Daily story, March 22, 2025

“Been anywhere nice this summer?”, she asked. I thought about the weeks on the space station spent biting my lip to keep from howling, hating the place I had always wanted to go more than I have ever hated anything. I thought about the wedding, the one I ought to have got this haircut before, not after. The one where I didn’t quite have my Earth-legs back yet, and the couple hated me because everyone wanted to talk about space. I thought about sitting in this familiar chair with its familiar smells, being tended to by hands that I have trusted since I was a boy. “Yeah,” I said, “Yeah, I have.”