SPITT prologue

Space Probably Isn’t That Tough [SPITT]

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 In his 4 years at The Academy, Justin had never learned how to unclog a toilet. He’d learnt many things other than this, such as how to repair an engine from anywhere between E to A grade on UFS with or without a Superdrive, or how to microwave instant pasta. He’d learnt how to pilot ships in the 3 basic classifications, and how to deal with a bad breakup when all you’ve got is popsicles and the Spanish drama CDs your Hispanic roommate left behind before he got hospitalized all with just a week until final examinations. He felt that, all in all, The Academy had not only trained him well to be a pilot but also to handle life situations to what he felt, or hoped, was a reasonable degree.

 But unclogging a toilet was never a skill The Academy taught him, intentionally or not. Justin was in a situation at this point that his father would have called ‘a right pickle.’ However, he didn’t really have a name for this situation besides the classic moniker of being ‘up shit creek without a paddle,’ not that his father would’ve approved of that language. He found it funny how well it fit the situation, that was until he remembered the situation itself and how he ended up in it and decided it wasn’t funny. Actually, it was incredibly stupid and a little frustrating, and that to avoid blaming himself he’s definitely going to figure out who was really responsible for this and blame them. However, the blame game gets you nowhere when there’s a toilet full of shit and paper in front of you. It’ll get him somewhere later, though, he’d make sure of that.

 He takes a moment to step back and reconsider his situation, instead of staring at it and thinking about all this rubbish. Not that there was much room to step back in the cramped restroom of this wing of the cargo-hauling ship. It had a name, but Justin didn’t particularly care about that anymore, he cared about names he could blame later and you can’t blame a ship. So, he thought, there’s a toilet. Makes sense. It’s clogged with a heap of toilet paper and feces. Sounds about right. There's a plunger, but using it would just get it covered in crap. Okay. So that just leaves getting the waste out of the loo and into anywhere else. Somewhere nobody is gonna find it. Okay, yeah.

 Gonna throw the shit into space. Seems like the logical course of action, he reckoned.

*	*	*

 “You understand why this is happening, don’t you?” The imposing woman asked him in a tone with just the right hint of patronising to sound both condescending and frustrated at the same time.
 “ It’s because I was sneaking down corridors with a cardboard box full of human waste and a trowel. I’m not thick, lady.” He asserted in an attempt to withhold some amount of dignity. He got the feeling it didn’t work.
 “Oh, you aren’t thick, are you? Are you sure about that, rookie? Cause I don’t exactly pin what you did down as something that a smart person would do. Take a look around you, see the grey walls and the shoddy light bulb?” She gestured to the items in question as she leant over the table to him. “The chains keeping your hands to the big semicircle sticking out of the grey table? How about the grey chair you’re sat in? And the grey locked door? What does all this grey tell you, rookie?”
“That this room could really do with a woman’s touch?”
 “Don’t get smart with me, you prat. It tells you that this is an interrogation cell. You’re being held for your actions.” She sat back down in her chair, flipping open the file on her side of the table. “Let's get down to the brass tacks here. File says you are one Mr Justin Jackson. Mind if I call you JJ?”
	“A lot, actua-”
 “Good to hear, JJ. Moving on, other personal information,” She confirms, and starts flicking through the rather thin file as she reiterates what she reads half-heartedly. “Blah blah, 4 years at The Academy, blah blah, trained in basic piloting and engineering, blah blah, got a younger brother, a dad and a mom, all pretty standard. Let's see, 23 years old, grew up on earth, took an art course and music course and flunked both hard in highschool, otherwise average passing grades in everything, no major debts, and so on and so forth. I’m impressed, JJ.”
 “Please don’t call me that. And, wait, what's impressive about any of that?”
 “This is the single most boring file I’ve ever read in my entire life. And I’ve been working here for 15 years.”
 “You look good for 40, at least.”
 “I’m 32, I started here early on an apprenticeship, shut your cake hole.”
 “Oh, that’s rough buddy.”
 “I’m not your buddy.”
 “Sorry.”
 “You’d better be.” She said, giving him a stern look and waiting for his next reply. When she received nothing but an uncomfortable silence, she carried on. “Now, back to business. What made you do it, JJ? What could have possibly compelled you to… I can’t believe I have to say this, to use a trowel procured from the botany storage locker to scoop feces into a cardboard box, and begin carrying it around the ship?”

 As he sat there and thought about this, Something rather simple occurred to him. He didn’t actually have a good explanation for this. He didn’t believe anything had actually compelled him to do it, he just sort of… had. Pondering how to relay this to her, she started the process for him, and he couldn’t say he liked that.
 “You don’t have an explanation do you, JJ?”
 “If you gave me a chance to expl-” He didn’t get the words out before her expression turned smug as she sat down across from him with elbows on the table, a hand to hold her head up and another to gesture in a vaguely taunting manner only someone who knows they are irrevocably right can manage. He hated this.
 “Alright, JJ, here’s your second chance to explain. Hit me.” If he was a violent man, he would. Luckily for both of them considering how poorly even showing an attempt at that would end for him, he was not.
 “... I don’t have any reasonable explanation for my actions.” He mumbled out, confidence waning as his thoughts started focusing on just how much he’d really like this to be over and he could either be fired or go back to his job because he was starting to hate this little room and this woman, whatever her name was. Hate might be a strong word for it, he came to think, but she was still a bit of a bitch.
 “Juuust as I suspected.” She said, her tone laced with smugness. Just like her face. Her stupid, stupid face. Justin was beginning to hate that face as much as he hated the nickname JJ, possibly by association. “So, JJ,” there it is again. If he hadn’t spent 4 years living with a fat puerto-rican who ate all his fucking cereal to get the toys inside as well as those sweet sweet calories, he’d be a much less patient man. “You committed this crime and you’ve got nothing to say for yourself bar some half-arsed sarcasm. Well that won’t fly as long as I’m the head of disciplinary actions, you see-” As the lady rambled on, Justin remained in his brief moment of reflection. If Diego ate the cereal for the toys, why did he keep buying the damn toy cereal? The toys weren’t even that good and the cereal was a sugary pile of crap which probably didn’t help keep the tubby bugger away. “-And then you’ll have to clean the mess you made when you tripped after being caught, not to mentio-” Justin realised he couldn’t explain why he didn’t switch cereal brands either. In a blossoming existential crisis he began to wonder just how many things he did that he couldn’t explain properly and if this is why jessica left him just before the last week of The Academy. “- was very upset seeing the brown marks outside his office so you’ll be formally apologi-” He quickly quelled that thought, assessing that there probably was some explanation he’d forgotten and jessica left him because he is a terribly boring human being and he’s not going to let that get to him again in front of this woman who, oh wow she’s still talking isn’t she. He decided to tune back. “- Do I make myself clear?”
 “Crystal.” He lied through the skin of his teeth.

She sighed begrudgingly, realising her rant was over she was running out of reasons to keep him locked up. She made her way around to his side of the table and undid the cuffs keeping his hands on the table and got him up by his arm to guide him out as she surmised herself.
 “The full routine of what you have to do will be sent to your datapad, make sure its done in the timeframe given. And don’t do this again.”
 “What, I’m free? That easy? Wow you’ve got about much authority as a mall cop don’t you.” He said this, getting a little too cocky because of his growing dislike for her. She deserves it though, he thought. He though this more when she gave his arm a sharp tug got a good grunt of pain out of him.
 “Listen here, JJ, you seem like a good kid-”
 “I ain’t a kid, I’m twenty bloody four”
 “- Don’t go turning into a delinquent-type now. Curb your sarcasm and remember who's in the power here.” she finished despite his interruption, and he decided to keep his uncouth remarks to quiet mumbles as he was lead out and given back his mop, bucket, and datapad by a guard.

As he walked back out of the detention quarters of the ship, Justin checked his datapad messages. He had to the end of the week to apologise to about half the ship’s crew, one big mess to clean up, an air lock to fix, and a trowel to return to the botany department. While he briefly wondered why a cargo ship even had a botany department, theorising someone in charge had a bit of a green thumb, he saw a new notification pop up on the datapad.

Someone had clogged the toilet again.

END PROLOGUE