on homes and loneliness

I’ve lived in here alone since I woke up. Every so often, I dock here, I visit my sister, I pick up vitae. She was the one who recommended the therapist at this station, since she lives here now when she’s not doing… whatever it is she does these days. I don’t know if I care. Once I woke up, she gifted me my own ship. This thing. Based on the patches, I know it used to be a junker… her whole ship is made of that porcelain and meat. Apparently Tzimisce love that shit these days. I didn’t have the stuff to say I thought it was gross, but it maintains life support pretty well, so I guess I can’t complain.

I set it up as best I could to look like my old apartment. I even brought things back from my trip… I dug up the bulbs from that lily field and planted them here in jars full of dirt dug straight from back there. I took the address plate from the apartment building and it’s in that cabinet now. It’s not the standard, because most folks live out of skydocks and on planets, but… ever since the Apocalypse came and went, nothing I’ve seen has felt like home.

And trust me, I’ve been looking. Looking for a place to settle down in some corner of the universe. But the closest I ever got was Earth, and I would have to fight fang and claw to convince the Union that it’s worth allowing travel back there. I might, still, one day. I kept seeing it in my dreams. I know Elpis was telling me to go home. But until I find a place that feels like that, I just live out of my ship. It’s all I need, I guess.

But being close to my apartment doesn’t ease the loneliness, not really.

Every now and then, I catch myself talking to nothing. As if he’s going to hear me from Oblivion. Sometimes I still smell the ghost of curry powder and pepper in the air, like dinner is almost ready, but it’s gone just as fast as it came. I’ll feel static in the air like if someone used their Transmutations nearby me. It makes me wonder if I’m going mad, sometimes. Letting my wishful thinking rule over me and hallucinate.

I don’t think I’ve quite felt so desperately lonely since my mother died. When my sister walked out on me that night and never came back, she really didn’t come back. And my mom, she was… already depressed. I tried to pretend everything was okay, but… she found out, eventually, that she disappeared. She didn’t take it well at all. Mom wasn’t gone for more than an hour when I found her hanging from her ceiling fan. She was still warm. In that moment, suddenly I was utterly, crushingly alone and insignificant.

I never told Anya when she finally decided to speak to me again, and I don’t think she ever found out. Now, I never will.

I started drinking after that. It wasn’t some kind of cure-all, but it made it hurt less for a while. In that bar, I wasn’t alone. I was surrounded by others. There were people to talk to, and I got addicted to it as much as I did the liquor. Maybe even more than that. It turned into a problem pretty quickly, and soon I caught myself doing it at home, too. I let it happen. I no longer cared. Even when I had a roommate, and suddenly I wasn’t so alone, it was already a habit and she had a bit of a problem too.

Since I’ve woken up, that urge is back. I can feel it in the back of my throat. That craving, for burning liquor to numb what I’ve been feeling. This time I know better. I fought it off once already, and… I’d be a disappointment to everyone I lost if I fell off the wagon now. But it never really goes away in times like these. It sits there, eating at my backbrain, tempting me back. And I know I did that to myself.

You’re probably wondering why the hell I’ve opted to prattle on at the both of you about things that happened hundreds of years ago.

The truth is, I felt like if we’re in this, you two should know. What I’ve been through. What to look out for.

Because for this brief moment, suddenly this ship felt a little bit like home.