Time is not fair. Sometimes it flies too fast, and I can’t catch it. Sometimes it’s frozen, and I go crazy waiting for something to happen. That concerns me, indeed.
At 20:45, I watch sports TV from Earth. This entertains me. I feel so abandoned in this tin can, listening to the ancient buzz of the Universe. My wife is still resentful and hasn’t called me for 2,050 hours, 35 minutes, and 45 seconds. Only my work saves me. I observe space and search for objects that could hit Earth in the future. But I only see the past of distant stars. Even sunlight needs eight minutes to reach my capsule orbiting around our planet. Twenty-five days ago, I witnessed a supernova. It’s millions of light years from me. Maybe it’s already dead.
At 20:30, I look out the window on Earth that spins below me in the opposite direction. My clock is ticking in the Greenwich time zone. But on the planet, hours count backward. Unfortunately, there is no way to cheat. Once a day, when I cross the prime meridian, time jumps forward and catches me. It’s so annoying.
At 20:35, I switch on the TV and watch commercials. Smiling people in a dental clinic promise me a long and happy life. I’m counting on it: my storage is still full of their
toothpaste. Next, another happy man flashes his Casio in a gym. This ad makes me nervous. I’m impatient and rush time to see my wife.
20:45, and she is ready at the start line. I’ve always loved her hair — the shade of a comet tale. The race is on, and my heart is knocking, counting time. 100 meters, 200, 400, 600… She comes in second, one single instant after the leader. Not being the first means that you’ve lost. Just a couple of milliseconds… Time is not fair.
20:50, something is knocking outside. I check the dashboard. A few satellite fragments slammed into the capsule. The perfect sample of space trash. Like a butterknife, it smashes
my radiator panel. Now I have my own comet tale from the radiator’s ice dust. I could deploy the spare part. Just a few moments are needed. Just a few. No, the oxygen tank explodes first. The dashboard hints the remaining seconds: 3, 2, 1, and the last glint is like Her hair. Time is unfair. But maybe, someone in space will see my life flashing in millions of years.
