#57 of the 100 Story Challenge
Mffizik burbled and waved an arm. “I’ve got something!”
The supervisor rolled over to Mffizik’s side and contemplated the display. The translator had finally made sense of the text. They thought it bizarre that this alien species kept their words locked inside little metal boxes. At least, thanks to the discs in the tiny spacecraft found a decade ago, Mffizik’s people had a head start in learning some of the languages.
“As much as I don’t want to be here, I belong in this moment. My whole life prepared me for it. I’ve accepted that I live at the end of the story. I hope it’s just the final chapters of the first book in a trilogy or something longer, but it’s not looking good.
Today I woke up to the sound of hammering and drilling next door. It’s not unusual anymore. I live in an old apartment building that constantly needs repairs. It’s like our planet and our society. Everything is falling apart, and the news glosses over it with sports, fashion, and silence.
My first thought was, “What’s the point? Why do I care about making a positive difference?” Then I remembered when I introduced my nephew to his first Thanksgiving dinner. As he wasn’t raised in the USA, Thanksgiving was just a scene from shows. I went to the trouble of cooking everything from scratch because I had no other options. I wasn’t in a country where pumpkin pie filling came in a can. I put in hours of effort for a meal that lasted maybe 30 minutes. He loved it, and now he has memories of an actual Thanksgiving.
That experience and others motivate me to do the best I can with my time. I may not be the one who changes the world in a big way. Instead, I want to be the one who makes the world better for anyone I can reach for as long as I can. I want to share the beauty of nature and speak kind words to others. I want to be like the funeral home director supporting people as they come to terms with loss. And I’d like to be the cheerleader energizing the team to keep trying and save what they can.”
I know, I know, it’s thinly disguised as science fiction. But isn’t sci-fi a commentary on life anyway?
