told NASA officers that he wouldn’t a month ago, but if you think he would—”

“Yeah, I’ll go ask him!” I interjected excitedly, the prospect of seeing Dan again causing a huge smile to break out on my face.

“Do you think he’ll say yes?” Tyler inquired, a slight frown appearing on his face.

“I’m sure if I ask him he will,” I answered, turning to my closet and starting to pull out clothes to wear.

“Really?” Tyler’s voice wasn’t really filled with surprise at my confident statement, he seemed to have adopted more of a curious tone.

“Yeah, really.” Wordlessly I turned around and started to peel off my shirt and pull on another, this one bright blue with the NASA logo imprinted on the front, along with a pair of black skinny jeans.

“You guys seem to be getting pretty close,” Tyler stated, the same curious tone underlining his words. I turned to face him with a questioning glint in my eyes.

“Very close!” I heard Connor yell from across the hallway.

“Like, really close!” I heard a third voice add, most likely Anthony.

“Shut up,” I grumbled in annoyance, stalking over to my mirror where I tried to style my hair into its usual fringe.

“So what was he doing in your room until three in the morning last night?” a voice asked me, causing me to jump in fright and drop my comb. Huffing, I turned around to see a smirking Connor leaning in doorframe, Anthony right behind him with a matching expression.

“Talking,” I responded laconically, finally deeming my hair acceptable before grabbing a sweater off my bed and shrugging it on. “And it was until four in the morning, not three.”

“Really? Just talking?” Anthony pried. I raised my eyebrows at the three of them, wondering why they were all ganging up at me at the same time.

“. . . yeah, is that a problem?” I questioned, crossing my arms.

“No, of course not,” Tyler stated, taking a seat on my bed. “We’re all just curious as to when you guys are going to fuck.”

“W-what!?” I screeched, turning a dark shade of red I didn’t even know was possible. “W-why would you say that?”

“Oh, he’s still in the stage of denial,” Connor told the rest of the group, me still in a state of shock and mortification. “Which is, as you all know, is the first step in falling in love.”

“E-excuse me?” I practically screamed.

“Phil, honey,” Tyler enunciated, walking up to me and grabbing my shoulders, forcing me to look up at him, “it’s time for you to realize your feelings and swan dive into the gay.” I just stood dumbstruck, looking up at Tyler in complete and utter confusion.

“What feelings?” I managed to get out a moment later. Around me, the three boys all just burst out into laughter. Connor was leaning against the wall, shaking, as Anthony clutched to him, his whole body shaking as he laughed. And in front of me, Tyler had been reduced to the floor, where he laid in hysterics.

“W-what feelings!” Tyler echoed, before launching into another fit of hysterics. From across the room, Connor locked eyes with me, and gestured to the figure that had just appeared in the doorway. My attention immediately was torn from Connor, Anthony and Tyler and was instead redirected towards Dan. He still looked half-asleep, so I quickly came to the conclusion that the three of them must’ve woken him up.

“Phil? What’s going on?” he asked groggily, letting out a huge yawn. I felt my previous frown twitch up and turn into a grin as I took in his adorable bedridden appearance.

“Nothing, they’re just being stupid. I’m sorry, did we wake you up?” I asked, concern dripping from my voice as I walked over to him, wrapping him in a tight embrace, unable to resist when he looked so adorable. Dan initially tensed the moment my arms wrapped around him, but he eventually relaxed into the embrace and lifted his arms up and pulled me closer to him. The corner of my mouth quirked up slightly at that, a small smile that somehow seemed to encompass more emotion than the previous smile that had lit up my entire face. This one seemed smaller, more personal and intimate almost, one meant only for Dan, not one that I just offered up to anybody like my other smile.

“Those feelings,” Connor piped up suddenly, causing me to freeze.

Wait . . . what?

“What?” Dan asked, pulling away from me reluctantly, and shooting Connor a curious stare.

“Nothing,” Connor quickly stated. “I was just explaining something we were talking about with Phil.”

I just stood there, my mouth gaping at Connor in disbelief. Was he implying—were all of them implying that I . . . that I liked Dan? That I had feelings towards him that were even more complex and serious and . . . romantic than I had previously thought?

No, that’s just completely ridiculous. Dan and I are best friends, that’s all. Of course they might interpret it differently, because we were much closer than other friends, but that’s because we just clicked in a way that I never thought I would with someone. Sure, I felt very strongly about Dan and his happiness and felt overjoyed every time we would talk, and let’s not even mention the swooping feeling that I feel whenever we touch, but that doesn’t mean that I love him or anything. Seriously, is the oxygen machine broken or something, because absolutely nothing they’re saying makes any sense at all, whatsoever.

“What do you think, Phil?” Dan suddenly asked me, breaking my train of thought instantly. I looked up at him in confusion, but found myself just getting lost in his eyes rather than giving a coherent response. Seriously, how many colors are his eyes? Surely no one else has eyes this complex, otherwise I wouldn’t find myself staring at them so often—

“Phil?” Dan repeated, sounding worried.

“S-sorry, what?” I stuttered.

“Anthony was just explaining the whole board game thing to me, I was thinking maybe we could go start that now?” Dan told me, looking at me curiously. “Are you sure you’re okay? If you don’t feel well we can postpone it for another day, I’m sure NASA wouldn’t mind.”

“N-no, it’s fine, I’m fine,” I spluttered, feeling incredibly nervous to have Dan’s eyes on me all of a sudden.

“Really? You seem kind of off,” Dan observed, reaching up and placing a hand on my forehead, which almost caused my legs to give out underneath me. “You feel kind of hot.”

“No, really, I’m fine,” I squeaked, feeling the other three’s gazes all locked on me with matching smirks.

“Okay . . .” Dan agreed tentatively.

“Come on guys!” Anthony told all of us, walking out of my room, Connor and Tyler both following him. Tyler caught my eye as he passed and winked at me, causing my eyes to widen in shock. They were serious about this whole me liking Dan thing, weren’t they? I still have absolutely no idea why, they’re being completely foolish and jumping to incorrect conclusions—

“Let’s go then, I haven’t played Monopoly since I was six!” Dan proclaimed with excitement, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and dragging me along. Somehow the embrace was the exact thing to calm me down and return me to feeling somewhat sane as we launched into one of rounds of carefree banter.

“You could play Monopoly when you were six?” I questioned, remembering how I couldn’t play Monopoly with my family until I was at least eight and understood the math and logistics of the game.

“What, you couldn’t?” he teased, smirking at me.

“Right, I forgot you are also Mr. Math Prodigy, of course you learned how to play Monopoly when you were six,” I retorted with an eye roll.

“Actually, I learned to play it with my parents when I was four, but if it makes you feel better, sure, I learned it when I was six.”

“Ass,” I muttered, shoving him gently.

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you, I was too busy reciting the first thousand digits of pi in my head,” Dan remarked sassily.

“You’re right, you definitely aren’t an ass, that’s insulting to all of the donkeys out there.”

Dan’s mouth dropped open, and he stopped walking to dramatically throw a hand across his chest. “Excuse me bit—”

“Language!” Anthony hissed, slapping a hand over Dan’s mouth. “We’re supposed to make this family friendly, with no cursing!”

“Oh, I guess you can’t be here at all then, Dan, your all black outfit isn’t exactly ‘family friendly’.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault the NASA shirts they gave me were all black!” Dan said, playfully smacking my arm.

“Didn’t you specifically ask NASA to only give you black clothing?” I asked, trying to stifle the giggles that threatened to escape from my mouth and failing.

“No,” Dan lied, a smile breaking out on his face as he tried to deny the lie. “Okay, maybe I did.”

“And this is Dan and Phil, the two best friends of the mission,” I heard Connor announce, causing both Dan and I to stop talking and look over to him, where he pointed the camera towards the two of us.

“Hi,” I said brightly, waving at the camera happily. Dan’s face reverted back to being emotionless, and he gave a small half wave to the camera. Rolling my eyes, I bumped into his side, offering a small reassuring smile to ease his nerves that had inevitably started once he noticed the camera in the room. He just huffed at my antics before sticking out his tongue at me, a smile reappearing on his face.

“As you can see, when they’re in each other’s presence, they tend to ignore the rest of the world,” Connor explained, causing Dan and I to glance at each other and turn slightly red.

“Guilty as charged,” I chuckled nervously, holding up my hands in the air. Tyler raised an eyebrow at me, before winking at me. I just flushed more in response, deciding to just ignore the three of them and just stay next to Dan and help calm his nerves towards the situation. Wordlessly, Dan grabbed my hand and led me over to the Monopoly board, and dragged two chairs right next to each other, and fell into one, pulling out the other chair and gesturing for me to sit down. I giggled at his stupid antics, sitting down in the chair. He instantly leaned over to me, pressing the side of his body against mine and resting his head on my shoulder. Before I could stop myself, I let out a noise of shock that I quickly stifled afterwards. Biting my lip, I just decided to pretend like there was no cameras and no one watching, so I just moved my head to rest on top of his. Dan let out a small noise of content, leaning into me further.

“Sorry, I’m still kind of tired from our late night last night,” he whispered, clearly intending the words to only be heard by me.

“It’s fine, I am too. I should’ve made us go to bed sooner, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry for that, Phil, it was one of the best nights of my life.” My eyes widened and I found myself gasping before I could stop myself.

“Oh shut up, I’m sure you’ve had tons of better nights,” I muttered. Next to me, I felt Dan stiffen.

“Not for a long time,” he answered after a minute of silence between us. Concern flooding every inch of my body, I tentatively reached over to his hand and laced our fingers together, watching his tan, strong fingers weave through my thin and pale ones. I smiled lazily at the sight of our clasped hands and gently squeezed his hand to offer some form of comfort.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed, hoping he would hear my almost incoherent apology.

“Why are you sorry?” Dan questioned, a small chuckle running through his body.

“That I didn’t find you sooner,” I answered after a moment’s hesitation. At that, Dan pulled away from me and shot me a curious look, that almost had a small undertone of panic as I watched his bottom lip tremble slightly.

“D-do you k-know?” he stuttered in confusion, his voice accusing and hurt. “Is that you’re being so n-nice to me? H-how—”

“No!” I interrupted, my mouth falling open at his accusatory words. “What are you talking about? What do I not know? Why would that change how I act to you—”

“O-oh,” Dan answered, his voice small. “I’m sorry, I thought you were just another one of those people who pitied me and didn’t actually care about me.” Dan’s voice was small and frail, cracking at some points; the harsh words directed towards himself, I could tell, and nothing hurt more than that. I would go step on the bloody sun if it meant Dan would never speak of himself like that again.

“Dan,” I said softly, wrapping an arm around him and bringing him closer to me. He slowly moved his head back to where it had been resting before on my shoulder, and I pressed a small kiss to the top of his head. “Dan, no matter what you’ve been through or what crazy backstory you have, you’re still you, and I still care about you so, so much. What you’re thinking of doesn’t matter, Dan, you’re my best friend, I still love you, nothing could ever change that.” It wasn’t until I was done speaking that I suddenly realized the weight of my words and froze.

Were Connor and Tyler and Anthony . . . actually right? I mean, yes, I love Dan. There’s no way I can deny that, but . . . how do I love him?

Damn it, this was probably exactly what they wanted, to start this seed of doubt in my mind until I couldn’t ignore it and it started to overrun my thoughts and mind until it couldn’t be ignored anymore. Had these feelings always been there and my oblivious self just didn’t even realize?

And what about Dan? How did he feel? I’m sure he just views me as his best friend, he doesn’t have three annoying friends that put thoughts in your head that you’d rather not think about. Or maybe he does feel that way about me, it’s not like he ever pulled away from any of my advances, and he certainly hadn’t ran away just now when I confessed that I loved him, in at least some capacity.

Seriously, what was their problem? Why did they think it was even remotely a good idea to get these thoughts going in my head?

“I . . .” Dan started, his voice shaking. “I . . . I think I love you too, Phil.”

My heart melted. Nothing seemed coherent anymore, my thoughts were somewhere up in cloud nine. The rest of the room seemed to melt away, the cameras, the other people, all there was was Dan, the boy in my arms who had just professed that he loved me as well, the boy who I had worked so hard to befriend, the boy who was too smart, a bit sassy, and sometimes a bit dark with his jokes and his humor. It was Dan, who has the best smile that you only get to see on the rare occasion he’s completely happy and doesn’t care who sees—this was one of those rare occasions.

Dan looked up at me shyly, his grin splayed across his face, causing every one of his features to simultaneously light up. His eyes sparkled with raw emotion, fondness that was directed at me, and me alone.

Unable to hold it back anymore, I wrapped my other arm around him and pulled him to my chest, resting my chin on his head, which was buried my shoulder. Wordlessly, he lifted up his arms and wrapped them around my torso, holding me to him as close he could. I felt tears start to well up in my eyes, and suddenly his form started to tremble in my arms. A moment later I realized that he was crying, that he was letting me see him cry, something I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see for a long time.

“Shh,” I hushed, pulling him even closer to me, and starting to rock back and forth. “Shh, I’ve got you, I’ve got you. I won’t let you go, either.”

“Okay,” he answered, his voice an octave higher than usual and scratchy with raw emotion.

“Are you guys ready to start the game!?” I heard Tyler suddenly exclaim, interrupting Dan’s and my moment. Dan stiffened in my arms and pulled away slowly, like he was reluctant to leave the embrace.

“Yeah, sure,” Dan replied, wiping the tears off of his face. Worried, I reached between us and linked our hands together again and watched the grin reappear on his face.

“Well, let’s start!” Anthony proclaimed, reaching forward and starting to deal the money.

TWELVE ACTUAL HOURS OF EXTREME PAIN, LAUGHTER AND EMBARRASSMENT LATER . . .

“No!” Connor screeched when he rolled a seven. “Dang it dang it dang it dang it!” Next to me, Dan burst into a fit of giggles.

“Aw, Connor, did you just land on my Boardwalk that currently has a hotel on it? Do you have that two thousand dollars to give me?” Dan taunted, still giggling.

“No,” Connor muttered in annoyance, huffing and crossing his arms.

“Do you have to mortgage your last three properties to pay me back? Oh, and even then you still can’t pay me back? That really sucks, doesn’t it?” I found myself bursting out with laughter at Dan’s attempt to trash talk (though if you’re trash talking during a Monopoly game, there’s already so many things wrong with your trash talking attempt. And your life, to be quite honest).

“Well, it’s not like we were expecting any other outcome,” I announced, shrugging. “Mr. Math Genius,” I added as an undertone, causing Dan to huff in annoyance and shove me gently away from him, before returning to my side not even a moment later.

“Shut up, it’s not like I didn’t go easy on you guys,” Dan scoffed, causing Connor and Tyler to start yelling in protest.

“Yeah right, like you were going easy on me—” Tyler retorted.

“If you were going easy on me I would’ve won, I’ve never lost a game of Monopoly before!” Connor exclaimed.

“There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” Dan teased, starting to laugh against me. I felt a small chuckle of my own surface, along with a lopsided smile at Dan.

September 4th, 2037

I didn’t know.

How could I have known?

I’ve spent my whole life around other people, helping them through their problems, holding onto them as they carefully staggered their way through their own falling apart life.

So I should’ve known that someone close to me, the person closest to me in the whole world was struggling to carry on, struggling to carry the crushing weight of their existence and the certain absence of other people’s existence from their life.

It should have been me he clung onto at night and sobbed into, it should have been me that he turned to when just existing became too tedious a task.

He said that this was something he didn’t want to tell me about because he didn’t want pity, he didn’t want to burden me further when I already had problems of my own.

But I would’ve never pitied him.

Yes, I would have held him all of those nights he fell asleep alone crying into his own arms while he yearned to have a pair wrapped around his frame besides his own.

Yes, I would have wiped away his tears and kissed them away.

Yes, I would have whispered sweet nothings in his ear, mumbled promises of everything working out in the end, paint pictures of a fantasy world he had to escape to.

And yes, I would have felt pain for him. Felt angry that he had to go through any of this. Because he deserves none of this; all he deserves is the absolute best.

I would have even taken all of the pain from him in a heartbeat, stepped in and felt the grief wracking my own spine, feel the sorrow and utter agony he had to experience all of those years.

But pity?

No.

Never.

///

“I need to talk to you about something,” Dan blurted out of the blue, causing my energetic rant about narwhal horns to come to a screeching halt. My entire body stood on end as I tensed, unsure and afraid of what was to come next (as was human instinct, of course).

“What?” I asked, trying to keep a calm and steady voice but failing miserably. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing—I just—I’ve been meaning to tell you something for a while now,” Dan admitted reluctantly, starting to nervously pick at his nails from his seat on my bed.

“Oh God,” I mumbled, my whole body filling with panic. What could this possibly be about? Someone was going to die, weren’t they? Was he going to die? Oh God.

“No, it’s nothing bad or anything, just something that I’ve never really told anyone that I just . . . want to get off my chest, and I feel like I can trust you. Or if I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone,” Dan enunciated carefully, letting his words fall out not in a disorganized clump of incomprehensible words, but instead thinking each sentence through and carefully structuring it.

“Phil . . . when I was six . . . my . . .” Dan trailed off, his eyes welling up with tears as he stopped and looked away towards my wall, blinking furiously. “Sorry. I thought I could do this without crying now, I guess not.”

“It’s okay, Dan. It’ll be okay,” I reassured, walking across the room and settling nervously in the bed, turning to look at Dan with what I hoped was an encouraging stare. He breathed deeply, clearly trying to calm himself down before he started to freak out.

“Look . . . um, when I was little, about six and three-quarters . . . I killed my parents,” he blurted, stopping and ducking away, shame coating his entire being, seeming to hang over his entire existence like a shroud.

“Oh, Dan,” I breathed, reaching over and grabbing Dan before pulling him into my lap, Silently I ran my hands through his hair, closing my eyes as I tried to process any of the information I had just learned.

There was no pity, no fear.

All I felt was the pain, my own pain and the countless agonizing hours of pain that Dan must’ve gone through.

“There was a candle, in my room. I was up late one night reading,” Dan sniffled, the retelling of the story clearly causing him an immeasurable amount of pain. “Somewhere around the middle of Robinson Crusoe, as the middle can be a bit slow, I fell asleep.”

I let out a small gasp, immediately stifling the noise afterwards. Right now Dan needed strength, someone to lean on and pass a bit of the pain onto. And I desperately wanted to be that person.

“In the middle of the night, while I was sleeping, the flame managed to spread across my desk, to my curtains, burning my entire house down, destroying everything my family and I had ever known while I laid unaffected, at least until the screams started.” Dan bowed his head as emotion took over his body and rendered him unable to speak. Instead I just pulled him into my chest, holding him as he sobbed, gently rubbing his back as I tried to convey to him that it was okay, that everything would be okay, that nothing had changed between us now.

“Dan, I love you,” I whispered, kissing the top of his head softly, causing his sobs to slowly start to ebb out. “No matter what. Don’t ever tell yourself anything different, because it’s not true. I love you, every stupid ridiculous adorable lovable part about you, Dan, I love. And I’m here for you. Always. That’s something that you can count on, even if it seems like the rest of your world is falling apart, okay?”

“Okay,” Dan mumbled in response, my words seeming to shock him into a stupor of confusion and happiness.

Never pity. Only love.

October 2nd, 2037

I woke up to the most incredible feeling in the world, the most incredible person in the world ensnared in my arms, their legs tangled through mine carelessly. Except it wasn’t carelessness that flooded through my body now at the feel of his body pressed up against me. All I could feel was love—just love, the mindblowing exhilarating feeling that accompanies loving someone, the overwhelming protective urge to always be with them, to spit at anyone that comes anywhere near them or hurts them at all in any way..

It was something I thought that I would never get the opportunity to experience. Throughout my whole life it was always me loving unconditionally, always pouring everything into my relationships. But no one really appreciates that when they’ve been loved their whole life.

But Dan. He hadn’t been loved his whole life, he wasn’t used to people showing that they actually cared about him, at least not anymore. So he was able to love me back. Unlike everyone else, who just thought me pouring everything into other people was ridiculous, he found comfort in it, was able to appreciate it.

And I love him.

I really really do.

In fact, I’m more sure about this than I’ve been sure about anything before in my life.

///

“Okay lovebirds, I understand that the two of you are just exploring your new relationship, but you have the rest of our time out in space to do that with each other. Right now, though, I think we need to have a mandatory group bonding session!” a voice told me, yanking me out of my bleary half-awake loving thoughts.

“New relationship?” I heard a voice grunt out next to my ear—Dan, I would presume. Unless Tyler crawled into my bed last night when he had a nightmare, which I somehow found myself doubting.

“You know, how you and Phil are dating now? That relationship? The reason why we’re holding the mandatory crew meeting, so we can discuss a system where you tell us before you have sex so we can put in earplugs and not walk in on you?” Tyler explained. I could almost hear him rolling his eyes.

“Excuse me?” Dan screeched, sounding mortified.

“Honey, calm down. He’s just being an ass, I’m sure there’s an actual reason why we had to call a meeting,” I explained sleepily, not as annoyed with Tyler as I once would have been. Now that I actually knew him better, I could see that he used the humor to hide what he was actually feeling, to hide how nervous he really was about how Dan would react to him.

“Excuse me!?” Tyler yelled in indignation, punching my shoulder. “What did you just call me?!”

“Calm down, Tyler. We’ll be out in a few minutes. Now get out,” I mumbled sleepily, barely even registering it as Tyler slinked out of the room silently.

“Phil?” Dan asked suddenly, his voice high and strained as it always was in the mornings. “Did I  . . . did I dream last night?”

Immediately any thoughts I’d had of falling back asleep for a few minutes before waking up were shattered instantaneously. “What do you remember from last night?”

“I . . . I told you about . . . my parents. Then you told me that it didn’t matter to you, that no matter what you still . . . love me,” Dan articulated carefully, sounding like he’d really thought this out since he woke up.

“That was real. You weren’t dreaming,” I confirmed, sitting up and turning to face him. His face was scrunched up in thought as he let my statement sink in.

“So . . . you love me?” Dan inquired softly, his eyes seeming to sparkle in the faint lighting as he spoke “Like . . . you actually love me? Despite everything I am and everything I come with? You can really look past what I’ve before and see who am I now?”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” I whispered. “No matter who you’ve been, Dan, or what you will be, I love you. Because I love you. I don’t know why, or why I’m even so drawn to you in the first place. All I know is that I am drawn to you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Phil . . .” Dan trailed off, his expression guarded. “Can I ask . . . how . . . you love me?”

“I just told you that, that it doesn’t matter to me. What do you mean how could I love you? Stop doubting yourself, Dan, for once in your goddamn life realize that you are amazing and I feel honored to even get to know you—”

“No, that’s not what I meant!” Dan interrupted, his face turning a bright red. “I mean . . . in what way do you love me?” His face burned a bright red as he ducked his head away from me, almost in shame.

And I found myself freezing.

Dan also . . . loved me . . . like . . . that.

“I . . . I love you like you are the most important thing in my entire life, like I feel like I want to spend the rest of my life with you, protecting you and holding you in my arms and arguing with you. I love you like you are the best person I will meet in my entire life—no, not like you are, you are the best person I will ever meet, without a single doubt in my mind. Dan, I believe that every person has someone out there that was made just for them, someone whose genes line up perfectly with another and perfectly complement each other. Despite it seeming improbable, I believe in soul mates. Even if you don’t believe in soul mates, I do. And I believe you are mine,” I confessed all at once, somehow managing not to stutter over my words, which was a new for me. In most pressuring situations I become tongue-tied and mess up my words and seem like I can’t even speak English anymore.

I suppose that there are some people that just make you feel like yourself, no matter how hard it may be to be yourself sometimes.

“I do believe in soul mates,” Dan answered few minutes later, confidence surging his voice for the first time since last night. “In fact, I’m one of those people that believe in the red strings of fate that tie us to someone that we’re meant to meet. With all that’s happened to make us meet and keep drawing us together after we met, the red strings between us must be threaded together and weaving together in an incomprehensible knot that will never snap despite all of the pressure that may be inflicted upon it.”

“Kind of like our relationship,” I stated, shrugging lightly. Next to me Dan gave me a confused look, prompting me to elaborate. “What we have together is endlessly complex, something that most others can’t understand. And no matter how much pressure is put on our relationship, how much strain and tension, it could never snap. Never.”

“Are you sure about that?” Dan inquired, sitting up and facing me, resting his chin in the palm of his hand as he sent me a thoughtful look, clearly thinking about something I didn’t know about. His bright brown eyes shone as he looked at me, his face crinkling up as he smiles. And dare I say . . . the way he’s looking at me, it feels like it’s filled with so much emotion, so much raw tender love and compassion and it was so obvious that he really truly and genuinely cared. Before, they were just words he was saying, but now just looking at him, I can see the love that flickers between us as we speak.

It was something I’d never seen in a couple before. Not even my parents would look at each other this way, like the other was their complete and utter world and they’d die for them in a heartbeat.

Actually, Dan is my world, and I would die for him in a heartbeat.

Perhaps he isn’t the only one who looks completely and hopelessly head over heels in love when he stares at the one he cares about. Tyler and Connor and Anthony all saw something in the way I looked at him.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life. Besides the way I feel about you,” I confirmed, after sitting and gathering my thoughts into an articulate phrase for about a minute.

“Well in that case . . .” Dan whispered softly, the words barely audible from his lips, as he hardly articulated the words in the first place.

And then Dan was leaning in, shifting from his position on the other side of the bed to lie closer to me as he continued to get closer. Realizing his intentions, I let my eyes flutter close slowly just before we made contact, but after about thirty seconds of thick tension between the two of us, I opened my eyes again, his deep brown eyes already fixated on me. He appeared nervous, his bottom lip trembling slightly, and for a moment I had to wonder if maybe he had never kissed someone before.

“Is this okay?” he questioned desperately. “Like, you don’t think I’m weird or—”

“Dan,” I stressed, rolling my eyes. Deciding that instead of waiting for Dan to make the first move, I was just going to do it myself—God knows I’ve been waiting long enough, there was no reason for us to delay it any further.

And so I leaned forward and pressed our lips together softly before he could reply. The words he was planning on responding with got stuck in his throat and he ended up making a loud noise of shock, his eyes going wide as his whole body tensed up and became rigid for a moment.

Until I pulled him into my arms, and lost myself in the kiss, lost myself in the feeling of just holding Dan, feeling Dan, breathing in Dan, kissing Dan. It felt like all of my senses had been heightened, and I could feel and hear everything—if I always felt like this I’d be a fucking super hero. Dan slowly relaxed in my arms, letting the tension flood out of his body as he went limp in my arms and kissed me back harder, cautiously placing a hand on the small of my back where my shirt had ridden up.

In response I just clutched him harder, kissed him deeper and more passionately, determined to show him how I felt without saying any words, to just hold him and kiss him until neither of us could breathe anymore and have him understand how much I love him.

I think he knows now, though.

“HEY! YOU TWO WERE SUPPOSED TO BE OUT THIRTY MINUTES AGO! STOP MAKING OUT AND COME TO THE DINING ROOM RIGHT NOW!” someone screeched from the door, making me jump apart from Dan in surprise.

Standing in the door looking unimpressed was Tyler, glaring at the two of us. “I’m not leaving until the two of you are up and dressed and then walking towards the dining room.”

“I hate you,” I groaned, but got up anyways. “But I’m not getting dressed, if you want to call a mandatory meeting this early you’ll deal with me in my pajamas.”

“IT’S TWO IN THE AFTERNOON, IT’S NOT THE MORNING ANYMORE!” Tyler screeched, his whole face turning red as he lectured me.

“We’re in space, there’s no such thing as the concept of time like we have on Earth. If we want to sleep until five in the afternoon, there’s nothing stopping us,” Dan defended, becoming defensive the moment Tyler started scolding me.

“Calm down lover boy, I was just teasing him,” Tyler reassured, holding his hands up in the air and backing away slowly, as if he was afraid Dan would jump forward and stab him for insulting me.

“What, you thought I was being serious? I was just joking, Tyler, lighten up,” Dan laughed, his face lighting up as he started giggling. The corner of my mouth quirked up at the sight of him laughing without filtering his reaction around Tyler.

“O-oh,” Tyler stuttered, seeming at a loss for words. He turned to me with an incredulous look on his face, his jaw dropped open as he mouthed ‘he’s laughing’. In response I just chuckled at his reaction, used to seeing Dan laugh by now so I wasn’t nearly as shocked as he was. “I’ll just—um—go to the dining room now.”

Tyler ran out the door after abruptly excusing himself from the conversation. Dan’s laughter slowly died out until he walked up to me, a smile painted across his face.

“Shall we?” he offered, holding out his arm to me for me to link together with his.

“We shall,” I agreed, looping my arm through his and pulling his body close to mine as we both started walking towards the dining room to attend the meeting.

///

“Nice shoes,” Connor commented, not even looking up from his notes he was reading over when we walked into the room.

“Shut up,” Dan grumbled, flushing a bright red as he shuffled his feet slightly, revealing that he was, in fact, wearing bunny slippers.

“Okay, fine. How about we discuss your new relationship instead? How’s that whole thing going? If you ever need any advice or pointers about anything my door’s always open—unless there’s a sock on it, of course—”

“Connor!” I yelped, turning a bright red at his words.

“Which the two of you need to start doing if you guys want a bit of privacy as well. I do NOT want to walk in on anything—”

“Tyler!” Dan yelled this time. “We’re not . . . like, going to . . . you know . . . do that . . . anytime soon,” he stuttered off, his whole face a shade of red I’d never seen on him before.

“Wait, then what were the two of you doing all of last night?” Connor asked, confusion covering his face as he squinted up at the two of us from his seat.

“We were just talking about . . . everything, really,” I answered, not entirely sure how to reply. Dan probably wouldn’t appreciate me telling them what he told me last night, so I just decided to be as vague as possible.

“Everything? What does that mean?” Tyler questioned, looking even more confused. Next to him, Anthony was typing away on his laptop, his eyes wide as he stared at the screen and continued typing frantically. Typical Anthony, though, tuning out completely from the conversation as he worked.

“I . . . I told Phil about something that I hadn’t told anyone before,” Dan spoke quietly, but all of us could still hear him due to how silent the room had grown apart from the constant clacking of Anthony typing on his computer. My mouth fell open as I turned to face Dan, realizing that he was about to tell them too.

Wow, he really wanted to get along with crew now.

I have to wonder if that might have anything to do with me.

Or perhaps I just know that it has everything to do with me.

“What does that mean?” Connor inquired slowly, leaning forward in his seat and growing serious.

“Um . . . I told him that . . . um . . . When I was a kid I did something horrible,” he stammered, looking down at the ground as guilt flooded his expression. I slid next to him, linking our hands together and sending him a small reassuring smile as I whispered,

“It’s okay.”

“One night when I was six, one clear crisp November nights—you know those nights, where you just look out the window and stare at the trees and stars and think about how vast the sky really is and how the universe may be an infinite size, something we’ll never be able to fully explore as the wind comes in through your window, stinging your face slightly with its gentle pinpricks, but a nice sting, one that feels refreshing and energizing—”

“I know those nights,” Anthony suddenly whispered, before turning red and looking back to his computer. “Sorry, continue.”

“Anyways, um, after staring out my window for a while, I decided to start reading a new book, as it was already quite late, and I wanted to get at least halfway through Robinson Crusoe, the new book my parents had bought for me,” Dan paused for a moment, taking a shaking breath before continuing. “About halfway through—”

“Halfway through? In one night? It took me a month to read Robinson Crusoe! And you were six!” Tyler exclaimed, wonderment taking over his face. “Wow, you must’ve been one smart kid.”

“Not smart enough,” Dan whispered, closing his eyes as the rest of the room fell silent again. “Halfway through, during the slow part, I fell asleep by the candlelight. Little me didn’t really think much of this, the words seemed to lull me into sleep, into their grasp and the thought of blowing out the candle never even crossed my mind.

“I woke up a while later to screams echoing throughout the house. By then, the fire had spread. It was too big for me to blow out then.” Dan stopped speaking abruptly as his eyes started to fill up with tears. “And it was too late. My parents were dead while I laid in my room sleeping, blissfully unaware as the rest of my house went up in flames.”

“Dan,” Connor breathed, his eyes welling up with tears as well as he gazed at Dan. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault, you know that?”

“But it was my fault,” Dan insisted. “Though . . . it was an accident. And there’s nothing I can do to change it now.

“I just wish that . . . I could see them one more time. Tell them how much I appreciated them pushing me to be the best one more time, just tell them how much I love them . . .” Dan trailed off, the tears in his eyes starting to fall and he hastily reached up and wiped them away, hiccuping as he tried to hide the fact that he was crying despite it being painfully obvious. “Sorry if it seems like I’m complaining, it’s just that I really cared about them, you know, and when it feels like you’re the reason the people you care about die . . .”

“It’s possible,” Anthony murmured softly in the room, but loud enough for all of us to hear him and turn to him with wide eyes. “Seeing your parents again.”

“What!?” Dan barked, his eyes going wide and revealing just how bloodshot they really were from crying. “Are you lying!?”

“No . . . that’s what I’ve been working on for the past couple weeks. The spacecraft’s radar picked up a signal a little ways away, and the object the signal is showing me is . . . very peculiar,” Anthony explained, biting his lip slightly as he spoke.

“What did you find?” I asked softly, knowing what Anthony meant. He had found something, something that could help us—but the object, whatever it was could potentially be dangerous

“They’re called cosmic strings,” Anthony continued apprehensively, like he wanted to explain it to us but didn’t want to get our hopes up too much. “Have you heard of them before?”

“Aren’t they the theoretical objects that some scientists predict were made during the big bang when the universe went through a phase transition? From what I’ve read, scientists believe that they are one-dimensional like line objects, as thin as an atom that have a density of over a million tons—like vortex lines in liquid helium, almost?” Dan questioned, seeming unsure of his knowledge as he rattled off what he remembered, taking a seat as he spoke, me sliding into the chair next to him not even a moment later.

“Wow, not bad,” Anthony remarked, looking over at Dan with an impressed expression. Dan just flushed and glanced down at the table. “I definitely didn’t remember that much about them, I had to look them up and study them a bit.”

“Okay, but how exactly do cosmic strings relate to what you’re talking about?” Tyler questioned, before his eyes got wide a moment later and he continued, “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that!”

“It’s fine, Tyler, don’t worry about it,” Anthony assured, turning to his computer and typing a little bit before turning back to face him. “However, cosmic strings have everything to do with what I’m talking about.”

“And what may that be?” Connor didn’t look up from the table when he spoke, his gaze remained fixated on a certain point on the table.

“There’s two nearby,” Anthony finally admitted. “Cosmic strings warp space time as they move, but when two cosmic strings get near each other . . . they move towards each other at the speed of light, and when they hit . . . it does some really weird things to spacetime. Like, for example, allow for time travel. Or allow for traveling to a parallel universe. The spacetime around the cosmic strings after they collide turns the virtual particles in the spacetime into almost real particles with large densities and energies.”

“Wait . . . so I could see my parents again?” Dan gasped, his mouth dropping as he looked at Anthony.

“But there are risks, aren’t there? We might come out at the wrong place in time, or go into a parallel universe and not be able to come back,” Connor elaborated, a perplexed look crossing his face.

“That I can’t deny,” Anthony sighed, looking defeated. “I’ve tried to look and see if any scientists have predicted no risk with entering the area where space time has been thrown off due to the cosmic string interaction but . . . there’s nothing.”

“I’ll go with Dan,” I stated firmly, leaving no room in my voice for discussion. “The two of us can go in the extra pod, the one meant for emergencies.”

“Phil,” Anthony said, sounding exhausted. “That’s too dangerous. We couldn’t let the two of you go, I could be sending you two on a suicide mission.”

“But it doesn’t hurt to try, does it? If we die, at least it means that we died together, happy, while trying to make Dan’s dream come true. I’d die for that to happen!” I articulated, sounding confident and put together for once while thinking and speaking on the spot.

“Or I could go alone,” Dan suggested meekly.

“Absolutely not,” I spat. “If you go anywhere, I’m going with you.”

“I suppose we could tell NASA that we noticed something odd in the radar system and sent you two to go check it out . . .” Anthony said slowly, a hopeful glint appearing in his eyes as he thought about it. “It just might work.”

“Phil, I couldn’t ask you to—”

“Dan,” I stressed, turning to glare at him. “You can’t convince me not to go with you. If you want to go, I’m going to go with you. Because I love you.”

“I love you too,” Dan muttered in defeat.

“There’s no other way to time travel? Nothing?” Tyler piped up suddenly, his voice dripping with confusion.

“Well, theoretically, yes. Realistically, besides cosmic strings? No, not really,” Anthony explained. “We’ve yet to find a wormhole, and even if we did, the spaceship we’d send into it would have to travel at the speed of light just to enter it, and our technology isn’t that advanced yet. Traveling into a black hole is too risky, and too far away as well. The other theory is that in a universe where all of the matter is rotating, if you go off in a spaceship you could end up coming back years before you actually set off. However, this solution of general relativity that Kurt Goedel came up with would require the matter in our universe to be rotating, and we don’t know if it does for sure.”

“Also, people wouldn’t live long enough in the ship to actually be alive when it arrived back before it left, with the speed our ships go now,” Dan added.

“So . . . would you guys tell NASA that so Dan and I can go to the cosmic string collision?” I questioned, looking at the three men also sat around the table.

“Actually . . . it does work,” Dan suddenly interjected, his voice soft.

“Excuse me?” Anthony inquired. “How do you know for sure?”

“When I was young . . . maybe like four or five . . . I saw someone talking to my parents, hugging them, someone I’d never seen before,” Dan explained, his eyes going a shade darker as he remembered.

“Who was it?” Connor asked softly. “Phil?”

“No,” Dan said firmly. “It was me. Now.”

October 5th, 2037

“Why do you always write in that notebook? It seems like everytime I turn around you have it out and are writing frantically in it,” Dan commented from his position in the pilot’s seat of the small spacecraft we were sitting in.

“Because it’s my job, it’s why NASA hired me to go on this mission,” I answered, rolling my eyes. “Plus I like writing down everything that happens.”

“Yeah, but I’ve read your journal. You include actual dialogue that’s the exact words people spoke. Most people don’t write like that in their journals, they just kind of summarize their feelings about the day, Phil,” Dan told me, shrugging slightly as he carefully steered the ship the left a tiny bit.

“Well . . . um, that’s because I haveaphotographicmemory,” I mumbled, getting progressively quieter as I continued to talk.

“What? Actually speak English, please,” Dan joked, obviously trying to get me to relax and realize that whatever it was, I could talk to him about it.

“I said I have a photographic memory,” I spoke quietly, looking over out the window, my face turning red. Ever since I was born, I strongly disliked sharing that fact with people. It just makes them look at you differently because you can clearly recall every conversation you’ve had, something you looked at as clear as a picture in your mind. Even telling NASA when I applied that I had a photographic memory and would be excellent at logging a day’s events because of it was difficult for me.

“Really? You’ve never told me that before,” Dan commented, looking pretty nonchalant about my response. “Me too, actually.”

“Wait, what? Are you serious?” I gasped, turning to face him, ignoring the captivating view of the spacetime madness the cosmic strings had caused outside the window.

“Yeah. How do you think I got accepted to NASA? My charming good looks?” he joked, laughing.

“That was definitely it,” I confirmed sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

“Maybe if you were the admissions officer,” Dan laughed.

Then the spaceship entered the region of distorted spacetime. Without control, the spaceship started lurching out of control, alarms going off all over the craft, the alarms lighting up the control panel, painting Dan’s worried face with a slight red glow.

“It’s taking a lot of fuel for the spacecraft to keep flying when there’s this much resistance!” Dan yelled, his lip starting to tremble as he frantically tried to punch codes into the control panel. “We just have to reach that light over there, I see my parents through the distortion, I think if we make it there we should be fine. But I don’t know if we will make it there, this spacecraft doesn’t hold much fuel in the first place.” Helplessly, Dan stared at the control panel, his eyes welling up with tears as he started to panic.

“Maybe if we got rid of some of the weight—”

And then I knew exactly what I had to do. To save Dan, to save him from floating around in this cosmic spacetime hell where they dangle memories in your face forever.

To let him see his parents again, like he wanted to.

I’m sorry Dan.

Goodbye.

I love you.

November 2nd, 2018

It worked, I suppose.

I’m back then, back in 2018, back when I was a child and my parents were still there. Before I fucked everything up beyond fixing, ruining the people I cared about.

In fact, I’m sitting in a motel on the street I grew up on, writing this. Just down the street, Dan lives on, blissfully ignorant to the pain his future self will be subjected to. Lives on without knowing that the person he fell for is dead.

Also because of me—my fault again. It’s always my fault.

I don’t know how to write like he did. He knew how to paint beautiful pictures of scenes, describe his feelings in a moment along with the dialogue. But me . . . I don’t know how to write down my feelings. With Phil I felt like I could finally feel again, after repressing them for so long after my parent’s death.

But now he’s dead too.

And I don’t know how to do this without him, how to approach them without him. I don’t think I can.

Why would he sacrifice himself for me? I’m not worth it—and I never will be. So why would he make such a brash decision? Especially one that leaves me alone without him, the only one I love from my time.

It hurts.

Too much.

\\\

Somehow I found the courage to knock.

I managed to conjure up the willpower to get up, to walk down the street to my childhood home.

And knock.

“How can I help you?” a voice asked, yanking me away from my thoughts. It was my mother. My mom.

My role model, my inspiration, everything I aspired to be.

“You know, you look really familiar. Do we know each other?” she questioned, shooting me a curious look.

“Yes,” I gasped before I could stop myself. “It’s me. Dan. Just . . . a bit grown up, I suppose.” She just stood there, her mouth open in an ‘O’ shape.

“How are you . . . how could you possibly . . . why . . . ?” she breathed, blown away.

“In the future two cosmic strings collided. I was on a mission to Mars at the time, but the crew I was with let me go so I could see you guys again,” I hurriedly explained, tears welling up in my eyes as I looked at her. “I thought I would never see you again,” I sobbed, lurching forward and pulling her into a hug and crying into her shoulder.

“Dan, I would never leave you! You know that, why would you ever say that!” she exclaimed passionately, wrapping her arms back around me without hesitation. “Rylan, get out here now!”

“You guys didn’t leave,” I whispered into her ear in a broken voice. “Of course you guys didn’t leave. It was me. It was all my fault. I made you guys leave.”

My dad ran out of the house, up to the two of us in the driveway, carefully shutting the door behind him. “Emily? What’s wrong? I had to leave Dan in the house alone.”

“Rylan,” she breathed, taking a step away from me and allowing him to look at me for the first time. “Look at him. It’s him.”

“D . . . Dan . . . is that you?” he asked incredulously, staring at me in shock. “Did you somehow . . . time travel here?”

“Y-yes,” I stuttered, tears welling up in my eyes again. “I j-just had to see you guys again. When the opportunity presented itself, I just couldn’t turn away the chance to see you again.”

“Again? Why don’t you just go see us in your time?” he asked, confusion glinting in his eyes.

“B-because,” I whimpered. “You guys are dead then. Because of me. Because I was so, so dumb and couldn’t even blow out a candle before I fell asleep. Because of me you guys are dead and I was left alone and it’s all my fault.”

“Dan!” my dad exclaimed. “Of course that’s not your fault. It’s a simple accident, any of us could’ve done it. I’ve gone to bed leaving candles burning before, how could I blame you for doing the same as a child?”

“What if I just stay until when you guys are supposed to die? I’ll just save you, and you’ll never die!” I exclaimed suddenly, struck with the brilliant idea out of nowhere.

“No, Dan!” my mom hissed. “Are you crazy? That’ll create a paradox—you’ll save us, and we’ll be alive, but then you’ll never come here to save us in the first place, and we’ll be dead again, then the whole process starts over again.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” I wailed. “I have nobody! The person I fell in love with came with me on the spacecraft to meet you guys, but he ended up flinging himself out of the spacecraft so the weight was lower and the fuel would be able to get me all the way here! Don’t you understand? Not only are you dead, but when I finally opened up to someone again and loved them, they left me too! And it’s all my fault!”

“Oh Dan, no. Baby, no,” my mother hushed, stepping forward and pulling my cowering form into her arms, holding me close and swaying the two of us as I sobbed. “None of this is your fault. Absolutely none of it. You just have to work harder for the things in your life than other people do—but that means that you’ll appreciate what you have more than others in the end because you know how hard it is to find someone like that.”

“He really is amazing,” I sobbed, laughing slightly as I sniffed loudly. “I think he’s my soulmate, actually. The two of us just get along so incredibly and there’s never a dull moment between us, and he just makes me so damn happy.”

“Then save him,” my dad said, rolling his eyes as he joined in on our hug, pulling me closer to him as well. “We’ll be here, taking care of you and raising you right until we die. And then he will take care of you when we’re gone, it sounds like we can trust him with that.”

“How am I supposed to save him? He’s just floating around in a messed up area of spacetime, probably seeing all of these memories surrounding him that he can’t reach! There’s nothing I can do now,” I whimpered into my dad’s shoulder.

“Oh, Dan. Do I really have to spell it out for you?” he chuckled. “I thought you were a genius.”

“Dad,” I groaned, but I couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped my throat at his words.

“Dan, you know how to time travel for God’s sake. Travel back to the time right as he jumped in and swoop in and save him before he runs out of oxygen. Obviously. Clearly this guy hasn’t forced you to watch enough cheesy romance movies yet,” my mom scoffed, sounding offended by her last phrase.

“Mom, we’ve been on a spaceship for the past year. That’s where we met, mom. There’s really been no way or time to watch chick flicks and romance movies,” I answered, rolling my eyes in annoyance. “Geez.”

“Well, now you have all of the time in the world I suppose,” my dad joked, giving me one final squeeze before pulling apart slowly. “Now go. I’m sure you have to fix your spaceship before you leave, and I’m sure you’re going to want to get there as soon as you can. I think. How does time travel work for the one traveling?”

“Oh hush!” I laughed, shoving him.

“Bring him by before we die, Dan honey, if you could?” my mom inquired with a hopeful face.

“Of course!” I answered, smiling at her happily. “I’d love for you guys to meet him.”

“What’s his name?” my dad asked. “Then you should really go.”

“Philip Lester. But he likes to be called Phil,” I responded, a faint smile appearing on my face at just the thought of Phil. “He’s basically the human embodiment of the sun—always happy, cheery, just brightens up the room he’s in. Makes other people and planets look dim compared to him. I call him Sunshine sometimes—not as much as I used to, but I do—because he is my literal sunshine. Without I’m left disoriented, alone, and confused, unable to survive without him. Every moment with him feels timeless, like something I’m always going to remember even if it’s just a split second loving glance he sends me at three in the morning when we’re talking.”

“Augenblick,” my dad muttered under his breath. “A decisive moment that in time is fleeting, yet momentously eventful and incredibly significant.”

“That sounds like a lot with Phil. He just does stuff sometimes, like whisper I love you or kiss me and it means the world to me,” I answered honestly.

“Well, don’t just stand there talking about everything he does and how he makes you feel! I know how soulmates work. Now go save him!” my mom screeched, pushing me down the driveway. “I love you, so now go save the one you love so maybe one day you can be a parent too.”

“Too soon, mom,” I groaned.

But I smiled anyways, despite my annoyed words.

October 5th, 2037

I was finally back to save him.

It took a year of repairing the spacecraft, then another year and a half in space traveling back to the cosmic string collision.

But I was finally back to save him.

As I flew through the area with warped space time (this time with plenty of fuel), I searched for the memory that would show Phil jumping out of the spacecraft. After a few long minutes of searching I finally found it and flew through it without hesitation.

I came out on the other side, watching the other spacecraft containing me fly through a past memory with my parents and disappear.

But I didn’t care about that.

What I did care about was the man that was currently floating aimlessly through space, clearly squeezing his eyes shut and tensing his entire body.

So I took my parents advice and followed my heart. I decided to not care what the rest of the world would think as I rushed over to him, opened the top hatch and let him tumble into the spacecraft, gravity suddenly affecting him again.

With ease I caught him, and closed the top hatch before turning back to just stare at him.

He laid limply in my arms, his head lolled slightly to the side, his raven black hair ruffled up in a quiff above his head messily. His eyes were still scrunched shut, like he thought he was still in freefall through space and he was just trying to block it out.

But it was Phil. Everything about him just screamed Phil, proclaimed that this was, in fact, the man I’m in love with.

So I leaned forwards and rested our foreheads together and whispered, “I love you.”

And then I kissed him softly, kissed him until he kissed me back, recognizing my lips from anyone else’s in the world.

“Hey,” I muttered, pulling him into my arms again. “You’re safe now. You’ll always be safe now.”

“God, I love you,” he murmured in my ear. “I can’t believe you found a way to save me.”

“I’ll always find a way to save you,” I responded softly, basking in the scent and feeling of Phil after being away from it for so long. He’d only been falling for a few seconds until I swooped in and saved him, but I’d been apart from him for two and half years, and I wanted to savour every moment with him, never take a moment of him being with me for granted.

Not ever again.

THE END.

And they lived happily ever after, forever and ever, for infinity and beyond.

You are such a dork.

But you love me (*^_^*)

Somehow. Who knows how I put up with you.

You know, I thought most of your writing wasn’t going to be that great from your comment about not being able to write that well, but it was actually pretty good. I mean, you could do with a few lessons from me and a bit more of an extensive vocabulary.

Oh fuck off.

But Dan, I thought you couldn’t live without me, I thought I was like the literal sun to me, and me just being in your presence makes your life makes it so much better!

That was then, this is now. I’ll gladly throw you out of the moving spacecraft now.

Am I still supposed to give this notebook to NASA?

I wouldn’t suggest it. They might think that we’re both slightly insane.

I mean, time travel is a theoretical concept to them still, they probably wouldn’t believe us if we said you actually went back in time and got advice from your long since deceased parents.

I was thinking more along the lines of them reading our personal thoughts and just thinking that we were insane, but yeah, the time travel stuff doesn’t really help either.

Anyways, so how’s your day going? (^-^)

Phil, I am literally just sitting at the front of this spacecraft headed back to Earth passing a notebook back and forth with you while giggling about it. How do you think my day is going?

Clearly I don’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked. Duh.

You are literally five.

Does that make you a pedophile then?

Please shut up.  Just actually talk to me like a normal person.

No! I’m not a normal person, remember? \(^o^)/

Dork.

You say that like you’re not also a complete and utter nerd and dork.

Nerd.

R00d.

Plz stahp with the txt tlk it hurts mah brain m8.

Fine. NASA will know that you’re the one who ruined this amazing conversation and drew my notebook about our space mission to a close.

I THOUGHT WE WEREN’T SHOWING NASA THIS JOURNAL BECAUSE THEY’D HAVE TO PUT US UP FOR A PSYCHIATRIC EXAMINATION.

Hee hee. You’re cute when you’re mad ^_^

That’s it. I’m done with you.

NOOOO Dan no stop walking away get back here Dan NOOOOO. Rude. How rude. Just ignore the literal sun, I’m sure that’ll end well for you.

The end. For real this time. Phil, don’t you dare write another sentence.

Another sentence.

Works Cited

Anderson, David Lewis, Dr. “Cosmic Strings.” Anderson Institute, andersoninsitute.com, www.andersoninstitute.com/cosmic-strings.html. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.

Asthana, Anushka, and David Smith. “Einstein Was Right: Space and Time Bend.” theguardian, www.theguardian.com, 14 Apr. 2007, www.theguardian.com/science/2007/apr/15/spaceexploration.universe. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.

Bonsor, Kevin. “How Time Travel Will Work.” Bibliotecapleyades, bibliotecapleyades.net, www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/time_travel/esp_ciencia_timetravel25.htm. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.

Bonsor, Kevin, and Robert Lamb. “How Time Travel Works- Cosmic Strings.” How Stuff Works Science, science.howstuffworks.com, science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/time-travel5.htm. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.

“Do Cosmic Strings Exist?” LIGO Scientific Collaboration, www.ligo.org, www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5S6CosmicStrings/flyer.pdf. Accessed 16 Mar. 2017.

Engel, Joshua. “Relativity (Physics): If Matter Bends Space Time, What Does It Bend In?” Quora, quora.com, 8 May 2012, www.quora.com/Relativity-physics-If-matter-bends-spacetime-what-does-it-bend-in. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.

Hawking, Stephen. “Space and Time Warps.” Stephen Hawking, hawking.org.uk, www.hawking.org.uk/space-and-time-warps.html. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.

[jimblanceusa]

Apocalypse here: Why Colorado is such a popular setting for humanity’s downfall

In Wasteland 3, the latest entry in the influential role-playing game series, a group of militarized survivors fight through the frozen shells of Colorado Springs, Aspen and Denver during a nuclear winter that makes most blizzards look tame by comparison.

The choice of setting was easy for the video game’s art director.

“We’d done ‘brown and hot’ for two games in Arizona, and we needed a change, so we went with white and cold for this one,” said Aaron Meyers, who lived part-time in Denver during the game’s development. “Colorado seemed like the perfect place to give us that feel and those aesthetics, as well as a wealth of interesting lore and locations to mine for our story.”

Wasteland 3, which was released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on Aug. 28, joins a long line of video games that have pictured Colorado as a blood-soaked landscape of zombies, foreign military invasions and robot dinosaurs, including acclaimed, multimillion-dollar earners like The Last of Us, Horizon: Zero Dawn, the Dead Rising series, Homefront, World War Z and Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Even those are just one category in a larger group of novels, TV series, films and comics that have mined Colorado for their apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories, from Stephen King’s “The Stand” — which imagined Boulder as the center of humanity’s resistance against a supernatural evil — to “Dr. Strangelove,” “Waterworld,” “Battlefield Earth” and “Interstellar.”

“You can really visualize Colorado when you mention it, even if you’ve never been here,” said Denver author Mario Acevedo, who has written wildly imaginative, urban-fantasy novels starring werewolves, vampires and zombies. “We’re shorthand for ‘mountains,’ but also the type of people who tend to live in the mountains. Scrappy people do what it takes to survive.”

But even as writers and artists paint Colorado with ashen skies, resource-driven riots and nuclear holocausts, the trappings of the post-apocalyptic genre have grown all too cozy in 2020.

Across the U.S., multi-state wildfires, a devastating hurricane, and civic unrest feel like cruel toppings on a summer already larded with misery in the form of a global viral pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans and left millions unemployed. As the line between depiction and prediction grows almost invisibly thin for post-apocalyptic storytellers, they’ve been forced to turn up the intensity to stand out from our increasingly grim reality.

“Over 40 years of popular culture, a lot of people have looked at what’s happening on a global scale and extrapolated these disasters that end up mirroring reality,” said Boulder novelist Carrie Vaughn, whose 2017 book “Bannerless” won sci-fi’s coveted Philip K. Dick award.

They just didn’t think it would arrive so soon — or all at the same time.

“The only thing that hasn’t happened yet is zombies,” Vaughn said with a laugh. “And I’m not going to make any bets against that.”

Related Articles

Denver leaders had big plans to curb youth violence in 2019, but a pandemic and bureaucracy got in the way.

Safe ways for your kids to socialize during COVID-19

Denver’s “Clone Wars,” “Phineas and Ferb” voice actor on working (from home) through a pandemic

For centuries, apocalypse stories centered around humanity’s punishment from angry gods. That changed after World War II as people woke up to the possibility of global nuclear annihilation. Since then, post-apocalyptic stories and dystopian sci-fi have spread out into every facet of popular culture.

But with the events of 2020, the genre seems to be eating itself from the inside out, particularly as the tropes and clichés of the genre continue to pile up. Is there anywhere else to go?

A perfectly terrible place

Yes, things are messed up everywhere. Few people are immune to the “historic convergence of health, economic, environmental and social emergencies,” as the Associated Press called our “turbulent reality” last week.

But even during good times, popular narratives did not usually depict Colorado as a fun, happy place. Westerns and horror were two of the first genres to capitalize on the state’s isolated, hardscrabble reputation in the 20th century through both novels and films. Harsh winters, brutal landscapes, cabin fever and cannibalism are built into the state’s history — and thus the way people continue to perceive Colorado.

“People who aren’t from here view it as a frontier because it still has this kind of Old West-aura to it,” Vaughn said. “Montana feels remote, but somehow, Colorado is very accessible. You’ve got mountains, prairies and lots of pioneer credibility.”

In fact, the rugged lawlessness and individualism of Westerns, as well as tales like “The Shining,” helped set the stage for today’s post-apocalyptic Colorado narratives, which found their lasting visualization in 1979’s ”Mad Max” and its 1981 sequel, “The Road Warrior.”

But movies such as 1984’s ”Red Dawn” — which imagines Calumet (a former mining town north of Walsenburg) as ground zero for a military invasion by the Soviet Union — also influenced a generation of storytellers.

“I was 11 or 12 when that came out and it was a big favorite of mine,” Vaughn said. “It’s just ridiculous, though. How realistic is an army coming in and trying to occupy the Rocky Mountains? And yet the movie was so iconic that it imprinted on a lot of people.”

Vaughn is a self-described military brat who first came to Colorado when her father was stationed in Colorado Springs. She believes our concentration of military bases plays a big role in the casting of the state. For decades, storytellers have returned to Colorado to visit the command center inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, which has been imagined as both a catalyst for a global nuclear disaster and the last refuge in an irradiated world (see “Dr. Strangelove,” the “Terminator” series, “Jeremiah,” “Interstellar,” etc.).

“I love it because of ‘WarGames’ and ‘Stargate SG-1,’ ” Vaughn said of Cheyenne Mountain’s recurring role in science fiction. “But I got to tour NORAD in high school through my Girl Scouts troop, and again in my current events class, and of course it looks nothing like the underground city you see in most movies. The big blast door, at least, is accurate.”

Some storytellers, such as Wasteland 3 art director Meyers, lean into their artistic license.

“We tend to parody cliché rather than avoiding it entirely, so a few of Colorado’s pop culture connections get a nod and a wink,” he said. “But we didn’t go out of our way to include or exclude any trope based on whether it was well known. If it worked for the story or added to the atmosphere, we put our own twist on it and used it.”

Like Meyers, Wasteland 3 senior concept artist Dan Glasl has lived in Colorado (in the latter’s case, growing up just west of Colorado Springs) and visited most of the iconic areas depicted in the game, from Garden of the Gods to downtown Denver’s Union Station, the Colorado State Capitol and even the former Stapleton Airport.

“We did try to pick locations and landmarks that would be iconic to Coloradans and interesting and visually appealing to outsiders,” Meyers said. “So you can visit places like the Garden of the Gods and the Denver (International) Airport, and see our takes on them, as well as lesser-known places like Peterson Air Force base, and then sillier places like Santa’s Workshop — which is in fact a front for a drug operation.”

Whose apocalypse?

While outsiders may see us a mono-culture, Coloradans know how radically different the conservative Eastern Plains or Western Slope are from ritzy ski-resort towns and liberal Front Range cities. Like Stephen King’s Maine, Colorado is diverse enough in geography and culture to welcome a variety of fictional interpretations.

But that doesn’t mean they’re accurate.

“If you say ‘Colorado’ to someone in the Midwest, they’ll have certain stereotypes about us,” Acevedo said. “And storytellers use that to their advantage. We’re remote enough that they can fill in the blanks and people will buy it.”

Most of these stories don’t reach beyond the history of European settlers as their implied starting points, whereas Colorado’s Native American, Spanish and Mexican history runs much deeper. Until the last century, birth rates in the mountain west were persistently low, Acevedo said, due to the persistently harsh conditions.

That led to constant, life-or-death clashes between indigenous tribes that were, for all intents and purposes, their own versions of the apocalypse. (And that’s not even considering the arrival of European settlers.)

“The Arapaho, Comanche and Utes all had low survival rates,” Acevedo said. “You can’t go to any one part of this land and say, ‘Well, this is the pure, original history of it,’ because everything is folded over everything else. When each previous civilization or society ended, it was truly their apocalypse. You have to look at the history of a people, not just the history of a region.”

For example, few Colorado stories — apocalyptic, western or otherwise — dig back to the Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde, whose civilization collapsed near the end of the 13th century due to drought. Despite their essentially Stone Age technology, the Ancestral Puebloans traded with travelers from all over the region and left spectacular marks on their environment.

“The people living in Colorado 1,000 years ago were a lot more aware of what was going on around them than we give them credit for,” Acevedo said. “But with oral history and no written language, it was harder to keep track of things. You could go back however far you want and find an interesting story about some of the early Cro-Magnons coming across the land bridge, and the onset of the Ice Age — that being an appropriately apocalyptic event for them.”

As in reality, not every fictional character is affected the same way by disasters. People with money and privilege tend to see the effects last, insulated as they are from the rusty clockwork of everyday life.

But when a story involves disasters that affect us all — climate change, water shortages, viral pandemics and zombie/alien invasions — there’s opportunity for pointed social commentary and personal reflection, authors say.

“There are 10 million stories about how computing is going to change our lives,” said Paonia-born Paolo Bacigalupi, a bestselling sci-fi author and Hugo award winner, in a 2015 interview. “I think we can have a few more about climate change, drought, water rights, the loss of biodiversity and how we adapt to a changing environment.”

Bacigalupi’s acclaimed sci-fi novel “The Water Knife” imagines a near future in which the Southwest is dramatically remade by clashes over water resources. Bacigalupi was inspired, in part, by watching the fortunes of the rural area he grew up in rise and fall over dwindling water resources.

“I’m constantly looking over my shoulder,” he said shortly before “The Water Knife” was published, “because it seems so glaringly obvious that someone else would be writing about this exact same thing.”

Too real?

Before the title screen for Wasteland 3 appears, players are shown a disclaimer: “Wasteland 3 is a work of fiction. Ideas, dialog (sic) and stories we created early in development have in some cases been mirrored by our current reality. Our goal is to present a game of fictional entertainment, and any correlation to real-world events is purely coincidental.”

The game’s art director, Meyers, declined to answer questions about the reasoning behind the disclaimer, but that’s understandable. Games like Wasteland 3 typically take several years, hundreds of people and millions of dollars to produce. Appearing too topical, or turning off potential players with real-world, political overtones, can limit a game’s all-important appeal and profits.

Legal concerns also trail post-apocalyptic games set in real locations. When the PlayStation 4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn launched to critical acclaim and massive sales in 2017, its publicists pitched The Denver Post on an article exploring their high-tech location scouting, which resulted in stunningly detailed Colorado foliage, weather patterns and simulated geography.

However, game developers would only agree to an interview if trademarked names were not mentioned, given that the studio had apparently not cleared their usage. While The Denver Post declined to write about it at the time, other media outlets ran photos of the game’s bombed-out, overgrown takes on Red Rocks Amphitheatre and what would become Empower Field at Mile High, as well as various natural formations and instantly recognizable statues in downtown Colorado Springs.

That gives Wasteland 3 — which uses elements of parody — some leeway, in the same way that TV’s “South Park” has mocked local celebrities like Jake Jabs, Ron Zappolo and John Elway without getting sued.

“We did have to change a few things here and there, but the references should still be clear to those who know,” Meyers said of Wasteland 3 items like Boors Beer (take a wild guess). “We’re part of the Xbox Game Studios, so there are teams of folks involved in ensuring we have things like proper rights clearances for names.”

Of course, that’s part of the problem in 2020: Bit by bit, it’s beginning to resemble any number of fictional, worst-case scenarios for the collapse of modern society. Competing political factions often label each other as violent cults. People who don’t wear masks have been described as zombies. Police violence and gun-toting civilians are everywhere.

In that way, it’s getting harder for writers and artists of post-apocalyptic stories to stay one step ahead of the news. There’s a creeping feeling that we’ve seen it all before — even if only in our heads. But good writing can be its own virtue, regardless of subject matter, and the post-apocalyptic genre has always stood proudly on the wobbly, irradiated shoulders of others.

“We’re obviously inspired by others and we wouldn’t even be the first post-apocalyptic game set in Colorado, but we have pretty unique sensibilities,” Meyers said of Wasteland 3. “It’s a very serious and dark world, but we put a unique twist on just about everything, and we really enjoy dark humor. You’re going to have brutal ethical decisions to make about life and death, but there’s a lot of humor throughout as well.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox.

from Latest Information https://www.denverpost.com/2020/09/02/apocalypse-here-why-colorado-is-such-a-popular-setting-for-humanitys-downfall/

[laurendzim]

Apocalypse here: Why Colorado is such a popular setting for humanity’s downfall

In Wasteland 3, the latest entry in the influential role-playing game series, a group of militarized survivors fight through the frozen shells of Colorado Springs, Aspen and Denver during a nuclear winter that makes most blizzards look tame by comparison.

The choice of setting was easy for the video game’s art director.

“We’d done ‘brown and hot’ for two games in Arizona, and we needed a change, so we went with white and cold for this one,” said Aaron Meyers, who lived part-time in Denver during the game’s development. “Colorado seemed like the perfect place to give us that feel and those aesthetics, as well as a wealth of interesting lore and locations to mine for our story.”

Wasteland 3, which was released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on Aug. 28, joins a long line of video games that have pictured Colorado as a blood-soaked landscape of zombies, foreign military invasions and robot dinosaurs, including acclaimed, multimillion-dollar earners like The Last of Us, Horizon: Zero Dawn, the Dead Rising series, Homefront, World War Z and Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Even those are just one category in a larger group of novels, TV series, films and comics that have mined Colorado for their apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories, from Stephen King’s “The Stand” — which imagined Boulder as the center of humanity’s resistance against a supernatural evil — to “Dr. Strangelove,” “Waterworld,” “Battlefield Earth” and “Interstellar.”

“You can really visualize Colorado when you mention it, even if you’ve never been here,” said Denver author Mario Acevedo, who has written wildly imaginative, urban-fantasy novels starring werewolves, vampires and zombies. “We’re shorthand for ‘mountains,’ but also the type of people who tend to live in the mountains. Scrappy people do what it takes to survive.”

But even as writers and artists paint Colorado with ashen skies, resource-driven riots and nuclear holocausts, the trappings of the post-apocalyptic genre have grown all too cozy in 2020.

Across the U.S., multi-state wildfires, a devastating hurricane, and civic unrest feel like cruel toppings on a summer already larded with misery in the form of a global viral pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans and left millions unemployed. As the line between depiction and prediction grows almost invisibly thin for post-apocalyptic storytellers, they’ve been forced to turn up the intensity to stand out from our increasingly grim reality.

“Over 40 years of popular culture, a lot of people have looked at what’s happening on a global scale and extrapolated these disasters that end up mirroring reality,” said Boulder novelist Carrie Vaughn, whose 2017 book “Bannerless” won sci-fi’s coveted Philip K. Dick award.

They just didn’t think it would arrive so soon — or all at the same time.

“The only thing that hasn’t happened yet is zombies,” Vaughn said with a laugh. “And I’m not going to make any bets against that.”

Related Articles

Denver leaders had big plans to curb youth violence in 2019, but a pandemic and bureaucracy got in the way.

Safe ways for your kids to socialize during COVID-19

Denver’s “Clone Wars,” “Phineas and Ferb” voice actor on working (from home) through a pandemic

For centuries, apocalypse stories centered around humanity’s punishment from angry gods. That changed after World War II as people woke up to the possibility of global nuclear annihilation. Since then, post-apocalyptic stories and dystopian sci-fi have spread out into every facet of popular culture.

But with the events of 2020, the genre seems to be eating itself from the inside out, particularly as the tropes and clichés of the genre continue to pile up. Is there anywhere else to go?

A perfectly terrible place

Yes, things are messed up everywhere. Few people are immune to the “historic convergence of health, economic, environmental and social emergencies,” as the Associated Press called our “turbulent reality” last week.

But even during good times, popular narratives did not usually depict Colorado as a fun, happy place. Westerns and horror were two of the first genres to capitalize on the state’s isolated, hardscrabble reputation in the 20th century through both novels and films. Harsh winters, brutal landscapes, cabin fever and cannibalism are built into the state’s history — and thus the way people continue to perceive Colorado.

“People who aren’t from here view it as a frontier because it still has this kind of Old West-aura to it,” Vaughn said. “Montana feels remote, but somehow, Colorado is very accessible. You’ve got mountains, prairies and lots of pioneer credibility.”

In fact, the rugged lawlessness and individualism of Westerns, as well as tales like “The Shining,” helped set the stage for today’s post-apocalyptic Colorado narratives, which found their lasting visualization in 1979’s ”Mad Max” and its 1981 sequel, “The Road Warrior.”

But movies such as 1984’s ”Red Dawn” — which imagines Calumet (a former mining town north of Walsenburg) as ground zero for a military invasion by the Soviet Union — also influenced a generation of storytellers.

“I was 11 or 12 when that came out and it was a big favorite of mine,” Vaughn said. “It’s just ridiculous, though. How realistic is an army coming in and trying to occupy the Rocky Mountains? And yet the movie was so iconic that it imprinted on a lot of people.”

Vaughn is a self-described military brat who first came to Colorado when her father was stationed in Colorado Springs. She believes our concentration of military bases plays a big role in the casting of the state. For decades, storytellers have returned to Colorado to visit the command center inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, which has been imagined as both a catalyst for a global nuclear disaster and the last refuge in an irradiated world (see “Dr. Strangelove,” the “Terminator” series, “Jeremiah,” “Interstellar,” etc.).

“I love it because of ‘WarGames’ and ‘Stargate SG-1,’ ” Vaughn said of Cheyenne Mountain’s recurring role in science fiction. “But I got to tour NORAD in high school through my Girl Scouts troop, and again in my current events class, and of course it looks nothing like the underground city you see in most movies. The big blast door, at least, is accurate.”

Some storytellers, such as Wasteland 3 art director Meyers, lean into their artistic license.

“We tend to parody cliché rather than avoiding it entirely, so a few of Colorado’s pop culture connections get a nod and a wink,” he said. “But we didn’t go out of our way to include or exclude any trope based on whether it was well known. If it worked for the story or added to the atmosphere, we put our own twist on it and used it.”

Like Meyers, Wasteland 3 senior concept artist Dan Glasl has lived in Colorado (in the latter’s case, growing up just west of Colorado Springs) and visited most of the iconic areas depicted in the game, from Garden of the Gods to downtown Denver’s Union Station, the Colorado State Capitol and even the former Stapleton Airport.

“We did try to pick locations and landmarks that would be iconic to Coloradans and interesting and visually appealing to outsiders,” Meyers said. “So you can visit places like the Garden of the Gods and the Denver (International) Airport, and see our takes on them, as well as lesser-known places like Peterson Air Force base, and then sillier places like Santa’s Workshop — which is in fact a front for a drug operation.”

Whose apocalypse?

While outsiders may see us a mono-culture, Coloradans know how radically different the conservative Eastern Plains or Western Slope are from ritzy ski-resort towns and liberal Front Range cities. Like Stephen King’s Maine, Colorado is diverse enough in geography and culture to welcome a variety of fictional interpretations.

But that doesn’t mean they’re accurate.

“If you say ‘Colorado’ to someone in the Midwest, they’ll have certain stereotypes about us,” Acevedo said. “And storytellers use that to their advantage. We’re remote enough that they can fill in the blanks and people will buy it.”

Most of these stories don’t reach beyond the history of European settlers as their implied starting points, whereas Colorado’s Native American, Spanish and Mexican history runs much deeper. Until the last century, birth rates in the mountain west were persistently low, Acevedo said, due to the persistently harsh conditions.

That led to constant, life-or-death clashes between indigenous tribes that were, for all intents and purposes, their own versions of the apocalypse. (And that’s not even considering the arrival of European settlers.)

“The Arapaho, Comanche and Utes all had low survival rates,” Acevedo said. “You can’t go to any one part of this land and say, ‘Well, this is the pure, original history of it,’ because everything is folded over everything else. When each previous civilization or society ended, it was truly their apocalypse. You have to look at the history of a people, not just the history of a region.”

For example, few Colorado stories — apocalyptic, western or otherwise — dig back to the Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde, whose civilization collapsed near the end of the 13th century due to drought. Despite their essentially Stone Age technology, the Ancestral Puebloans traded with travelers from all over the region and left spectacular marks on their environment.

“The people living in Colorado 1,000 years ago were a lot more aware of what was going on around them than we give them credit for,” Acevedo said. “But with oral history and no written language, it was harder to keep track of things. You could go back however far you want and find an interesting story about some of the early Cro-Magnons coming across the land bridge, and the onset of the Ice Age — that being an appropriately apocalyptic event for them.”

As in reality, not every fictional character is affected the same way by disasters. People with money and privilege tend to see the effects last, insulated as they are from the rusty clockwork of everyday life.

But when a story involves disasters that affect us all — climate change, water shortages, viral pandemics and zombie/alien invasions — there’s opportunity for pointed social commentary and personal reflection, authors say.

“There are 10 million stories about how computing is going to change our lives,” said Paonia-born Paolo Bacigalupi, a bestselling sci-fi author and Hugo award winner, in a 2015 interview. “I think we can have a few more about climate change, drought, water rights, the loss of biodiversity and how we adapt to a changing environment.”

Bacigalupi’s acclaimed sci-fi novel “The Water Knife” imagines a near future in which the Southwest is dramatically remade by clashes over water resources. Bacigalupi was inspired, in part, by watching the fortunes of the rural area he grew up in rise and fall over dwindling water resources.

“I’m constantly looking over my shoulder,” he said shortly before “The Water Knife” was published, “because it seems so glaringly obvious that someone else would be writing about this exact same thing.”

Too real?

Before the title screen for Wasteland 3 appears, players are shown a disclaimer: “Wasteland 3 is a work of fiction. Ideas, dialog (sic) and stories we created early in development have in some cases been mirrored by our current reality. Our goal is to present a game of fictional entertainment, and any correlation to real-world events is purely coincidental.”

The game’s art director, Meyers, declined to answer questions about the reasoning behind the disclaimer, but that’s understandable. Games like Wasteland 3 typically take several years, hundreds of people and millions of dollars to produce. Appearing too topical, or turning off potential players with real-world, political overtones, can limit a game’s all-important appeal and profits.

Legal concerns also trail post-apocalyptic games set in real locations. When the PlayStation 4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn launched to critical acclaim and massive sales in 2017, its publicists pitched The Denver Post on an article exploring their high-tech location scouting, which resulted in stunningly detailed Colorado foliage, weather patterns and simulated geography.

However, game developers would only agree to an interview if trademarked names were not mentioned, given that the studio had apparently not cleared their usage. While The Denver Post declined to write about it at the time, other media outlets ran photos of the game’s bombed-out, overgrown takes on Red Rocks Amphitheatre and what would become Empower Field at Mile High, as well as various natural formations and instantly recognizable statues in downtown Colorado Springs.

That gives Wasteland 3 — which uses elements of parody — some leeway, in the same way that TV’s “South Park” has mocked local celebrities like Jake Jabs, Ron Zappolo and John Elway without getting sued.

“We did have to change a few things here and there, but the references should still be clear to those who know,” Meyers said of Wasteland 3 items like Boors Beer (take a wild guess). “We’re part of the Xbox Game Studios, so there are teams of folks involved in ensuring we have things like proper rights clearances for names.”

Of course, that’s part of the problem in 2020: Bit by bit, it’s beginning to resemble any number of fictional, worst-case scenarios for the collapse of modern society. Competing political factions often label each other as violent cults. People who don’t wear masks have been described as zombies. Police violence and gun-toting civilians are everywhere.

In that way, it’s getting harder for writers and artists of post-apocalyptic stories to stay one step ahead of the news. There’s a creeping feeling that we’ve seen it all before — even if only in our heads. But good writing can be its own virtue, regardless of subject matter, and the post-apocalyptic genre has always stood proudly on the wobbly, irradiated shoulders of others.

“We’re obviously inspired by others and we wouldn’t even be the first post-apocalyptic game set in Colorado, but we have pretty unique sensibilities,” Meyers said of Wasteland 3. “It’s a very serious and dark world, but we put a unique twist on just about everything, and we really enjoy dark humor. You’re going to have brutal ethical decisions to make about life and death, but there’s a lot of humor throughout as well.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox.

from News And Updates https://www.denverpost.com/2020/09/02/apocalypse-here-why-colorado-is-such-a-popular-setting-for-humanitys-downfall/

[entergamingxp]

The video game apocalypses are already here

Early on in the zombie film 28 Days Later, Cillian Murphy wanders out of hospital after waking from a month-long coma and crosses a deserted Westminster Bridge. The roads and pavements are empty and strewn with litter, all the while the gothic Palace of Westminster looms over the bewildered Murphy, now a sightseeing tourist in post-apocalyptic London. Understandably, there has always been a lot of interest in how this iconic scene was filmed. How was such a busy landmark in the capital entirely emptied of people? The answer was fairly simple: they filmed it at 5am on a Sunday in the middle of summer.

Today, there would be no need for such ingenuity. In the heat of a global pandemic, central areas of London are almost entirely abandoned (except on Thursdays when crowds congregate, zombie-like, to clap for carers on the very same bridge). Photographers from around the world have already been documenting cities under lockdown – a deserted Times Square, a lonely Eiffel Tower, a vacant Piccadilly Circus, its Coca-Cola billboard eerily replaced with the deadpan face of a monarch. It could be an image captured from the upcoming Watchdogs: Legion, or the location of a horrifying shoot-out in the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

How quickly reality can be made to look like fiction. We’re used to seeing images of ruination and abandonment. There’s a long artistic tradition fascinated with crumbling visions. From European obsessions with classical antiquity to Romanticism’s love for gothic castles and abbeys. In games this enthusiasm plays out within the realms of the medieval fantasy epic – The Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls or The Witcher series’ many deteriorating structures often echo the work of 18th and 19th century painters like JMW Turner, Caspar David Friedrich or John Constable.

In 2014 the Tate Britain ran an exhibition entitled Ruin Lust, which is as apt a name as any for this seemingly innate desire to witness mournful kinds of destruction. More recently, we’ve become fascinated with modern, urban ruins. Culture has spent decades recovering from pictures of catastrophic devastation caused by the World Wars, and several more bracing itself for nuclear devastation. Slowly, decaying stone towers, ancient keeps and overgrown amphitheaters have been swapped out for bombed cities, abandoned factories, and rotting shopping malls.

Games are just as obsessed with representations of contemporary ruin, and there’s obviously a real pleasure to be found in exploring them. Take Fallout 76, a game whose greatest asset was always its environment: a detailed recreation of a West Virginia left behind. Its map is a patchwork of ruined modernity, all rusted mining facilities, luxury high-rises, highway mega stops and middle-class gallerias. Amongst the genuine Appalachian wilderness are various concrete flyovers and tarmac runways – the in between, suburban spaces that recall the drosscapes and edgelands of a J.G. Ballard novel. These are “large tracts of abused” and wasted land on the periphery: “contaminated industrial sites, mineral workings, garbage dumps, container stores, polluted river banks.” Whilst real landscapes may not have been razed by nuclear bombs, they are surely still contaminated.

The Division series is another game invested in this sort of apocalyptic imagery. Its abandoned New York and Washington, D.C has been overturned, not by zombies, but by a devastating pandemic. Quite uncannily, just as real banks are currently disinfecting their notes in fear of the coronavirus’ ability to persist on paper surfaces, the spread of The Division’s deadly pathogen is caused by this very phenomenon. The irony of a globe ravaged by a virus that attaches itself to capital – a sickness travelling on top of a sickness.

Outside of games there’s a boom in documenting all kinds of disintegrating architecture, a growing interest in things like ghost towns and unfinished structures, and even a rise in activities like rooftopping, skywalking and urban spelunking. Whilst intrepid urban explorers jump barriers and sift through reality’s ruins, games allow us to do something similar within increasingly sophisticated virtualities. And yet whilst the real world seems to be filled with opportunities to delve into and examine real ruins and zones of abandonment, games often tend towards fictional extremes. Try and count how many big-budget titles are future-orientated or out-right post-apocalyptic and you’ll quickly lose count. But what seems increasingly apparent – particularly amidst the ongoing pandemic, and widespread environmental collapse – is that for many of us the apocalypse has already arrived. To rejig an oft-quoted line from the father of cyberpunk, William Gibson: “the [apocalypse] is already here – it’s just unevenly distributed.”

We see urban destruction all around us in our daily lives. Another way of looking at all this ruination is as a continuation of Gothic aesthetics. Gothic art and literature was very much about how old, medieval forms were superseded by industrialisation, and how often these ancient things rise up and return to haunt us. Today, the process continues, except instead we are witnessing more industrial elements of capitalism being replaced by newer, more “advanced” post-industrial forms. Instead of ruined castles we get the shells of factories and derelict public housing. Instead of paintings of Tintern Abbey, we get haunting photographs of post-industrial Detroit.

We’re often dreaming of post-apocalypses, waiting for that big moment or cut-off point – for the bomb to drop. But ruins are all around us. Photographers like Matthew Christopher and Seph Lawless have spent years documenting contemporary ruins with their cameras. Christopher’s book series, Abandoned America, looks at a wide range of shattered dreams – everything from derelict schools and universities, to old hospitals and asylums, and even the shattered visages of humongous presidential busts. Seph Lawless has similarly recorded the slow ruination of American capitalism. His books on dilapidated theme parks and abandoned malls are the perfect environmental inspiration for video games. His ghostly images highlight the destructive, self-cannibalising energies of contemporary economic systems. As people like Dan Bell pick through the debris of shuttered shopping centres in his Dead Mall video series, we can begin to appreciate the fact that when even the greatest symbols of 20th century consumerism are left to rot, nothing is sacred.

When it’s not ruins left by American capitalism, it’s spectral images coming out of post-Soviet areas that catch our eye. One of the greatest game series involving urban exploration, STALKER, is based on the very real ruins that surround the Chernobyl Power Plant. Outside of this one specific zone, we see wreckage turned aesthetic in various “Cosmic Communist Constructions”, such as those photographed by Frédéric Chaubin or Rebecca Litchfield.

As time and history moves on, it doesn’t just produce physical ruin, but various ghosts and phantasms that seem to haunt our cultural imagination. Adventure games like Disco Elysium, Kentucky Route Zero and Night in the Woods have all been particularly successful in leaning into this idea of a contemporary Gothic. In Night in the Woods, the town of Possum Springs contains a number of boarded-up and closed-down stores. The game’s declining mall and disused rail system all stem from the loss of industry and severe economic depression. Likewise, the first act of Kentucky Route Zero has you exploring an abandoned mine, whilst Disco Elysium features areas like the Doomed Commercial Area, a shuttered factory, a derelict pier, and even an old ruined sea fort. Sometimes these places are physically haunted within the game’s fiction, other times there is simply an eerie absence of the human – the ghosts are all shattered dreams and failed utopias mixed up amidst the physical rubble.

We often hear about defunct things being assigned to the “garbage heap of history”, but the truth is history itself is one giant dustbin. We needn’t look to the far future to find striking examples of ruin, only to the past. All over the world there are structures abandoned or doomed to unfinished states. Take Hashima Island, perhaps most well known for its appearance in the James Bond film Skyfall. Commonly known as “Battleship Island”, the place was a centre of industrialisation (and forced labour) until its closure in the 70s. Other ghost towns like Varosha, an abandoned seaside quarter in the Cypriot city Famagusta, Fordlândia in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, and even Pripyat – a place we’re all exceptionally familiar with – show us what might be left behind when disaster strikes. We might also cast our eyes towards more modern ghost cities. Much has been made of places like Ordos, a modern metropolis that seemed to suddenly spring up from the deserts of China’s Inner Mongolia. Similarly, drone footage of incomplete luxury housing developments in Turkey, and the unfinished tower blocks of Iran’s Pardis (Paradise), are all evidence of the physical effects of ongoing economic crises.

As we hurtle towards the future, civilisation will no doubt accumulate even larger piles of physical rubbish. Our leftovers are already considerable, and we need never look far for it. There are abandoned pockets and ruined zones in each and every city in the world. And with evidence of the apocalypse all around us, it’s no wonder games both highlight this damage as well as take things to their logical extreme, where capital cities are entirely emptied and the planet is irreversibly scarred.

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Looking back on 50 years of Earth Days

About 1 million people participated in the original Earth Day demonstrations in New York City. Mayor John Lindsay closed Fifth Avenue to traffic so people could march. (Courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives/)

The first Earth Day was a student-focused, grassroots movement that dealt solely with environmental issues in the United States. In the 50 years since, it has evolved into a worldwide day of action involving thousands of organizations, many of which are larger and have more money than those who took to the streets in 1970.

Still, even as the issues have changed, the general message of saving the planet has remained largely the same. The first generation of participants targeted air and water pollution and hazardous waste—which are still a challenge today—but modern activists are also staring down problems such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and the fact that plastic seems to be everywhere.

It’s in Earth Day’s approach where environmental leaders have seen the most development. The original movement was predominantly organized by white, college-educated people, and large national green groups took the lead pushing legislation in subsequent years, says Peggy Shepard, cofounder of New York City-based WE ACT For Environmental Justice.

Today, more people understand local groups are fighting on the front lines while their communities—many of which are poor or have been long-neglected by the national conversation—take the brunt of environmental damage. It’s also more clear that environmental issues don’t stand alone and have far-reaching effects that touch industries including food production and transportation, Shepard says.

“It means a whole lot more to a lot more people and more diverse constituencies than ever before,” Shepard says. “All sectors are understanding how saving the Earth and our environment really impacts them.”

So in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, let’s take a look back to understand how we got here and try to get a glimpse of where environmental action might be headed.

Jan. 28, 1969: the Santa Barbara oil spill

Oil piles up along the seawall near Santa Barbara Harbor in California, and the waves are black with petroleum. (US Geological Survey/)

Eight days after Richard Nixon was sworn in as the 37th US president, a blowout at a Union Oil drilling platform off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, spewed an estimated 80,000 barrels (3.4 million gallons) of oil into the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of seabirds, dolphins, sea lions, and other marine creatures died. It’s still the third-largest oil spill in the nation’s history.

The oil slick caught the eye of then-US Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin), as he sat on a plane flying from Los Angeles to Seattle. According to a 2018 Pacific Standard article, the sight of it inspired him to find a way to bring conservation issues into the national spotlight. In 1995, Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton for his role in getting the movement off the ground.

Jan. 28, 1970: Environmental Rights Day

One year after the spill, a group of activists organized Environmental Rights Day in Santa Barbara, at which a young Roderick Nash—who would later become a professor of environmental studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara—read his Declaration of Environmental Rights. It listed a number of environmental problems created by humans and argued that implementing successful solutions would require changing how people thought about the world, not just how they interacted with it.

Denis Hayes, whom Nelson had hired to organize the first Earth Day, was one of the speakers at the event. He later told the Pacific Standard that the people gathered that day may have been the first huge crowd he’d seen that was extremely passionate about environmental issues.

April 22, 1970: the first Earth Day

Cleanup crews gathered in New York City’s Union Square Park on the first Earth Day. Energy company Con Edison donated brooms, mops, and other supplies. (Courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives/)

Inspired by the teach-ins used to protest the Vietnam War, Nelson spent the months following the oil spill planning an environmental teach-in on college campuses nationwide. He chose April 22 because he wanted the highest possible attendance: it fell between spring break and final exams, didn’t conflict with any other holidays, and, as a Wednesday, meant students would not likely be attending other campus events.

Nelson wanted the event to be called the Environmental Teach-In, but marketing it as more of a lecture didn’t appeal to college activists. Those who wanted to get involved wanted action, not debate. Up stepped well-known copywriter Julian Koenig, who volunteered to help come up with a better name. He offered a few, but his favorite was Earth Day, and it stuck. Koenig later said he was partially inspired to create that name because he was born on April 22 and “birthday” rhymed with “Earth Day.”

Ultimately, an estimated 20 million people participated in Earth Day events nationwide. Susan Bass, now vice president of programs and operations for Earth Day Network, the organization that coordinates Earth Day events globally, was one of them. She remembers picking up trash as a Girl Scout in a park in Millburn, New Jersey.

Dec. 2, 1970: the Environmental Protection Agency opens

The Environmental Protection Agency’s own EPA Journal later said the “phenomenal success” of the first Earth Day helped push Nixon, a Republican, to create the EPA. In particular, the journal said the event most likely strengthened the argument that the US needed an independent agency to coordinate all of the new administration’s environmental plans.

1990: Earth Day goes international

The buzz around Earth Day was relatively quiet for the next two decades, but as its 20th anniversary approached, interest heated up. Two groups formed to organize and sponsor events: Earth Day 1990 and the Earth Day 20 Foundation. Hayes led the former, while Edward Furia, a lawyer who organized Earth Day events in Philadelphia in 1970, headed the latter.

On Jan. 3, 1990, President George H.W. Bush made his official Earth Day declaration. “Earth Day—and every day—should inspire us to save the land we love, to realize that global problems do have local solutions, and to make the preservation of the planet a personal commitment,” he said.

In a stark contrast to the student-led actions of the first Earth Day, the 1990 event was bolstered by radio and television coverage, intense marketing, and big budgets. The two groups didn’t share exactly the same strategy, though. Earth Day 20, for example, considered itself more of a grassroots organization with a combative attitude toward industry and criticized Earth Day 1990 for including the CEO of tech giant Hewlett-Packard on its board of directors.

Events included the Earth Day 20 International Peace Climb at Mount Everest, an expedition led by 61-year-old Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit the world’s tallest mountain. It was also the first time mountaineers from the US, the Soviet Union, and China had climbed together. They planned to reach the top on Earth Day, but bad weather delayed their ascent and they didn’t top out until May. Along the way, they collected two tons of trash left by previous expeditions and sent it back down the mountain with support groups. Everest’s litter problem persists today.

2000: Earth Day 30

Earth Day entered the new millennium online, as 2000 was the first year the internet served as a primary organizing tool. With the world wide web’s ability to easily connect people, more than 5,000 environmental groups in 183 countries reached out to millions of citizens. In the US, thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to hear speeches from Vice President Al Gore and others. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, a few years removed from his role in Titanic, hosted an Earth Day television special on ABC.

2010: Earth Day 40

The 40th anniversary of Earth Day resembled its other 10-year milestones, and Earth Day Network, a group founded and chaired by Hayes, organized the day as it had in previous years. Across the US, there was a carbon-neutral festival in Los Angeles, a march on the National Mall, and other events aimed at raising awareness of environmental issues.

2016: the Paris Agreement

Earth Day 2016 was a historic day in the eyes of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, as 175 world leaders signed the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the increase in global temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius. Ban said the overwhelming number of countries that pledged their support proves the world is determined to do what it takes to protect the environment.

The US, under then-President Barack Obama, was one of the countries to sign that day, though President Donald Trump has since announced his intent to withdraw from the accord. Per the rules of the agreement, his first opportunity to do so will be in November.

2017: the March for Science

The first March for Science in 2017 drew thousands of people to a dreary Washington, D.C. in support of science. (Courtesy of Earth Day Network/)

Spurred on by what many saw as a growing opposition to science both domestically and worldwide, Earth Day Network helped organize the first March for Science on the National Mall for Earth Day 2017.

A number of science historians told the Washington Post that such a march involving the scientific community was rare and its only parallel may be scientific groups’ opposition to nuclear war during President Ronald Reagan’s administration. Speakers included Hayes and Bill Nye.

2020: Earth Day turns 50

This year’s Earth Day will be entirely digital due to the outbreak of COVID-19. A number of government and religious leaders, activists, actors, musicians, and others have created personal video messages for the 50th anniversary, and Earth Day Network is hosting a 12-hour digital event from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Time on its homepage.

Across the world, local groups have partnered with Earth Day Network as everyone shifts gears to react to the pandemic. One example is the Barka Foundation in Burkina Faso, which originally planned to work with several schools but is instead distributing soap and information about proper hand-washing techniques to the African country’s many domestic refugees. This community is extremely vulnerable to the new coronavirus, Bass says.

Earth Day Network has also created a citizen science app called Earth Challenge 2020 for Android and iOS. The app aims to collect data from users about environmental problems in their area while also teaching them about issues and providing them with opportunities to get involved.

“I think it’s important for people to understand individual action and participation still really matters,” Bass says. “The environmental movement is still really a grassroots movement and people need to feel their action can make a difference.”

Many local groups are holding their own events, too. WE ACT, for example, had planned a 5K for April 18 in Manhattan’s Riverside Park, but when the city shut down, Shepard’s group moved it online. Participants can still sign up and run in a safe place at their own convenience until April 26.

“For some communities, Earth Day is every day,” Shepard says. “Fortunately, we have people all around the world who think that way, and that’s what’s going to save us.”

Future Earth Days

Although Earth Day has made great strides toward involving more diverse communities and activists, some environmental leaders say there’s still more to do. Often, poor communities and people of color are the hardest-hit by environmental disasters, and the organizations working daily with those populations need to have their voices heard.

That doesn’t mean simply adding people from those communities to larger groups—it means involving local groups completely. “Communities that are most impacted should be in the room when decisions are being made,” says Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University. “When we don’t protect the weakest in our society, we place everybody at risk.”

“This is a war, and again, it’s been 50 years,” Bullard continues. “Let’s celebrate, but let’s not celebrate too long, because we have lots of work to do.”

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Tags: 50, days, Earth, years

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[scootoaster]

Looking back on 50 years of Earth Days

About 1 million people participated in the original Earth Day demonstrations in New York City. Mayor John Lindsay closed Fifth Avenue to traffic so people could march. (Courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives/)

The first Earth Day was a student-focused, grassroots movement that dealt solely with environmental issues in the United States. In the 50 years since, it has evolved into a worldwide day of action involving thousands of organizations, many of which are larger and have more money than those who took to the streets in 1970.

Still, even as the issues have changed, the general message of saving the planet has remained largely the same. The first generation of participants targeted air and water pollution and hazardous waste—which are still a challenge today—but modern activists are also staring down problems such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and the fact that plastic seems to be everywhere.

It’s in Earth Day’s approach where environmental leaders have seen the most development. The original movement was predominantly organized by white, college-educated people, and large national green groups took the lead pushing legislation in subsequent years, says Peggy Shepard, cofounder of New York City-based WE ACT For Environmental Justice.

Today, more people understand local groups are fighting on the front lines while their communities—many of which are poor or have been long-neglected by the national conversation—take the brunt of environmental damage. It’s also more clear that environmental issues don’t stand alone and have far-reaching effects that touch industries including food production and transportation, Shepard says.

“It means a whole lot more to a lot more people and more diverse constituencies than ever before,” Shepard says. “All sectors are understanding how saving the Earth and our environment really impacts them.”

So in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, let’s take a look back to understand how we got here and try to get a glimpse of where environmental action might be headed.

Jan. 28, 1969: the Santa Barbara oil spill

Oil piles up along the seawall near Santa Barbara Harbor in California, and the waves are black with petroleum. (US Geological Survey/)

Eight days after Richard Nixon was sworn in as the 37th US president, a blowout at a Union Oil drilling platform off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, spewed an estimated 80,000 barrels (3.4 million gallons) of oil into the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of seabirds, dolphins, sea lions, and other marine creatures died. It’s still the third-largest oil spill in the nation’s history.

The oil slick caught the eye of then-US Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin), as he sat on a plane flying from Los Angeles to Seattle. According to a 2018 Pacific Standard article, the sight of it inspired him to find a way to bring conservation issues into the national spotlight. In 1995, Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton for his role in getting the movement off the ground.

Jan. 28, 1970: Environmental Rights Day

One year after the spill, a group of activists organized Environmental Rights Day in Santa Barbara, at which a young Roderick Nash—who would later become a professor of environmental studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara—read his Declaration of Environmental Rights. It listed a number of environmental problems created by humans and argued that implementing successful solutions would require changing how people thought about the world, not just how they interacted with it.

Denis Hayes, whom Nelson had hired to organize the first Earth Day, was one of the speakers at the event. He later told the Pacific Standard that the people gathered that day may have been the first huge crowd he’d seen that was extremely passionate about environmental issues.

April 22, 1970: the first Earth Day

Cleanup crews gathered in New York City's Union Square Park on the first Earth Day. Energy company Con Edison donated brooms, mops, and other supplies. (Courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives/)

Inspired by the teach-ins used to protest the Vietnam War, Nelson spent the months following the oil spill planning an environmental teach-in on college campuses nationwide. He chose April 22 because he wanted the highest possible attendance: it fell between spring break and final exams, didn’t conflict with any other holidays, and, as a Wednesday, meant students would not likely be attending other campus events.

Nelson wanted the event to be called the Environmental Teach-In, but marketing it as more of a lecture didn’t appeal to college activists. Those who wanted to get involved wanted action, not debate. Up stepped well-known copywriter Julian Koenig, who volunteered to help come up with a better name. He offered a few, but his favorite was Earth Day, and it stuck. Koenig later said he was partially inspired to create that name because he was born on April 22 and “birthday” rhymed with “Earth Day.”

Ultimately, an estimated 20 million people participated in Earth Day events nationwide. Susan Bass, now vice president of programs and operations for Earth Day Network, the organization that coordinates Earth Day events globally, was one of them. She remembers picking up trash as a Girl Scout in a park in Millburn, New Jersey.

Dec. 2, 1970: the Environmental Protection Agency opens

The Environmental Protection Agency’s own EPA Journal later said the “phenomenal success” of the first Earth Day helped push Nixon, a Republican, to create the EPA. In particular, the journal said the event most likely strengthened the argument that the US needed an independent agency to coordinate all of the new administration’s environmental plans.

1990: Earth Day goes international

The buzz around Earth Day was relatively quiet for the next two decades, but as its 20th anniversary approached, interest heated up. Two groups formed to organize and sponsor events: Earth Day 1990 and the Earth Day 20 Foundation. Hayes led the former, while Edward Furia, a lawyer who organized Earth Day events in Philadelphia in 1970, headed the latter.

On Jan. 3, 1990, President George H.W. Bush made his official Earth Day declaration. “Earth Day—and every day—should inspire us to save the land we love, to realize that global problems do have local solutions, and to make the preservation of the planet a personal commitment,” he said.

In a stark contrast to the student-led actions of the first Earth Day, the 1990 event was bolstered by radio and television coverage, intense marketing, and big budgets. The two groups didn’t share exactly the same strategy, though. Earth Day 20, for example, considered itself more of a grassroots organization with a combative attitude toward industry and criticized Earth Day 1990 for including the CEO of tech giant Hewlett-Packard on its board of directors.

Events included the Earth Day 20 International Peace Climb at Mount Everest, an expedition led by 61-year-old Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit the world’s tallest mountain. It was also the first time mountaineers from the US, the Soviet Union, and China had climbed together. They planned to reach the top on Earth Day, but bad weather delayed their ascent and they didn’t top out until May. Along the way, they collected two tons of trash left by previous expeditions and sent it back down the mountain with support groups. Everest’s litter problem persists today.

2000: Earth Day 30

Earth Day entered the new millennium online, as 2000 was the first year the internet served as a primary organizing tool. With the world wide web’s ability to easily connect people, more than 5,000 environmental groups in 183 countries reached out to millions of citizens. In the US, thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to hear speeches from Vice President Al Gore and others. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, a few years removed from his role in Titanic, hosted an Earth Day television special on ABC.

2010: Earth Day 40

The 40th anniversary of Earth Day resembled its other 10-year milestones, and Earth Day Network, a group founded and chaired by Hayes, organized the day as it had in previous years. Across the US, there was a carbon-neutral festival in Los Angeles, a march on the National Mall, and other events aimed at raising awareness of environmental issues.

2016: the Paris Agreement

Earth Day 2016 was a historic day in the eyes of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, as 175 world leaders signed the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the increase in global temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius. Ban said the overwhelming number of countries that pledged their support proves the world is determined to do what it takes to protect the environment.

The US, under then-President Barack Obama, was one of the countries to sign that day, though President Donald Trump has since announced his intent to withdraw from the accord. Per the rules of the agreement, his first opportunity to do so will be in November.

2017: the March for Science

The first March for Science in 2017 drew thousands of people to a dreary Washington, D.C. in support of science. (Courtesy of Earth Day Network/)

Spurred on by what many saw as a growing opposition to science both domestically and worldwide, Earth Day Network helped organize the first March for Science on the National Mall for Earth Day 2017.

A number of science historians told the Washington Post that such a march involving the scientific community was rare and its only parallel may be scientific groups’ opposition to nuclear war during President Ronald Reagan’s administration. Speakers included Hayes and Bill Nye.

2020: Earth Day turns 50

This year’s Earth Day will be entirely digital due to the outbreak of COVID-19. A number of government and religious leaders, activists, actors, musicians, and others have created personal video messages for the 50th anniversary, and Earth Day Network is hosting a 12-hour digital event from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Time on its homepage.

Across the world, local groups have partnered with Earth Day Network as everyone shifts gears to react to the pandemic. One example is the Barka Foundation in Burkina Faso, which originally planned to work with several schools but is instead distributing soap and information about proper hand-washing techniques to the African country’s many domestic refugees. This community is extremely vulnerable to the new coronavirus, Bass says.

Earth Day Network has also created a citizen science app called Earth Challenge 2020 for Android and iOS. The app aims to collect data from users about environmental problems in their area while also teaching them about issues and providing them with opportunities to get involved.

“I think it’s important for people to understand individual action and participation still really matters,” Bass says. “The environmental movement is still really a grassroots movement and people need to feel their action can make a difference.”

Many local groups are holding their own events, too. WE ACT, for example, had planned a 5K for April 18 in Manhattan’s Riverside Park, but when the city shut down, Shepard’s group moved it online. Participants can still sign up and run in a safe place at their own convenience until April 26.

“For some communities, Earth Day is every day,” Shepard says. “Fortunately, we have people all around the world who think that way, and that’s what’s going to save us.”

Future Earth Days

Although Earth Day has made great strides toward involving more diverse communities and activists, some environmental leaders say there’s still more to do. Often, poor communities and people of color are the hardest-hit by environmental disasters, and the organizations working daily with those populations need to have their voices heard.

That doesn’t mean simply adding people from those communities to larger groups—it means involving local groups completely. “Communities that are most impacted should be in the room when decisions are being made,” says Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University. “When we don’t protect the weakest in our society, we place everybody at risk.”

“This is a war, and again, it’s been 50 years,” Bullard continues. “Let’s celebrate, but let’s not celebrate too long, because we have lots of work to do.”

[bountyofbeads]

What U.S. Intelligence Thought 2020 Would Look Like

A 2004 National Intelligence Council report was eerily prescient in some ways, and totally off in others.

By Uri Friedman | Published December 31, 2019 10:41 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted December 31, 2019 |

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook. George W. Bush was reelected president of the United States. And American intelligence analysts consulted with hundreds of experts across five continents to try to predict what the world would look like in 2020.

The result, a 119-page report by the National Intelligence Council titled “Mapping the Global Future,” is an eerie and illuminating read with 2020 now upon us. The authors, led by Mathew Burrows, then a top official at the council, sensed that the world was approaching an inflection point, even if they didn’t yet know what role the United States would play in it. “At no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such a state of flux,” they wrote.

As with most expert predictions, the intelligence officials got plenty wrong about our present era. But they got a lot at least partially right, an indication that not everything about the world today is as unpredictable as it might seem. While the analysts at the National Intelligence Council may not have seen President Donald Trump coming 15 years ago, they anticipated Trumpism. They didn’t expect the United States to voluntarily reduce its presence in the world, but they grasped that its clout was eroding. They missed the Islamic State, but foresaw the conditions in which ISIS arose.

Here’s a rundown of the key things they got right, somewhat right, and totally wrong.

What They Got Right

The unraveling of U.S. alliances: The fraying of America’s post–World War II alliances is often attributed to Trump’s rough treatment of traditional partners, but U.S. intelligence officials predicted the president’s underlying grievances. The report’s authors wrote that a trend to “bank on” was “dramatically altered alliances and relationships with Europe and Asia,” as European allies prioritized the European Union over NATO and Asian allies adjusted to the rise of China and India. The intelligence analysts predicted that by 2020, the United States would have to calculate the “acceptable cost” of maintaining alliances with European, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries no longer united by a common threat as they were during the Cold War. Trump’s answer has been that the current cost is way too high.

An ascendant “America first” movement: In one scenario in the report, a fictitious United Nations secretary-general writes in her diary in September 2020 that “a lot of Americans are getting tired of playing the world’s policeman” and shouldering the burden of securing allies, convinced that Pax Americana is a rotten deal. (Yes, her: The UN chief, along with the American president, are depicted as women. The latter would have come true in 2016 if not for the Electoral College.) The UN leader notes that she is struggling to keep the UN headquarters in New York in part because there are “‘America Firster’ groups calling for the UN’s removal.” What the authors didn’t expect is that the American president himself would be an “America Firster.”

The decline of international institutions: Foreshadowing the impotence of organizations such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization in the face of climate change, trade wars, and other challenges, intelligence officials predicted that “some of the institutions that are charged with managing global problems may be overwhelmed by them” and that “such post-World War II creations as the United Nations and the international financial institutions risk sliding into obsolescence” unless they adapted to shifting global power dynamics. That adaptation never really happened.

The impulse to make America great again: Intelligence analysts rightly anticipated that while the United States would remain the world’s preeminent power in 2020, Americans would see their country’s influence diminish relative to emerging powers. In other words, they envisioned at least one dimension of the coming anxiety about making America great again, if not the slogan itself. In 2004, this observation about the relative diminution of the United States was considered one of the report’s most heretical findings. As Fred Kaplan inquired in Slate after the study was released, “Who will be the first politician brave enough to declare publicly that the United States is a declining power?”

Escalating competition between the U.S. and China: American intelligence officials didn’t envision the trade war or the Washington buzzword of great-power competition, but the report’s authors predicted that “rising nationalism in China and fears in the U.S. of China as an emerging strategic competitor could fuel an increasingly antagonistic relationship.” And they presciently pointed to the ripple effects, noting that the United States would have to design a vision of “security and order” in Asia to rival China—what Trump has sought to do with his Indo-Pacific Strategy—and that countries such as Japan would feel compelled to “choose between ‘balancing’ against or ‘bandwagoning’ with China.” So far, Tokyo has picked balancing.

The North Korean nuclear crisis: Writing before North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon, intelligence officials foresaw that “the crisis over North Korea” would “come to a head sometime over the next 15 years.” They predicted that it would involve Pyongyang developing nuclear-capable missiles that could reach the United States “well before 2020,” deterring the U.S. from using military force against the country and prompting America’s allies in the region to consider developing their own nuclear weapons. These are the very factors that led Trump to first threaten war and then pivot to diplomacy with Kim Jong Un.

What They Got Partially Right

The populist backlash to globalization, but not in the West: The report’s authors thought that “charismatic, self-styled populist leaders” playing “on popular concerns over inequities between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’” would “emerge as a potent political and social force” in reaction to the dislocations of globalization. But they thought these figures would primarily arise in developing countries in Latin America and Asia, not in advanced democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

The declaration of a caliphate, but not by a terrorist group: The analysts forecasted that al-Qaeda, the dominant jihadist group in 2004, would be eclipsed by more decentralized groups that used the internet to reach alienated young Muslims. They even posited one scenario that must have seemed outlandish at the time: the declaration of a new caliphate that gains traction online and in ungoverned spaces in the Muslim world, attracting pledges of allegiance from followers ranging from Olympic athletes to an American senator’s daughter. But the report’s authors didn’t foresee a terrorist group like ISIS establishing the Islamic state—instead, they imagined it being founded by a young preacher moderate enough to elicit outreach from the pope.

The ascent of China and India, but not enough emphasis on China: Intelligence officials described the rapid rise of China and India as twin phenomena, noting that these developments “would transform the geopolitical landscape” in a manner reminiscent of “the advent of a united Germany in the 19th century and a powerful United States in the early 20th century.” The report’s authors accurately forecasted the economic and population growth of both emerging powers, but they missed the fact that it would be China’s rise far more than India’s that would define international affairs heading into 2020.

What They Got Wrong

A clash between the U.S. and China over the political status of Taiwan: The  intelligence officials sketched out one scenario involving a military confrontation between China and Taiwan over a Taiwanese proclamation of independence, which would likely draw in the United States as Taiwan’s top ally. That hasn’t happened—well, at least not yet.

The establishment of a Palestinian state: The report refers (if rather obscurely) to a sovereign state of Palestine, with Jerusalem as a city shared by Israelis and Palestinians. Such an outcome has arguably never seemed more remote than it does today, despite the fact that the Trump administration claims to still be working on a peace plan.

Russia as a down-and-out power: Intelligence officials didn’t foresee the systematic challenge Russia would pose to the West, arguing that the country’s demographic and public-health challenges would “limit the extent to which Russia can be a major global player.” They failed to envision Russia’s interference in U.S. and European elections, and its invasion of Ukraine, noting that “the prospect of Moscow reasserting control” over former Soviet states “seems improbable.” The analysts did, however, recognize that Vladimir Putin was stoking nationalism, and that his “successors” would persist in tapping into nostalgia for Russia’s imperialist past. Imagine the authors’ surprise when they learned that Putin himself would still be the Russian leader carrying out this effort in 2020.

The inevitability of globalization: The study’s authors recognized that catastrophic events such as a pandemic or major terrorist attack could slow or stop globalization, but they generally wrote about growing interconnectedness as irreversible. They characterized globalization as “a force so ubiquitous that it will substantially shape all the other major trends in the world of 2020.” At the onset of the new year, it’s clear that global interconnectedness is far more vulnerable to being reversed than U.S. intelligence officials thought a decade and a half ago.

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Far from quiet on the US vs Russia-China front

By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission

Let’s start in mid-May, when Nur-Sultan, formerly Astana, hosted the third Russia-Kazakhstan Expert Forum, jointly organized by premier think tank Valdai Club and the Kazakhstan Council on International Relations.

The ongoing, laborious and crucial interconnection of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasia Economic Union was at the center of the debates. Kazakhstan is a pivotal member of both the BRI and EAEU.

As Valdai Club top analyst Yaroslav Lissovolik told me, there was much discussion “on the state of play in emerging markets in light of the developments associated with the US-China trade stand-off.” What emerged was the necessity of embracing “open regionalism” as a factor to neutralize “the negative protectionist trends in the global economy.”

This translates as regional blocks along a vast South-South axis harnessing their huge potential “to counter protections pressures”, with “different forms of economic integration other than trade liberalization” having preeminence. Enter “connectivity” – BRI’s premier focus.

The EAEU, celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, is fully into the open regionalism paradigm, according to Lissovolik, with memoranda of understanding signed with Mercosur, ASEAN, and more free-trade agreements coming up later this year, including Serbia and Singapore.

Sessions at the Russia-Kazakhstan forum produced wonderful insights on the triangular Russia-China-Central Asia relationship and further South-South collaboration. Special attention should focus on the concept of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) 2.0. If a new bipolarity is emerging, pitting the US against China, NAM 2.0 rules that vast sectors of the Global South should profit by remaining neutral.

On the complex Russia-China strategic partnership, featuring myriad layers, by now it’s established that Beijing considers Moscow a sort of strategic rearguard in its ascent to superpower status. Yet doubts persist across sectors of “pivot to the East” Moscow elites on how to handle Beijing.

It’s fascinating to watch how neutral Kazakh analysts see it. They tend to interpret negative perceptions about a possible “Chinese threat” as impressed upon Russia, including Russia media, by its notorious Western “partners” – and “from there proceed to Kazakhstan and other post-Soviet countries.”

Kazakhs stress that the development of the EAEU is always under tremendous pressure by the West, and are very worried that the US-China trade war will have serious consequences for the development of Eurasian integration. They dread the possibility of another front of the US-China fight opening in strategically positioned Kazakhstan. Still, they hope the EAEU will expand, mostly because of Russia.

Andrei Sushentsov, program director of the Valdai Discussion Club, had a more lenient explanation. He reads the current chaos not as a Cold War, but rather a “Phony Cold War” – with no pronounced aggressor, no ideological component in the confrontation, and even “a desire to relieve tension.”

NAM 2.0 or Eurasia integration?

In a crucial speech to the Valdai Club, President Putin made it clear, once again, that the BRI-EAEU interconnection is an absolute priority. And the only road map ahead is for Eurasian integration.

That interlinks with the advance of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose annual summit is next month, in Kyrgyzstan. One of the key goals of the SCO, since it was founded in 2001, is to create an evolving Russia-China-Central Asia synergy.

It’s not far-fetched to consider that what happens next may include a clash between the inbuilt logic of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) 2.0 and the massive Eurasian integration drive. Moscow, for instance, would be in an intractable position if it came to either align with Beijing or NAM 2.0.

Putin has had a crack on how to solve the problem. “Historical experience shows that the Soviet Union had quite trust-based and constructive relations with many countries of the Non-Aligned Movement. It is also clear that if pursued in a too radical and uncompromising way, the logic of the ‘new non-aligned movement’ can become a challenge to the consolidation and unity of Eurasia, which is the top priority for the SCO and other projects.”

Putin has arguably dedicated a lot of thought to “the case of a new rupture in Russia-China relations, toward which many are pushing us.” He recognizes that “quite a large part of Russian society will receive it as a quite natural and even positive development. Therefore, to avoid this scenario (to reiterate, consolidation and unity of Greater Eurasia is the key value of the SCO and the EAEU-BRI association), not only diplomatic work outside of Russia is required… but also a lot of work inside the country. In this case, the work needs to be done less with elites by way of expert papers, than directly with the people in entirely different media formats (which, by the way, not all traditional experts can do).”

The ultimate target though remains set in stone – to “achieve the purported goal of consolidating Greater Eurasia.”

The US three-war front

Maximum pressure from ‘Exceptionalistan’ won’t relent. For instance, CAATSA – the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act – now in overdrive after the adoption of a European Recapitalization Incentive Program, will continue to economically punish nations that purchase Russian and Chinese weapons.

The logic of this extreme “military diplomacy” is stark; if you don’t weaponize the American way, you will suffer. Key targets feature, among others, India and Turkey, two still theoretical poles of Eurasian integration.

In parallel, from US Think Tankland, comes the latest RAND Corporation report on – what else – how to wage Cold War 2.0 against Russia, complete with scores of strategic bombers and new intermediate-range nuclear missiles stationed in Europe to counter “Russian aggression”. Santa Monica’s RAND arguably qualifies as the top Deep State think tank.

So, it’s no wonder the road ahead is fraught with Desperation Row scenarios. The US economic war on China – at least for now – is not as hardcore as the US economic war on Russia, which is not as hardcore as the US economic siege or blockade of Iran. Yet all three wars carry the potential to degenerate in a flash. And we’re not even counting the strong possibility of an extra Trump administration economic war on the EU.

It’s no accident that the current economic wars target the three key nodes of Eurasian integration. The war against the EU may not happen because the main beneficiaries would be the Russia-China-Iran triumvirate.

Obviously, no illusions remain in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran’s corridors of power. Frantic diplomacy prevails. After the BRI forum in Beijing, Presidents Putin and Xi meet again in early June at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum – where discussion of BRI-EAEU interconnection will be paramount, alongside containment of the US in Central Asia.

Then Russia and China meet again at the SCO summit in Bishkek. The head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, went on the record stating that as many as 5,000 ISIS/Daesh-linked jihadis fresh from their “moderate rebel” Syrian stint are now massed in Afghanistan bordering Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with the possibility of crossing to Pakistan and China.

That’s a major security threat to all SCO members – and it will be discussed in detail in Bishkek, alongside the necessity of including Iran as a new permanent member.

Chinese Vice-President Wang Qishan is visiting Pakistan, which is a key BRI member with the CPEC corridor, and after will visit the Netherlands and Germany. Beijing wants to diversify its complex global investment strategy. 

Meanwhile, from Istanbul to Vladivostok, the key question remains: how to make NAM 2.0 work to the benefit of Eurasian integration.