Papi

CW: Suicide and self harm, death, mental health.

Everybody loves outer space, all those stars and constellations they can see, the sun and its burning rays…I can’t comprehend that. Not now, at least.

They all love it for various reasons, but they have no idea what it’s like up here, so so far away from everything.

I’ve been up here for fifteen years, three months, and—wait.

Is it fifteen days or twenty?

Everyday kinda feels the same up here. All those smiling faces all the way below me—or is it beside me, I’m not sure anymore—all of those bright eyes watching the sky as it brightens for them every morning. It’s dark here, always so so dark.

When the sun comes to view you can’t even look at it. So I have to close the windows, everything. No light must enter but the generated electricity. Thrumming and thrumming, over and over.

I hate the noise. It’s horrible.

The other day I got my supplies, some dried out food that just tastes the same, oxygen, and some water that I can scarcely get myself to drink.

Waste goes to power.

Disgusting when I think about it. When my water supply is low it then begins to well…recycle that.

I look to the window, the beeping is starting, warning me to close all the windows, to shut myself inside this silent box.

My reflexes move without my knowing. I’ve done it over and over since I came here.

Why do I do it?

I ask such a question too much. I know, yet I wonder still.

I pull down the metal to ensure no gaps are left, not that it matters if a little light enters…no it does. A proper job should be done. Every time.

I check the control panel, ensuring everything is functioning, O2 is running smoothly, the generator is working all right.

And the windows are shut once again.

I sit down, my fingers laced together like a fishing net. I went fishing once, on the blue water flowing and sticking to the earth.

“Gravity is almost like magic, Papi!”

My whole body jerks. Stop thinking.

She’s OK. I…

I’m lying to myself again…

I grip the edge of my soft cushioned seat. It’s too soft for my liking, it shouldn’t be soft and plushy, not when everything else is so cold and hard, why not match it? Why not match me, a cold and hard and—

“Are you OK, Papi?”

A little voice, scared and weak. The voice of my precious little girl.

I grip the sides of the chair harder, I want to break it, I want to break this entire thing. I want the pieces to float off into infinity…

No.

My little Piper wouldn’t like that. She wants me safe, I know she does.

I take slow deep breaths, bit by bit my grip begins to loosen…

“Papi, you did it!”

Shut it. I hit my head this time.

Physical force doesn’t help push intangible things down…yet I hit my head again and again.

“Stop it Papi!”

I’m tickling my daughter, making her laugh and smile…that was the last time I would be able to do that—able to make her laugh.

No, that’s a lie, come on. Stop lying.

I won’t see her. Not here at least.

The day I went into space was so long ago it feels like I was born here. Born in this…this…

What do I live in?

It’s not a house, too small, not warm, lonely…

I live where nothing grows, nothing but a growing pain of being alone, being so far away from everything, everyone you have ever known…

I live.

I live—

“Come on Papi…” Tears swell in Piper’s eyes, fretting to pool over soon. “You…you can stay for a little longer, come on…Mommy left us too. Why leave me for a place so far away!” She starts to cry, covering her face so that the redness and tears are left unseen by me.

“Come on Pied Piper, your going to be okay…” I hug her, but it feels wrong. I feel a sense of running away, but from what I had yet to truly understand. “I’m going to be back before you know it!”

Piper looks up at me with a smile, so small and wavering that it makes me want to stay, but then it comes to me, my duty, my fate—no it’s none of that.

“You promise?” I nod and wish I hadn’t. “You’ll come back and we’ll play, and we’ll go to the forest you promised to take me to, the one with loads of willow trees?”

“Yes, of course I will.” I smile kindly, like I meant it, maybe at the time I did.

“OK, well if your going to space…to live in some satellite…tell me all about it OK, somehow send pictures and send you know…“ She stops and tries to wipe the still flowing tears, her breath hitches. “…just don’t forget me, Papi.” She was seven years old and saying stuff like that, needing to be remembered by someone.

“Pied Piper, how could I forget you? Your my very own daughter, it hurts to leave you…” Even then, I knew that was a lie, somewhere in me I knew. “I’ll be back in two years, OK? You’ll see how quickly that goes, I promise you.”

I hugged her tightly one last time, I felt nothing from it, I felt empty even then.

I look up at the windows now opening all by themselves.

I ran away from my problems. I’m selfish, so selfish. I ran away and away from pain and memory. I ran from things I didn’t understand…and—

My daughter, the one I cherished, became a problem.

I cover my mouth and cry. I cry and cry, no one can hear it, no one knows of my pain, of course they don’t…why would they? I scream and shout and start to hit the walls, wanting to break everything, everything that has trapped me and my horribly selfish self.

I could have been better to her…I could have gone back after two years, maybe I could have been better…I could have buried her…

She might not be dead now, if I wasn’t so selfish. She might still be smiling, swinging on a swing…laughing…

Stupid me. I’m horrible, I hate myself for everything I have chosen to do. Yes, everything has been a selfish choice of mine. All of this. My pain is due to the choice I made. Her death is due to the choice I made.

“Your daughter is dead.”

That’s what I go after those two years had ended, right when everyone else was supposed to leave, I had others living up here with me before…they left, back to their families, back to the smiling faces of friends.

Those words, that moment, still rings in my head even now, the feeling of regret.

I couldn’t bare to go back.

I told them I’d stay. Told them I would be alright up here on my own. I lied to myself, of course. I just couldn’t bare to go back there without my daughter waiting, smiling, and crying.

I get up from my seat and look to where the O2 control is…

No. Don’t do it.

Piper says not to. She says I should live, not die.

“It’s going to be all good, Papi. I promise.”

No. She’s lying. I’m lying. Every bloody thing is lying.

I press and do the access code, nothing happens. I press my hands into a firm grip.

I stomp over to a long pipe running along the wall, I grip it with bare hands and break it off, a loud squealing begins as the air running through comes out, wishing to make it to the last stop, only to fail. I grip the one below, its contents yellowy, pooling out onto the floor.

The lights still flicker and thrum. I grab some of the visible wires and tug so hard they snap, my body feels nothing as electric passes through it. Madness and rage and delusion just shadows it.

Darkness falls. My body follows.

My oxygen is decreasing.

My eyes are tired.

My mouth and voice are laughing.

My body has a thrum to it.

My lungs are tightening.

My mind remembering.

My eyes close…

Sorry Piper. I’m so so sorry.

I can’t handle this anymore.

I fade to nothing, no pain comes to me. Maybe it was my rage, or my delusion that took it away. Who breaks wires and pipes with their bare hands and expects to not be electrocuted?

An idiot like me for sure.

Though did it happen like that? Or…

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.

I’m going to see Piper soon. I hope… I’ve dreamed of this day for so many years. So many different versions, yet none of them will be able to match it just right.

Piper is gonna be mad…

I died to see her again.

I’ve missed her all these years—

My lungs give up trying, my heart begins to slow. But…

I’ve been dead for years, haven’t I?

“Yes Papi, you have.”