Young Writers Society

December 21, 4140

12:30 pm

There were a few things in life that Harry had never found a way to convey to Will.  But now as she looked through the frosted door onto the conversation, she knew those secrets would soon be floating through the air for all to hear.

Robe stood beside her trying to concentrate on the few telepathic abilities he did have.  After three minutes, he turned back to smoking another cigarette and flicked the ash into the tray outside the door.

“You know those things will kill you.”

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

Harry turned to face him and disconnected herself from the conversation going on beyond the door.

“That’s really the quote you choose to support yourself? Nietzsche?”

He dropped the butt into the tray and took another from the pack.

“Who did you honestly think I would choose?  Did you think I was going to break out in a musical rendition of Kelly Clarkson?”

“I’m just surprised you know who that is.  You usually don’t go for anyone born before 4100 or anyone not born in the surrounding solar system.”

“She’s more popular than you would think in this time because some people want to know what Earth was like.  It’s not my fault that you’ve been to Earth through time travel and were there and everything.”

“Shut it.”

She turned back to try and focus on the conversation happening indoors, but they had switched to hushed voices.  If she went inside and confronted them now, it would only lead to more pain for everyone involved.  Robe was again shuffling through his pockets for something and making such a racket that she couldn’t even eavesdrop.

It’s almost on purpose.  He’s being a pain in the ass on purpose.

Eventually he must have found the item because it silenced enough for her to hear a few words.

“- during the Galvian wars?”

“That’s when they froze soldiers.  But that was 500 years ago.”

At the word Galvian, a shock ricocheted through her body and she felt her legs going weak.

It’s always the little words that do it to me.

“You should have told her.  Ya know.  About you being like an immortal space goddess and shit.”

“No.  What I should have done was never told you about that.”

“If it makes you feel any better, your darkest secrets make mine look like a pastelish gray color.  Your soul is like that black color people keep writing about but never truly discovering.”

“Just like Kelly Clarkson.”

He laughed and looked through the songs on the small device in his hand.  Soon it played a few words from the middle of a tune that didn’t feel appropriate to the mood.

“I’m in the driver’s seat...”

“Oh, would you have preferred if I actually played a Kelly Clarkson song?”

“Not really.”

The song did take her back to somewhere else and like all the other things, they weren’t places that she wanted to remember.  This song did take her back to when she was the one in the driver’s seat.  That time literally and on a planet where she was all alone except for the car she drove.  The Harriet Bivens that existed then would have never recognized the near happy home maker standing outside the door.

“Harry?  Are you okay?”

“Yeah.  They’re finishing up the conversation inside, so I should probably go in.”

“Just don’t go in too strong, okay?”

He set the second cigarette butt down carefully in the tray and pulled up his sparkling purple trench coat.  Harry could see what he was thinking, maybe about trying to comfort her in some way but he didn’t move towards her.  Instead, he walked away slowly and waved to her before the elevator doors closed completely.

She leaned against the door one more time and thought again about all the things that had happened to her as a kid.  That’s all she was when the Galvian project began, especially compared to how old she found herself now.

Harry didn’t always feel the age that printed out on the monitor when she opened the bio-watch every morning.  Jud always felt his age, but he was never used to hiding it or hiding his identity when the federal cops came around.  Jud might have been in some wars but for the most part he had lived a solidary lifestyle as a bookkeeper for the family of the week.

The song Robe was playing was the first time that she met him even with the times being so different them.  It did remind her of Earth.  In the same way it reminded her of the station on Nerot.And then the station on Galveston.

Galveston had been a mainly human and Galvian station when she arrived there, meaning that almost everyone looked far more human than any of the other “humanoids”.  Galveston was always regarded as unique for having these normal looking people so far out from Earth.  Because it was always distance that determined what people looked like.

The things that she was called were, put mildly, cruel.

Station members had just as much an issue with the color of her skin as the spines that grew out of some limbs.  Whenever she remembered the words slung at her, Harry always thought about how they would have had a heart attack at the sight of her webbed feet.

Harry slid against the door and wondered if the people inside had noticed Robe was gone.  As Robe left, she thought the conversation was dying down, but it had picked up again as she tried to listen through the keyhole.

You’re supposed to look through the keyhole, idiot.

Her mind was in so many places now that she couldn’t even focus on the conversation if she could have heard it.  The medication that she needed to fix it was up in the bedroom and the liquor that would help was inside in Jud’s office.  She could hear him in there right now with Leo.Funny how selective hearing was.

Harry looked towards the storage closet across from her spot on the floor.  She slowly focused on turning the brass door knob.  There was a quick click and then the door flew open, banging against the rubber stop.  Looking down on her from a hanging poster was Vito Corleone.

“Don Corleone, what would you do?”

She sifted through her memories for possibly some inspiring quote from the old man.  Or even something slightly comedic, with that cruel twinge all his jokes seemed to have.  Anything that would have distracted her from the decisions she had to make.

But instead of anything helpful, a cigarette stained voice coughed a short phrase back to her.

“That I cannot do.”

This should have been discouraging but any phrase taken out of context, could mean a million different things to the listener.  Who would know from that phrase that soon Bonasera would have been finding the so-called justice he was seeking?

Harry looked back up at the picture one more time before she swung the door back into place.  With all the strength she could gather, she dragged herself into a leaning position against the door jam and strutted into the office commons.