Kindred
I am dying, I think. I feel it happening. Somehow, my body has given up, when my mind hasn't. I float in my darkness, my shooting thoughts lighting my mind with their dance. But I do not feel the initial ecstasy I felt when I first saw them. Now, when I see them, my emotions are bittersweet. I feel myself fading and there is nothing I can think of to prevent my end.
The person with the soft voice and the clutching hand, she knows it too. She squeezes my hand with such strength, like she is beckoning me to come to her. I want to. Oh how I want to. I just don’t know where to follow. When I focus on my left hand, I feel her vehement desperation. I admire her faith and tenacity. I just do not see past the glowing of my hand. I am stuck.
She cares for me so deeply, without even knowing who she is fighting for. Because it is a fight for her, I am sure of it. Simply by the intensity of her grip, the unspoken words willing me to come to her. I represent something to her. As much as she represents my lifeline, I feel I am hers too. And, as she clings onto my hand, she cannot let me go. I can't either, I don't want to let go. My entire attention resides in our hands, touching. But my body is failing me and I feel so powerless I could cry.
I could cry, I could scream, I could punch my frustration into the void. And as I unload my bitter anger and inescapable helplessness with the shooting colours of my mind, I suddenly feel myself squeeze the hand back. Just a faint pinch. And with that tiny action, at once, everything seems possible. Hope, green in colour and electric in its vividness, flashes and dances around me. A little bit of golden yellow for my joy. And orange for my relief.
The woman felt it too. Her hand froze for a beat, and squeezed back, harder this time. I focus my entire being on our hands. Mine in hers, hers in mine. I will myself to do it again. If only I knew how I even did it. I was feeling frustrated, worried, angry. I wanted to fight for my life. And then it just happened. I go through the same motions again. Nothing happens. Alright, so I cannot think my way through it... I just have to... do it.
The woman squeezes again and again, waiting for my response. I am trying so hard, it almost hurts. And then, I hear something. For the first time in so long, I hear something. Faint, like a whisper.
"Come on, you can do it. I know you can. Come on... Do it again."
The woman beckons me, in rhythm with her hand, almost like a dare. I understand everything she says. Her words don’t come from my ears, instead from my mind. Her emotions lighting the darkness and dancing with mine. And as she repeats in her own head her pleas to me over and over again, they resonate in my head, louder and louder. Almost like a chant of encouragement. She has faith in my success. I decide that I do too.
My hand squeezes hers. Hard, never letting go. Because I am hanging on to dear life. I squeeze so hard, I start feeling the ache shooting up my arm. And it is like my awareness has expanded. My whole body feels mine again. I feel every single part of it. And everything that touches it. The fabric laid over my legs, the itchiness of my hair around my ears, the softness of the pillow supporting my head, the saliva in my mouth and, of course, her hand gripping mine. I feel my eyes rolling beneath my eyelids. I see the effect light has when filtered by them. I open my eyes, slowly.
A bright white flash blinds me. After the initial shock, my eyes adapt, slowly. I am staring at a dark grey ceiling, lights on, white almost green. I drowsily look around me, my head heavy and slow. I stop at the small woman next to my bed. She looks shocked and happy, her hand still squeezing mine. She is floating next to me, and it takes me a second to register the sight. A smile slowly takes up almost her entire face.
"Hello"
She says in a breathless whisper. I say hello back but my tongue does not follow my commands. I mean hello and I said it, but it didn't sound like hers. She frowns, then shakes her head with a timid smile.
"Bonjour? Hola? Buongiorno? No? How about Kon'nichiwa? Nǐ hǎo? Huh... What else... Ah! Greek! Geia sas? No? Hum... Namaste? Ok, not Indian either... Erm... Privet? Sabah alkhayr?"
She looks at me expectantly, hoping I would reply in kind. But I barely can say anything as she lists all the ways she knows to say hello. Then she chuckles to herself and sighs.
"I'm being stupid. You probably don't understand a single thing I am saying right now..."
To that, I want to reply that yes, I do. And that I am happy to carry our conversation in any of the languages she feels most comfortable with. But the same familiar yet uncommunicable gibberish comes out of my mouth. Well, it is not gibberish to me. It carries the meaning I intend, but it is a tongue I know she cannot understand. I pause and think. Why can I understand her, and all the other languages she spoke, but cannot respond so she can understand me? Then I remember I might have only just been born. Could my language be the gibberish cooed by babies?
But that doesn’t seem correct to me… I don’t know how to explain it. My mind is so drowsy and slow. I look at her again. She is staring at me in hungry curiosity. I examine myself, strapped in the bed. Long legs stretch along my bed, my grown hands touching my face, full lips, round cheeks, long frizzy hair. I am definitely not a baby. I chuckle softly. Of course I am not a new-born. It seems evident now. But it felt so real, it felt like I had been carried in and coming out of my mother's womb. Was that a distant memory? Did I somehow remember my birth and associated it with whatever had happened to me?
I turn to the woman again and smile at her. I hold both my hands up, hoping she will understand.
"Yes?"
She waits, expectantly.
"Where am I?"
She looks at me puzzled. Even though I understand what I said, I know she cannot. I decide to leave the issue for now. I feel so groggy and exhausted I can barely keep my thoughts focussed on one thing.
The woman reaches for some kind of button above my head, then looks back at me again, with a reassuring smile. I start making my way as far back as I can remember and adapting my assumptions of the time to the reality of now. So it turns out that I was asleep. For a while I was asleep in this bed, with barely any consciousness to keep my body going. I was asleep in my bubble, which I now know was definitely not my mother's womb. And my bubble travelled for a long time and distance, with me asleep in it. And before that, before it had travelled, I remember I was already asleep, at home, with my loved voice softly talking to me. So if I follow my reasoning, I am far from home, and I have been asleep for a very long time. What had happened for me to be put in the bubble? What was my life like before it?
"Ah. Someone is here to meet you, if you don't mind."
The woman says, pulling me away from my thoughts. Someone else is here. A tall blond woman, with icy blue eyes. Almost the exact opposite of that warm short dark woman that has been by my side since they found me.
"This is Stefanya Kerchowski. And I am Lily Andreis. We and the rest of our team found you and brought you back here."
Back where? I assume their home, not mine. I nod, then point to myself and say:
"Ewe'enaroptam."
We all freeze. I am as shocked as they are. I assume they are shocked because they realise I understood their meaning. I, on the other hand, have discovered something crucial about myself. I have a name. And I know what it is. Like second nature, I had introduced myself: Ewe'enaroptam. Yes. My name.
I start laughing out loud. With my name back in my conscious thoughts, I do not feel so lost. Ewe'enaroptam. I savour it in my mouth and in my mind. It belongs to me.
Stefanya Kerchowski caught her breath and her eyes study me with intense curiosity. Lily Andreis reaches for my hand in excitement. I hold it tightly, happy for my recovered sense of belonging. And as I touch her, I hear her.
"Dios mios! Did she just...?"
But her mouth hasn’t moved. My ears have not picked up the sound. My mind has. From her mind, through her hand, through my own and into my mind. Her words bring their colours and lights when they invade my senses. I revel in the beauty of it. I break our touch and a single word comes to my mind, like a question, like a longing wish: 'Kindred?'.
"Erm. Ok... Eweera... Erm..." She tries my name out loud.
Lily Andreis struggles with the pronunciation of my name, just like I struggle with the pronunciation of their words. I cut her suffering efforts short with just one word.
"Ewe"
They both nod with a soft smile on their faces and repeat my shorter appellation. We are all content with that small victory. I settle back into my pillow, and they float their way on each side of the bed. Stefanya Kerchowski points to Lily Andreis then to herself:
“Lily and Stef”
I bow my head to each of them in an official acknowledgment.
"So, erm, Ewe. Do you understand us?"
I nod at them.
"If I speak different languages, do you think you can let us know when you hear yours? We need to find out where you came from."
I think about that for a minute. What is so puzzling about my present situation is that I understood all the different languages she has spoken before, as well as if they were my own, but there was not this sense of belonging and ownership I felt when I spoke my own tongue. It is only when I replied, that I realised I could not actually speak those languages... What was my language? Seeing my hesitation, Stef intervenes. With a strong accent, she says:
"It's ok. If we show you shots of Earth, would you recognise your country?"
I am not sure what she means. I gesture as I speak.
“Show me what you mean”
She didn't understand my speech but understood my meaning. She pushes away from the bed and floats her way out of the room. Lily looks at me.
“Don’t worry, she will be back.” After a short pause, she starts again. “I am from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And Stef is from Moscow, Russia. We are part of the International Space Station. Our team intercepted you during a repair on one of our solar panels… You were quite the surprise. But when we saw you inside that weird contraption you were in, we felt you were not a danger to us or our mission here. On the contrary, we felt it was our duty to help you. We were correct, right? ”
My eyes do not leave her face as I stop her with a raised hand. I could understand each word she was saying, but they felt like random pieces of a giant puzzle. I need to visualize what she was talking about. Automatically, I put my hand on hers and instantly feel overwhelmed. I catch my breath but leave my hand where it is. When she spoke, I immediately understood what Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Moscow, Russia were. The knowledge connected to these cities, and those countries, and cultures, and people, had rushed through my brain. But as my hand made contact with hers, I could now visualize them, clear as day. It is their home, like I have mine somewhere.
I could see her home in Rio, a small crumbling house cramped with her mother, father, Abuela, sister, brother-in-law, nieces and son. A home even more cramped with undying love. I could see her walking by the seaside with Pablo, her small toddler with brown hair and green eyes. In the distance, I could see the big statue of Christ the Redeemer, and I immediately knew she was a Christian, and that Jesus was the representation of her faith. I saw how she moved to the U.S. after her son’s and abuela's horrible deaths and how she dove in her studies in Aerospace Engineering. How she could still feel the void in her heart and had taken up Astrophysics after that. How, when she felt ready, she applied to become an astronaut for NASA. How she lived for her work as she had lost the will to live for herself long ago.
I saw the home of Stef, a small apartment shared with her girlfriend, Anya, a tall brunette with short hair. I saw how scared they were of their own people and government if they found out the true nature of their relationship. How careful they had to hide who they truly were, how they called each other 'flatmates' rather than 'lovers', how she never really felt free to be herself. I saw the Kremlin, beautiful and imposing, as she walked to university everyday. I felt how she felt each time she saw it. It represented her nation, but it represented her oppression. She loved and feared it, and all it stood for. I saw the Moskva River frozen and the streets white with snow in the long winter months. I saw the moment she graduated with honours, when she became a doctor in Astrobiology majoring in Astrology and Physics, always with a clear plan for her future. I saw how part of her plan was to remove herself from love. How she announced their end to Anya the same day she applied to be an astronaut for Roscosmos. How it had crushed her to see Anya weep. But how she knew her decision was final. She could not live as herself, for herself. So she would dedicate her life and her life’s work to her country.
And then, I saw what Lily was referring to when she mentioned the International Space Station. I saw what it represented for their world. How it came to be. The Cold War, the Space Race, the incredible advancements, the devastating and deadly failures, Sputnik, the first successful rocket launching, and then years later, Apollo 11 and its successful moon landing. Then, again, decades later, the intergovernmental treaties and agreements to bring to fruition this multinational program. I saw how the USA, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan came together as one and put aside their differences, if only for this ambitious project. I saw the politics of it, and the passion of the people involved.
It was like watching an entire saga in a split second. Absorbing their history and their culture. Their personal traumas and victories, and on a grander scale the ones of their respective agencies, countries and the collaborative efforts that brought them here and now.
And then when she mentioned finding me, I see it all happening as she saw it, through her own eyes. I see her examining a malfunctioning solar panel on the outside of the station. She moves slowly in zero gravity, constricted in her pressurized spacesuit. Accompanying her in her spacewalk is Victor Bonfrère, a French crewmate. His name means “good brother” in French, and funnily enough, Lily feels genuine fraternal affection towards the funny man. They are tethered to the station by a long cable that supplies them with oxygen, electricity and comms to the Unity Module. She finishes her repair and tells Victor they’re good to go. He is looking past her, and as she turns around, she can see a flickering light far in the distance.
“Wieler, Mission Control, do you see this?” She asks through her feed.
Erik Wieler, the Station's Commander for the length of their six months mission, an Englishman with more than twenty years of experience over any of them, replies:
“Spacewalk, I see it… Houston? Moscow? Do you copy?”
They wait a few seconds before Mission Control in Houston crackles its response.
“We copy. What is there to see? Downlink image is of poor quality. Describe. Over.”
“Observing foreign object coming our way. Slow, spherical, metallic, blinking red light. Its course will move past us and back out to outer space. How should we handle the situation?”
Victor says, his eyes never leaving the object.
“Mission Control, are you not picking it up on radar?”
I hear Stef interject from the Unity Module, anxiety and excitement resonating in her voice. I am in that object, right now. It is oval, maybe two meters long, one meter wide. A perfect shiny pod. I am still far away from the ISS, and even if I know they do end up taking me in, I feel this urgency for them to come to me now. The trajectory of my pod will not come close enough to Earth to be pulled by its gravity and will just pass by and disappear in the unending enormity of space, and with it my unending sleep.
Mission Control in Moscow replies:
“We see nothing. Approach carefully and investigate. Its make and lights implies it is man made. Or at least, signs of intelligence. Intercept and inspect. Use caution. Over.”
I watch as Lily and Victor approach the slow moving pod. Carefully, cautiously and I can feel them controlling their excited curiosity. Safety first. They make contact and start looking at the object more carefully. Lily is the first to see me through a glass opening. Through her eyes, I see my face, sleeping, some sort of tube secured over my mouth.
“Victor! It’s a woman. She is human!”
She almost screams. She doesn’t know how to feel, between relief and deflation. She was hoping for a sign of alien life, as much as she was feeling apprehensive at the idea of it. Now she feels concern as she looks at me through the glass.
“Unconscious woman on board.”
Victor reports through his comm. He doesn’t know what else to say, Lily doesn't either.
“Permission to bring her in?”
Lily finally asks firmly. She will not leave me. She will bring me in. Her fierce determination vibrates in her entire body.
After Mission Control in Houston and Moscow debate with Lily, Victor, Erik and Stef about the next steps to take, Lily and Victor are cleared to bring me in. They wait patiently in the Airlock Chamber for the green light to shine. When it does, four astronauts are waiting behind the doors. They float their way to the pod. Lily and Victor are already in the process of taking off their suits as the crew is pulling the pod away from them. Lily yells at them to be careful and that herself and Victor will meet them in the infirmary. I watch as my pod is dragged away from Lily, unable to follow myself, as I am seeing her memories.
When her and Victor are done changing, they hurriedly float straight to the infirmary. My pod and the other four astronauts are there. One fussing over the pod, another one reaching for something from a cabinet in the wall. Each is focused on their jobs. Two of the crewmates and Lily support the pod as they secure cords around it to keep it stable.
The memory fades to a later one. I know exactly thirty-five hours have passed since my pod was secured in the infirmary. But to me in that pod, it had felt like eternity. They have linked some kind of sensor to the pod. When they were inspecting it, they found a latch and they had figured out a way to open it. And now they had orders to open the pod.
As soon as they open it, the tube that was secured to my mouth and I assume, down my throat, gets pulled away by the motion. I watch as I struggle violently. I wonder what my body was experiencing. I know what my mind was going through. I thought I was experiencing my birth, but I know now that my mind was only remembering the memory. The pod has nothing else in it, just me and the tube, which is directly linked to the hatch. They take me out of it and place me on the bed, securing me with straps so I don’t float away. I am still having my unconscious fit as they fuss over me. I start screaming:
“Olaya! Olaya! My Kindred! Olaya!”.
As I watch myself screaming, I feel the sorrow and panic I was feeling then overcoming my senses again. As I watch myself scream her name, Olaya's face flashes in my mind and grief flows over me. In the memory, my screams fade to a sob then a whimper, and I become still again.
Lily has not understood anything I said. None of them have. It was gibberish to them. But not to me. In the now, I lift my hand from hers, tears in my eyes. Stef is back in the room, some paper in her hands. She looks at both of us, her eyes questioning. As my tears roll down my cheeks, I look up at them both and articulate, in a purposeful flawless English, their language:
“My Kindred is no more. I have no Home.”
Original story & Copyright by Julia Mesrobian
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