sad song

I had to leave harder

Hey Rhys, I found this hiding in the Logs. You humans don't make much sense, it's starting to do my head in.

Logs

Smattered and Scattered

Hey Rhys. It's been a bit a shit time lately let me tell you. Actually I am going to tell you all about it, mostly to make myself feel better, but if you don’t have time for it you can skip all the black text and head straight for the green stuff. And Sal, you wanted some more of my feelings on here, so here you go. Be careful what you wish for I guess.

So I've been staying up really late trying to open up the files for the video log, so that I could translate and then upload them. The good news is that I've FINALLY managed to do it, they’re converting now and as soon as they’re done I’ll be putting them up in the next post. The bad news is that because I’ve been staying up so late trying to open up these video files, I accidentally fell sleep in Excavation prac and broke a mineral extraction machine. I only closed my eyes for what I thought was a second, but apparently it was enough for the machine to run too long, and the mechanisms to get all gummed up with substrate and now it has to be taken apart and cleaned. I got yelled at in front of everyone, and now I have to go to a make up class after dinner because there were parts of the prac I couldn’t do without my machine. My prac partner was so mad at me, I had to excuse myself so I could go to the toilets to cry. It was so awful. I know that it all doesn’t seem like such a big thing, especially considering what is happening with you and your love right now. I guess it turns out I’m still pretty young and fragile and silly things still matter a lot to me. And this isn’t even the half of it. 

The second shit thing that happened was that I passed V in the hall the yesterday. Even though this is a pretty big station, I still have to remember to take the longer inside track to Botany, otherwise I'll most likely run into her during change over. It’s kind of funny because I actually used to really look forward to seeing her then, it was probably one of the best parts of my day. We started doing this thing that we'd read about in Ancient Earth history called hand written notes. We don't use paper though because, no offence, but paper is such a terrible waste of resources. Instead we found these trees that have these big broad leaves that are kind of the same size as the pictures of the paper notes, and V and I both take Botany separately so we would steal them off the trees two at a time whenever our teachers were distracted. Our hands aren't really made to hold instruments for handwriting, not like yours are anyway, and we never figured out how to make the letters look how they should when we type them. But eventually we got to learn what our scrappy-almost letters stood for, it was kind of like having our own secret code. I still remember how I felt getting my first letter from V and actually being able read it. Kind of like when I found those first scraps of your communications. Like having something bright and warm drip through me, make tracks into my centre and settle there for a bit.
Anyway, every day we would meet by the fern seedling tanks and exchange our leaf notes with all of the things we'd wanted to tell each other during class, written out in our bad-handwriting code. Usually we'd just write about what was going on in class, about the people we liked the teachers we thought were boring, what we were hoping would be on for dinner. But sometimes we would write secrets, in post script at the bottom, in our scrappiest writing so no one would be able to guess. Secrets and dreams sometimes. I told her about pairing with X in one of these notes.

Urgh. Thinking about this now makes me feel all heavy and wrong, like someone's messing around with what I'm made of. I'm sick of my feelings turning my insides all thick and sticky and gross.
Anyway, I'm getting off track. Sorry. I am so scattered today.

So. I came out of Excavation prac real spaced out and shaken up, so much that I forgot to change tracks on my way to Botany and ended up taking the one that goes right past the seedling tanks where V and I used to meet. And V was just standing there like she always had, like she was waiting to meet someone, fern seedlings floating lazy green behind her head. It wasn’t until she looked up from her feet that I realised she was waiting for me, and I couldn’t help it, I just burst into tears. I don't know if she saw before they hit my skin and I could reabsorbed them, but she definitely caught my gaze before I could turn around.

Anyway, things got real sad and weird after that, and I’m still trying to figure out how to feel, but this is kind of how our conversation went.

V: "Hey, T, can we talk please?"
Me:  pretends not to hear her and tries to keep on following the track
V:"T! Please!" V grabs my elbow
Me: "I don't really want to thanks V"
V: "But I've waited for you here so many times. This is the first time you've come by."
Me: "Yeah I know that. I've been avoiding the outside track on purpose."
V: gives me this look that almost makes me cry again but I keep it together this time.
V: Why would you do that?
Me: "Why do you think V?" And at this point I'm starting to get real pissed off because surely V knows what I'm talking about, or at least she should know, but then again it is sometimes difficult to tell with her.
V: "But you haven't given me a chance to explain what happened."
Me:"Yeah well maybe I don't want to."
V: "But that doesn't make any sense."
Me:"Too bad V. You don't get to decide how I feel or what I do about it."
V: "Okay yeah, fair enough."
Me: starts to turn away to head back up to Botany.
V: "X was meant to tell you, T. He was meant to ask."
Me: stops in my tracks.
V: "We argued about it for ages. I wanted to be the one to ask, I almost wrote it in a post script, in one of our notes! But he was so sure it had to be him.
Me: "Ask what V?"
V: I don't know why I believed that he might know you better than I do. It should've been me. There's no way I wouldn't have asked first.
Me: Asked me what V?"
V: "To be a unit. The three of us. You, me and X."
Me: silence
V: "He told me that you’d already discussed it. He said that you were fine with it, that you were excited even, that it would be fine. I don't know why he lied. I don't know why I didn't check with you. I just - I don't know. I'm sorry.”

Thinking about it now, I realise I should’ve stayed to talk it out with her properly.  But it was all too much too quickly, and I was already late to Botany. Not that I had much luck paying attention. And I need to do well in Botany. But I couldn't even concentrate. Fuck. A fucking unit. How dare he use that as an excuse? I can still hear her burst into tears in my head as I turned and walked away.


Anyway. My terminal just made the sound which means, my files are done, I’m going to listen back again to them and put them up here. I almost feel like if I take on any more feelings I might implode, but maybe drowning myself in someone else’s will help push my own to the side and I can finally have a bit of peace.

Filter

Hey Rhys. If you are reading this, it means that the encryption program that Sal helped me build is working. You'll notice if you go back over the posts that the stuff I've written for you is all in green now. She says it's unlikely that anyone would bother looking through a first century (I guess you'd call me a teenager?)'s blog, but she's managed to scramble it so that for anyone logging on from a Government terminal should only be able to see the personal parts, like the stuff about X. She says I have to be more careful, that I should put more stuff about X, that I should write more about my feelings. I'm not super keen on that, but we'll see how we go. She wants me to change the name too, but I don't think I will. 

Sal found out I'd been going through her records, looking for X. That's why it's been such a long time since I posted something on here. That's a lie, I had to wait until Sal had finished building me the program, she wouldn't let me back on to my terminal until she was sure it'd work. I thought I'd been so careful. I made sure not to leave any clues that I'd been through, to make sure  that after I was done I went in and scrubbed the code of any traces, any location tags or date stamps. But she found me. I should've known she would, like I'm good at hacking stuff, but she was the one who taught me.

 Sal got madder than I thought she would. Like she'd been mad all that week about something, but this just made it worse, like, so much worse. I don't think I'd ever seen her that mad. Like teeth-crunching eye changing colour mad. It's actually pretty hard to write this sentence because I have to think about it and even though it's been so long it still makes the space around my hearts feel hot and cold at the same time.

I ended up having to tell her about you, Rhys. She said I should've told her. I told her that I know I should've, that I had wanted to but also I was worried she might make me stop. Sal asked why, and I said I was worried that she might think I was being stupid, that I was wasting my time. That I was seeing things that weren't there.  The general rule on this particular ship is to not take the thoughts and feelings of first centuries very seriously. They go on and on about how their hearts aren't developed enough yet and their minds are soaked through with too many emotions. Sal says that's bullshit, and I agree with her, but it's easy for that stuff to get into your head.  This made me think of X then, and I started to cry, which made Sal calm down a bit.

She said she would help me. She said this isn't stupid, that I might be on to something. I don't know why I didn't tell her in the first place. She said the music was a good idea, she seemed pretty impressed, actually. She said that no one high up would be smart enough to pay attention to what's hidden between the notes made by a first century. She seemed to get why I cared, and I didn't even have to tell her.  I don't even think I could explain it to her, if she'd wanted me to. But that's the thing I like about Sal the most, I think. She takes my feelings seriously. 

Sal says I'd make a good archivist because I like collecting things, and that I have a good eye for weird details, things that others might miss, or dismiss as throwaway thoughts or excess feelings. Those details give us clues, she says, it's like a secret code hidden beneath the skins of all these conversations. She says that a really good archivist has to go through all the stuff that's been said and figure out the important things that haven't been, things hiding in the pictures and the songs and even the spaces in between words, at the end of unfinished sentences.

I'm not sure that I'd want to be an archivist though. I mean, I love doing this work, but I feel like if I did it for a job, I'd start to resent it after a while, it'd become work work, you know? For a job, I'd really like to be a Botanical Engineer. I don't know if that's a thing where you come from, Rhys, I suppose it's kind of like a gardener except a lot more technical, you essentially have to build plants from scratch. Most engineers work in Fuel Development, trying to breed the most mitochondria rich plants in order to find the most efficient fuel sources for our ships. But I'd like to go into medicine, I think. We are a plant based people, and what you might read as herbal medicine, or even witchcraft, can be life saving to us. Our hospitals and power plants might look similar to what you'd call gardens, I guess. I've read that you used to use plants and other matter that'd been dead for thousands and thousands of years to power your cities and transport, at least until you ran out. Sorry but it just doesn't make any sense, to rely so heavily on only one fuel source that can't be replaced. 

Oh, there is some good news, though. I think I'm finally starting to get over X. I keep thinking about how my feelings have changed. Like when I first saw him I was like all feathery inside, and then it transformed into this warm true love thing, all dripping through me. I think he had to break my heart because if he hadn't it would've just felt the way it had before he broke it, forever and ever, and that would've started to get dull after a while. And I don't want to be dull, Rhys. If I were dull, I wouldn't be able to read the scraps the way I can now. There was this intense pain that almost matched the joy but now it's starting to fade, it's become kind of soft, kind of more thinly spread, and kind of nice. It's like he gave me this new filter to see and feel things through. I wake up each day and I feel good about not being in nearly as much pain as I was the day before.

Anyway, I haven't had much time to look for more things, this new way Sal is making me do things is real slow, and I have tests coming up. But I'm not going to stop, Rhys. I promise.

I'm feeling weird so I made some poems

Hey Rhys,

Still no word from you, your love, or anyone who might know you whereabouts. I’ve been thinking a lot about you still though, I think it be almost a 50/50 split between you and X.

I know I’m supposed to be trying to reduce the amount of time I think about X, but the other day I tried writing some poems about my own break up, from scratch. They were not very good. I realised that I can’t write about X at all, but I’m not sure if it’s because I loved him too much, or not enough. I don’t think it’s the first one. And I don’t think I loved X as much as you two love each other. I mean, I was crushed when I found out about him and Vern, but I guess it was more because V was supposed to be my friend, right? But I think I’m figuring out that that’s what hurt me more, Vern being the other person, the other half who broke my hearts. She tore off the bigger pieces, I think.

Anyway, I gave up trying to turn my pain into art, even though I’ve read that it’s a very good way to deal with it, and reread the diaries I found in Sal’s files instead. I know that for Earth people what counted as poetry was a little bit different to what counts as poetry to us. But as I was reading over the diaries again, these words started to jump out at me, words and a few whole phrases. It was really weird, I've never reacted to words this way before. But every time I read them over something activates, a sound starts to bounce around. I read a paper on this human thing called synesthesia for Human History, I think it might be something like that. 
Anyway, after I figured this out I re-read them again, to see if the words changed, if they were like ripples in oil or fingerprints or whatever. But they didn’t change. Same words, same order.

I’m not sure if this is me dealing with my own sore heart, or something bigger, maybe one of you is trying to reach me? Either way, it feels like it means something, so I’m going to put them up here, too. If we all read things differently, then everything has the potential to be poetry, I guess.
Anyway, I made some voice recordings of the poems, I borrowed Sal's vox translator so that my voice will be clearer, and easier to understand. What you are reading here, if you are reading this, is the Earth version of this blog, and I know you communicate in both audio and written language, so I’m posting both. I’m trying to make as many different versions of this blog as I can, for as many different species, in case either you  or your love has made it to somewhere that isn't one of our stations. I've been trying to figure out if the garden ne has written about in the first scraps is one of ours, but it doesn't sound anything like a fuel station, or a hospital. It’s taking me a while, I don’t really get a lot of sleep these days. I love doing it, though. Anyway, I hope you can understand what I am saying. To be honest, I’m not even sure yet either. 

And again, if you can hear/read me, Rhys, or have any more information for me, or you want to get in touch, send me an email at therhysfiles@gmail.com

Apology/Zero Gravity

Okay, I need to get some words out, because I've been feeling really weird, there's this weight clinging to my body, it's kind of like that feeling you get when you remove off-ship suit to go inside but for some reason it still feels like you're wearing it. Even writing this down feels weird, I would never say a sentence like that out loud. I guess that's the whole point of this blog, though, to help me work through this tangled mess of feelings, all this stuff that's jammed in with hearts and ribs and other bits and pieces. I hope this gets easier when I cross over into my second century. Anyway. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I fucked up, Rhys. I don't know why I assumed your love was a 'girl', that was real shit of me and I am sorry. I could try and blame it on the translation program, but you and I both know that a translation program is only as good as the information you put into it. Maybe I was projecting myself on to nem, because it seems like you both love each other a lot, and I thought it would be nice to imagine myself being loved that much. But that's not fair to you or nem, you have your own thing going and you're own pain and I shouldn't be trying to hijack that just to make myself feel better. I guess I'm just feeling a bit fried because while I was looking for information about X's sleeper in Sal's Records I found some video files. I know I should not have opened them but I did because what else does someone who feels pretty smashed up inside do? And of course seeing that face kissing all over Vern's face smashed me up a little more, and yes my hearts feel like they've been hurled outside and left to be crushed between two asteroids, until they are nothing but gross blue smears on the surface of some pretty space rock. Anyway. That doesn't excuse me from assuming nir pronouns. So I'm sorry. I will go back and change them but I thought I should make this clear first.

Anyway. While I was going through some of Sal's  video files, I found more scraps that I think you should see. I think they must be parts of a ship captain's video logs, but they're not like any ship log, or from any ship 
Anyway, there's a whole bunch of files, but it seems like Sal's only been able to open up two of them so far,  and I feel like there should definitely be more, that they're just two pieces of a much larger picture. And I'm still figuring out how to convert them into a format I can upload onto this blog (it's a fucking nightmare just so you know). But just in case you see this before I am able to upload it, I have transcribed the text. I'll see if I can get some audio up, but if not, I guess I'll just make some of my own, probably like last time, except perhaps a bit less abstract. It was strange, actually, seeing your love's face, and hearing nir voice. I'd read those garden scraps over so many times I thought I knew what nir voice would sound like. Projecting again, I guess.

Anyway, they go like this:

[Your love (?) puts on nir space helmet]

You know what all those books and movies and video games about space don't tell you? How great it is to masturbate at zero gravity. Lately I've been try and make it so that when I come, I've rotated exactly 180 degrees and am perfectly upside down. It's harder than you think, but I'm doing a pretty good job practising. Fuck, they had pretty eyes. And at least masturbating distracts me from the fact that the closer I get to where Earth should be, the more debris we seem to be flying into.

[Your love (?) wipes  tears into nir cheeks]

Maybe they are in space now, too. They were always talking about it, about heading for one of the moons of Jupiter. Maybe I'll find them out here, somewhere hiding in amongst the stars, the way they used to hide underneath my bed sometimes, waiting for me. That’d be really great, because I need someone to share the rest of this bourbon with. I need to tell them how good having no gravity has been for my episodes, how I hardly ever have them anymore. I need ...

Maybe they're in that ship that I saw on the radar this morning. For a second I thought it might be earth, and I almost blacked out from relief. But it's too small to be a planet, and moving too quickly. They seem pretty close, but when I tried to make out the shape of it through the window, all I could see was space rocks and maybe bits of Earth.

What do you think, Rhys? Is this nem? And are you they?  I hope that if you did escape, you kept going past Jupiter's moons, and that you got somewhere that's actually kind of safe, that the ship that picked you up was a safe one. Also I am curious about what your eyes look like, given that they are enough to get your love off. Watching these videos squeezes my banged up heart a little, actually, not just because of your love's sore sounding voice when ne are speaking about you, but also because I guess this is before ne found out  what has happened to nir planet.

Anyway. If you know something  about Rhys, or  please get in contact with me at therhysfiles@gmail.com. Also, I tried the masturbation thing, and ne is right, it is fucking amazing.

I'll talk to you soon. I don't want to write anymore today.