Sky of Europa

Day Four

It’s been a while. Sorry, folks. A lot’s happened. First of all, I’m writing this from a new location. The eviction and all. We’re staying with my Mom’s brother. I’m supposed to call him Uncle, but I barely know the guy and that seems like a pretty familiar term. In fact, I didn’t even know I had an Uncle until we moved in a few weeks ago. For now, I call him Fred since he looks like a Fred. He’s…not a fan. But it makes Mom laugh. It sounds like I’m being an asshole now that I type it out. Maybe I’ll figure out what his name really is.

Anyway, we have a roof over our head, and I still have my device and net access, so here I am. I don’t have any news about Europa, and maybe I never will. We’ve got a new address, and I am not sure how to add it to my application. The application period is over, and the website gives an error message now. Net searches had yielded no information I can use to inform them of my new address.

So I have to stake out my old place, which sucks as much as it probably sounds like it sucks. I loved that house. Had my first kiss in the front yard. Wrote my name for the first time on the kitchen wall there. Left a copy of my favorite book under the floorboards—and I do mean copy. i photocopied the cover and the first few pages and symbolically buried them beneath my bedroom floor. It seemed like something someone leaving a place would do, and since I was a person leaving a place, I did it.

I’ve ridden my bike across town the past three days and waited for the mail carrier to come. Three days, but no mail. Not unusual, really. We rarely got junk mail and what we did get—bills, mostly—came once a week or so. The selection committee has had about three months to consider applications, so it feels like it’s the right time to receive a reply.

If they reply. Shoot. It occurs to me that perhaps they don’t send rejections letters. A quick net search. Yep. No info. What if I’m waiting around my old house, ripping the bandage off over and over, for no reason?

In other news, I’ve decided to up my push-up game. I figure, if I’m going to Europa, I might need to do things outside of my skill set since there’ll be so few of us there. I do Bio, but maybe I’ll need to cook or do hydroponics.

Or lift heavy shit.

So I’m doing push-ups—100 a day—so that I’ll be strong enough to lift a heavy rock off a friend or peel open a warped door. Our mission cannot be compromised because I’m too weak to save us.

Look at that: our and us. It’s like I think I’ve already been selected.

Maybe that means something?

Day Three

Or maybe I’m not going to Europa.

I go down to the river each morning to read. Something about the trees and water sounds relaxes me and I slip into the zone. My favorite thing in the world is that zone, the place where my body is inert and my eyes are scanning a page but I am not aware of it. Instead, all I see are pictures of whatever I’m reading.

I came home early yesterday because I finished my Book, one I’ve read a hundred times: The Martian. That guy Watney is the exact type of resourceful idiot-genius that I want to be.

Or wanted to be.

When I got home, there was a yellow paper tucked to our front door. Even from the street, I could read the bold, black word: evicted. My Mom had had trouble coming up with rent money, but I stopped asking for burger money and haven’t had a new pair of shoes since, well, some time ago. I removed the Sky-sized hole in her budget, so I assumed we’d be fine. Mom had never said a word.

I guess I should have been filling out a job application instead of one for Europa. Taking part in the Europa mission doesn’t pay at all.

I was still sitting on the porch, rubbing the letter between my fingers, when my Mom came home. She had out in her hands from my favorite burger place. I said what the hell, and she said what the hell right back. If we’re losing our place, I don’t need to save this money to pay rent, she said. So let’s eat.

I told Mom I’d look for a job, and she smiled. Honey…there aren’t many jobs to have, and none of them are hiring 17-year-olds.

Why not?

But she just kept smiling. We’ll figure something out.

But instead of figuring something out, I’m here banging away on a device I should probably sell. I might not get much for it, but it’d help a little. Mom’s never made me feel like a burden, but I have to be, right? I’m a parasite–taking but never giving.

No. That’s stupid. Get a grip, Sky. I’m a kid. She’s my parent. Parents take care of kids–while they’re still kids. I turn 18 in a few months. I was planning to leave anyway, if the program accepted me, and I can still leave. Just to the city instead of to a moon of Jupiter. They always need servers in the city, and I can balance glasses and bowls on a tray. I could save a little even if I were sending money back to Mom. And I could watch the vids of Io, live vicariously through those settlers.

Well, okay friends. That’s a plan. Sorry to get you invested, maybe, in a blog about a girl heading to Europa. Most of you are the ex’s friends, so I don’t feel that bad, I guess. We had a good run, etc. Three whole posts.

I’m going to go now. Maybe I’ll reread The Martian.

The lucky bastard.

go to Day Four

Day Two

Yes, I was drunk and texted my ex. Well, pic’d him, I guess. No message…just a cute-as-heck photo of me in the mirror, crooked smile, pale skin, oversized hoodie (Go Ducks!), *ahem* no pants *ahem*. Yes, it was suggestive. (That was (and no longer is) the point.)

Yes, I’m embarrassed.

Yes, I feel violated.

Yes, as you know if you’re here reading this, my screen was on, and if you flipped the image–I mean when my asshole ex (who is never, ever getting a pic of me again unless she buys one from the extra-planetary paparazzi) flipped the image–you could read “Sky in Europa” and could just make out the net address. Within an hour, she’d forwarded the address–not the photo (she does have some decency)–to a hundred close friends who, in turn, have way too many friends with devices and internet and free time. Go save cats or something, folks!

I considered moving this blog to a new address, but a few quick search terms would bring you right back. So here we go: yes, it’s Sky. Yes, it’s that Sky–the one who failed physics twice (clueless) and math once (weed). But, hey, I didn’t give up and passed them eventually and double-hey I’m brilliant at Bio and History and less-so-but-still-decent at Drawing and (duh) Photography.

Three-and-a-half areas of need for the first (wo)manned mission to, wait for it, EUROPA! (I’m counting History as half an area since geological history is not quite in my wheelhouse.)

I spent a month on the application. A lot of good writing in there, if I’m being immodest, but nothing I’m allowed to post. Folks may not know, but those contracts also serve as NDAs. The only thing I can say is my name, Europa, and “I applied.”

In a way, I’m glad there are more eyes on this blog because I set it up as a way to tie myself to my choices. Always, I commit to a bold action (like, say, sending a pantsless photo to an ex) and then, squinting at it in the light of day, I delete, rescind, forget. Making my intention public, here, was my way of forcing myself to stick with it. Some of you know my Mom died last year, and it spun me badly. When I settled, I reflected on life, my life–whether or not I was actually living it. Late at night and again in full daylight, I realized my answer was no.

I decided it was time to live.

A few days later, I emended that to: it’s time to live on Europa.

go to Day Three

Day One

Nothing but choices in front of me, and each one can mean my death. Bring too few clothes: freeze to death. Bring the wrong type of clothes: freeze to death. Bring enough for every situation: not enough weight for food. Leave the freeze-dried food behind: starve. Die of starvation: miss out of being part of the first group striving to make Europa a home.

Every time I write “I’m going to Europa,” people think I can’t spell—and that I can travel in time. I can, and I cannot. In that order. Europe broke into three distinct pieces many, many years before I was born. I’ve never been there. No one I know has. Why would we? Our eyes are on the stars—well, the moons of Jupiter, to be precise.

But even that’s not precise: two moons of Jupiter–Io and Europa.

Io’s been inhabited by humans for, what, seven decades now? If you’re interested, you can look it up. It’s been a while, at least. Io1-Io6 taught us a lot about how to travel to a moon that’s not Luna; how to not die on said moon (though that took a bit of public trial and error); and, eventually, how to thrive in an Earth-adjacent ecosystem. We’re up to, like, Io23 now, each group getting further afield from the original basecamp. Some of those folks are household names now, at least among the circles I run in. Freeman, Bargsdale, Semperlin, Smyth, and Briggs. Full-time heroes. Part-time idiots.

But, man, idiots make the best mistakes.

And I could be next. Sky Peppersworth Langsdale. (Yes, kids always made fun of my middle name. No, it’s not from my great-great-grandparent, some confluence of consonants and vowels that conveyed a sense of family and history. Oh no. My Dad—the story is he wanted something ”unique and regal.” He definitely got one of those.)

Anyway, friends call me Sky; assholes call me Peps.

And I’m headed to Europa.

Maybe…definitely.

Maybe.

go to Day Two