Issue 12 /After Dark

Snaggletooth presents… “After Dark”

Spend your night with Snaggletooth as art, prose, poetry, and multimedia pieces transform the pages of our annual micro-issue into dusk, dawn, and all the darkness in between.

Exclusive website feature: “Home” by Nile Marsh

“Watch it, Ash!”

I jump out of the way, scrambling for balance on my four-story scrap pile as a large engine swings over the space I’d just occupied, hoisted by a massive red crane.

“Thanks!” I holler in the general direction of the shout. The scavenger pit is dangerous, but we usually look out for each other and I’m quick on my feet. Still, that was too close; I can’t afford to get hurt.

I plant my feet on an old heat shield and survey the site. Floodlights are scattered haphazardly through the dump, illuminating the several dozen other workers picking their way through the 300-foot wide circular chasm. Mounds of spaceship parts fill the massive room. Above me, the pit’s walls soar upwards another thirty stories, where it meets the protective dome that keeps us breathing. The dome’s shutters are opened for the night, a few blinking stars shining through the dirty, rust-tinted atmosphere of Calypso.

I miss moonlight. Not from the capital-M Moon, the famous silver orb that witnessed the rise of our race on Earth, which I’ve never seen; at this point, after four years laboring on Calypso, I’d take any moon. Even Troy, the red rock that orbits Atlas II. I didn’t love living on Atlas II, with its slimy stolen rations and bloody night light, but it was better than this: crafting starship engines from scraps on Calypso under dying yellow lamps with even slimier stolen rations.

Ma doesn’t seem to mind the lack of moonlight, but she’s often too tired to mind anything after her laboring shifts in the smelting section. She’s trying to make enough money to get us to Alogo, the third and most agricultural planet in the Troy system, or maybe even Telepore, a small business moon orbiting Atlas I. Space flights aren’t cheap, and they’re usually unavailable. There’s a ship docked now; we all paused work two shifts ago to stare up at the dome and watch the shadow pass through the grubby air over the station. Once it leaves, it’ll be at least three years for us before another drops from hyperspace in our harbor. My scavenging job helps with rent and groceries, letting Ma deposit most of her paycheck in our savings account.

Calypso takes about eight standard days to revolve fully, leaving us in darkness for 96 straight hours every rotation. The four standard days of sunlight are too hot and bright to open the shades on the station’s windows. And there’s no moon. If only my grandmother had stayed on Earth.

I shake myself reproachfully, tearing my gaze from the dome. Now is not the time to linger on what I’m missing or dig up distracting emotions.

As I begin to plot a course to a promising shiny scrap across the pit, a shrill siren signals the end of the shift. I join the other scavengers as we converge on one ladder, climbing a few dozen feet to the lift. I pull off my protective helmet as we crowd into the metal box. The door slides shut, leaving us with the dim yellow of an ancient bulb on the ceiling and the raspy sound of our tired breathing.

It takes a few minutes to get to the top of the pit. The lift’s worrisome sputtering doesn’t phase the group. I sneak looks at the workers around me, some representing faceless competition and others almost friends: Teff, the oldest and most defeated of the group, probably already planning what liquor to buy tonight; Jordan, sixteen last week, new to the job and perpetually nervous, his helmet still shiny; Andromeda, her hair tightly braided under her helmet, which she refuses to take off until we get off the lift in accordance with regulations that no one enforces. She shoots me a dirty look when she catches me looking at her. I keep my eyes down until the lift doors open, too tired to push her buttons tonight.

“Are you looking at that old photo again, Ash?” Ma asks, catching me rummaging through her things as she returns home from the forge.

“Yeah,” I reply guiltily, looking back down at the image. It’d been stashed in Ma’s personal box in our two-room unit. I’ve never been to Earth, but my grandmother, Ashley, was born there, the last member of my family to set foot on our home planet. The faded paper shows a young woman grinning from atop a wooden fence, her short hair blowing in the wind, green grass on the ground, the sky blue and clear behind her. I’ve felt grass at a museum on Atlas II, but I can only imagine the texture of the wood and the soft breeze in my hair.

“The picture is centuries old,” Ma reminds me, dropping her bag of protective gear near the door and tossing me the mail. This is our routine. I’ll sort through our rent warnings and planetary announcements, Ma will fall asleep on the couch halfway through her dinner, and we’ll get back up in a few hours to work another shift. Ma gestures at the paper in my hands.

“Grandma was twenty-eight in that, but it’s been much longer than forty years for everyone on Earth.”

“I know, Ma,” I say. When Ma and I moved here seeking higher-paying jobs, it took about 45 minutes through sub-hyperspace for us but closer to a year for the planets in our system. Grandma Ashley’s trip between Earth and Atlas II felt like a week for her, but nearly 170 years passed on Earth while she was traveling. Even if I got on a ship right now, another century would pass before I got to Earth. I put the picture back in Ma’s box, slide it under the bed in the other room, grab a blanket off the bed, and step back into the room as Ma kicks off her work boots. I settle on the floor, my familiar anger at Grandma welling up. How could she leave Earth? It looks perfect in all the pictures, blue and green and exactly like home should be.

The mail is exactly what I’d expected. ATTENTION MORGAN FLORES AND HOUSEHOLD: NEW CALYPSAN REGULATIONS PROHIBIT WORKING LESS THAN TWO EIGHT-HOUR SHIFTS IN THREE STANDARD DAYS says the first plastic pamphlet ominously. This new law won’t be an issue for us; Ma and I are already picking up as many shifts as possible. RENT DUE FOR UNIT2014L: TWO-DAY WARNING reads the second. I use our secondhand tablet to wire the money to our landlord, then toss the plastic sheets in the trash a little harder than necessary. Every monthly payment to the landlord is another twenty-five shifts I’ll have to work before we can leave Calypso. I turn away, trying to shake that discouraging thought.

“Ma, do you think we could ever go there?” I ask.

“Where? Earth?” says Ma distractedly, grabbing a ration pack from the food box and flopping on the couch. “Why would you wanna go there?”

“Dunno. I guess it’d be cool to see home,” I reply casually as Ma digs into her ration. “I wonder what it’s like to stand under a blue sky.”

“We could do that on Alogo,” Ma points out, meeting my eyes for a moment. She speaks with uncharacteristic venom when she adds, “Earth isn’t home, it’s just the planet your grandmother came from.” Ma takes another mouthful of ration and leans back, eyes closed as she relaxes her muscles after fourteen hours of grueling labor.

“You’re right. We’ll look at the blue sky on Alogo.” I agree, deciding to let it go for now.

Ma mumbles incoherently, her tired body already shutting down for the night. I cover Ma with the blanket, take the ration pack out of her hand, and throw the wrapper in the trash. Right on schedule.

“Alogo’s sky is turquoise, anyway,” I mutter, kicking Ma’s boots to the side of the room so she doesn’t trip on them when she gets up. I wriggle out of my work clothes and flop on the bed, dead tired from the day. There are no windows in our apartment, so I can’t even look at Calypso’s dingy sky. I tuck myself in and content myself with imagining Earth as I drift off to sleep.

The grass under my bare feet is green and lush. My hair, short and brown like Grandma Ashley’s, moves gently in the breeze. I take a deep breath, the warm, sweet smell of my home planet filling my lungs. When I open my eyes, I see nothing but blue sky.