A/N: Written for the Writer's Anonymous Forum's "Ten Year Challenge".
LUSTRUM
After five years on a job, you get pretty damn good at what you do. Doesn't matter what. Stimulating or mind numbing. Back breaking or comfortable. With five years experience, I don't care that I'm not paid—that I'm not here by choice. I don't care that I'm slave labor. With five years experience, I'm the best Goddamn Inmate Shift Manager this prison colony has ever seen.
And yeah—there's pride in that.
Where I'm sitting is a control tower overlooking Prison Quarry HH, Sector 225. As Inmate Shift Manager, I watch over our boys on the ground—the hard laborers. We work in twelve hour shifts. Twelve hours in our cells. Twelve hours in the quarry. Day in. Day out. Year after year after year. It's mind numbing. It's back breaking, too. And yes, it's dangerous. I've lost more friends than I can count in fall-ins and blasts. But there's structure here. There's routine.
And yeah—there's comfort in that.
There are perks to being an Inmate Shift Manager. I don't have to get my hands dirty—at least not most of the time. If a shift calls for it, I go down with the laborers and put some muscle on myself. But that's usually only if we've got sick or injured or dead. Most of the time I'm up in the control tower.
I see everything up here. All one-hundred and twenty-seven inmates working my shift. All the way down into the quarry. All the equipment, materials, and ore. But more than anything, from up here I can see outside.
Most inmates never get to look beyond the prison walls. They do their twelve hour shifts down in the deep, then march straight back to their cells. Twelve hours of walls. Twelve hours of rocks. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. They're the ones you should feel sorry for.
Up above the quarry I see far beyond the gates, and Dosuun is a beautiful world. Prettier than it is back home on Coruscant, that's for sure. Out past Prison Quarry HH there's nothing but open prairie almost as far as I can see. Mountains in the distance. When a storm rolls through and breaks just over the horizon—that's power the warden can't control. It's a reminder that his reign isn't endless. That I won't be a prisoner forever.
I'm not going to die here.
"2113," a voice says, streaming through the control tower's intercom. "2113, this is 1693. How copy?"
Prisoner 1693 runs the sector for the twelve hours I'm in my cell. He's an older gentleman—too old now for heavy lifting, and too slow for demolitions. Probably in his seventies, at least. Been here for twenty years. I don't know his real name—nobody does. One of the few spoken rules between inmates is that you keep that to yourself. "1693, this is 2113," I say. "Solid copy. Go ahead."
"Look at the time lately?"
I haven't, but I don't need to. If he's calling I know when it is. "Shift change already?"
1693 laughs, and he must be making a point to hold down the trigger on his transmitter. "We're processing through now. Be making the switch in half an hour. You losing track of time up there?"
There's no storm today. No power over the mountains. The sun is setting, and the wind blows the prairie grass in waves, and it's beautiful. "Must be."
"Good thing you got me looking out for you then." After a pause, he continues, "You're coming up on your first five, aren't you?"
My first five. The first five years of my court imposed tour of duty. My first visitation. "Two weeks."
Another long pause. "Good," 1693 says. "Know who's coming for you?"
"I have a good idea," I tell him. He can't see me smiling through the com.
"The first five years are the toughest. After that it gets easier. You'll understand when it's done. I hope it goes well."
The sky is vibrant. Hues of red and orange and yellow. So much color. So much life. "It will, thanks. I'm going to start calling my shift in. See you for the switch in thirty. Out."
Thirty minutes is just enough time to finish the sunset. 1693 gets the sunrise on his shift, and he can keep it. The sunrise is ugly. It's the dawn of another day—A reminder that our time is only beginning. But a sunset is a day finished. Another day down. One step closer to home.
And I'm not going to die here.
I haven't always been 2113. Five years ago I was Akaal Vondila, and I'll be Akaal again in fifty to eighty years. That's my sentence. Fifty to eighty years.
And yeah—That's a long time.
It's not as bad as it sounds, though. It really isn't. People live longer these days. With modern medicine and organ regeneration and transplants, an average healthy Human lives to about one-hundred twenty, and I'll only be eighty when I get my first parole board hearing—my first shot at release. That's still old. I know that. But it's not end-of-life old anymore. I'll still have a good forty years on average left to live out my sunset days. Everyone always says those are the best times of your life. Vibrant. Colorful. I believe it.
Conditions in the prison aren't exactly optimal, but that doesn't make much difference to me. We don't get the healthcare free men get, and we work twelve hours a day year round, but I'm not like the others. Spending my days in the control tower, I don't have to worry about rock slides or explosions or another inmate with a life sentence, a vibro-pick, and a grudge to settle.
If I do have to go down into the pit, it's temporary. I can go back to the tower the next day and rest. I'm stronger than I was when I came in five years ago. Healthier. My joints are solid. I've gained muscle. I'm not going to die here.
I do look older, but there's no helping that. That's just stress, and the first five years are the worst for that. Everyone has an adjustment period. It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't mean you're sick. It just happens. I'm balding faster than expected. My hair is grayer than it should be. I look a bit older than thirty-five, but that's normal here. That's stress, and stress fades when you fall into the routine. After the first five years, everything is downhill. Everything settles.
What really makes the difference is that at the end of your first five years you get your first visitation. Everything here happens in cycles. Cycles of ones and twelves and fives. One day to the next. One twelve hour rotation to another. But the fives are the only ones that really matter. The fives remind you why you're alive.
Every five years we're granted a one hour visit. Anybody we want to see, as long as they can pass a background check. Five years is a long time to wait for one hour, but when that's all you've got, it's what you hang on to. And Aibhlinn is coming for me.
I've written Aibhlinn every week for the past five years. Another gift of working in the control tower is I'm not dead tired when I get back to my cell. The laborers fall asleep standing up when they're being reprocessed and marched back to the block, but I've been sitting all day—I don't need twelve hours sleep. I have an extra hour or three every day to do whatever I want. And I write.
Truth told, I was worried leading up to this. Aibhlinn stopped responding to my letters two years ago. We had some kind of argument—I remember that much. I don't remember what it was about. Something minor and petty that blew up beyond its worth. I don't know. They never let me keep the letters after I read them. Letters are property. We're not allowed property.
Whatever she was upset about, that's in the past. She's coming. And it's not just a hope—her name is in the ledger. Visitors can't just show up out of the blue. The process starts months before the actual meet. They have to confirm their visit. Go through the background checks. Book a transport through hyperspace. All of this is cataloged. Monitored. Recorded. We know they're coming almost as soon as they do.
And ledger or no ledger, I knew she'd come. In the end—whatever we fight over—she knows I'm still a good person. That I always have been.
I never killed anybody. Not personally, at least. Not knowingly. All I ever did was turn a blind eye. Sure, I knew they were smugglers, but I didn't know they were Rebels. Didn't know they were carrying weapons, or that they'd bomb government offices. They just offered me a lot of Credits, and I looked the other way. That's all.
And don't get me wrong—I broke the law. I know that. I deserve to be here. I've earned my fifty to eighty years, no question about it. But I'm not a bad person. The judge recognized that when she didn't hand me a life sentence, and I know that deep down, Aibhlinn recognizes that too.
This is justice.
But I never deserved life here. And I don't deserve death.
There was an accident on the other shift last night. Some idiot wasn't paying attention—that's how it always happens. Someone gets tired, or complacent, or desperate, and everyone pays. It was a routine blasting. 1693 ordered up an eighty kilogram ANFO satchel on the West quarry wall, and it worked.
Except the the laborer who set it couldn't read. That's my guess, at least. He couldn't add, or subtract, and instead of setting an eighty kilogram satchel, he set an eight-hundred.
The fireball only killed the prisoner who armed the thing. It was the overpressure killed the rest. People see holos back home and think that so long as you dodge the heat and flame you're home free. But that's not how explosives work. It makes no difference if the bomb sets you ablaze or doesn't singe a hair on your body—if you get caught by that blast wave, the pressure scrambles your lungs from the inside out.
All because some idiot couldn't work a simple conversion.
It's a tragedy, sure, but what really upsets me is that the accident pulled me out of the control tower. I'm in the quarry today—vibro-pick and all—and I'll probably be down here tomorrow, too. Maybe even the day after. With all the dead and injured on the night shift, we had to loan them some bodies. That means we're short handed, and that means I work. And in all the excitement, we've had an accident of our own.
There's a group of us here. We're standing around Prisoner 3384, who managed to get his leg pinned in a rock slide. Last night's blast loosened a lot of rubble. One careless swing and it all comes crashing down. 3384 learned the hard way that you can't just fixate on your own little world—you have to take it all in context. Now he's screaming murder about how his leg's crushed, and how he can't feel anything below the shin. "What do we want to do about this?" 6112 asks.
6112 is a Skrilling. There aren't many non-Humans here, but 6112 makes up the difference with presence. He's got rows of breathing holes instead of a nose, and a big bony crest for a forehead. What really matters is he's got fingers nearly as thick as my forearms.
I get preferential treatment in the pit. When 6112 asked what 'we' wanted to do about 3384, he was really asking me. Even when I'm working the quarry, they still look up to me as Inmate Shift Manager. It's not an authority thing—nobody respects that here. But when I'm in the control tower, I keep things organized, and in a quarry like this, organization is synonymous with safety. They want me back up in that tower almost as much as I want to be there myself. I look down at 3384—sobbing softly, and clutching his leg—then back up to 6112 and say, "Above the knee."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
3384 goes white. He claws at the rubble around him like he thinks he can dig himself out. "It'd be easier at the joint," 6112 says. "Cleaner cut. Less recovery."
It looks like 3384's going to vomit. He's given up on trying to pull his leg out. His arms are wrapped around his stomach. "Get an excavator or something," he says, throat dry.
Too much rubble. Heavy equipment will just cause another slide. Get more people killed who don't need it. "One of the guys we lost last night had a prosthetic," I say. "I imagine there isn't much left of him, but the leg probably held up better."
"Workable?" 6112 asks.
3384 screams again. He's crying openly now—doesn't bother trying to hide it. "No! You can't—"
I don't see more than a flash, but by the time I realize what happened 6112 has his hand over 3384's mouth. Kid shuts up real fast. "Talk back again," 6112 tells him, "and instead of taking your leg I'll drive my pick through your fucking throat."
"It should work," I say. "It'll be a bit small, and it's the wrong side, but it'll hold him over at least until we can requisition a real prosthetic. You know how long we've been waiting on those. It's a little extra work on your end cutting through the femur and all, but—"
"Oh," 6112 says over 3384's muffled pleas. He flashes three rows of teeth with his smile. "That's not even close to a problem."
"Alright then, let's get it done with and get back to work. Just make sure you've got a few guys ready to carry him over to medical before you start cutting. We can't be losing guys like this because we didn't take the time to think everything through first. The little details matter. Some backwater, half-brained retard screwed a conversion last night and killed a dozen of his buddies. Gave us a rock slide today. We can't be overlooking those little details, or missing things so obvious we look right through them. That's why people die here."
The gathered crowd watches me, expecting more. 6112 slowly twirls his vibro-pick, gripping with one hand, then the other. They're so focused on my words that they don't notice I've already waved them off. That 3384 pissed himself when I said 'Cutting'. They're so caught up in what's going on moment by moment that they don't see the big picture.
And all I can wonder is, How many more of them have to die here before they shrug off the blinders?
It takes a few beats, but eventually everybody gets the message, and it's back to work. 6112 still spins his pick, pacing before 3384 like a rancor cornering prey. He enjoys this more than he should—I know that. But that's okay. It's useful, even. We're not here because we were good people, and this is our punishment. To suffer landslides and sadists. But if I can channel some of that—put it to use—then maybe someday a lucky few of us will get to go home.
You can find a little bit of good in everything, if you look hard enough.
Just about when 6112 begins raising his pick (and 3384 vomits across the quarry-bed), another prisoner—7747—taps me on the shoulder and pulls me aside. I don't know what 7747 did to earn his time here, but whatever it was, I'm glad he did it. He's one of the few men here with any common sense. There aren't any official positions of authority below Inmate Shift Manager, but it's another unspoken law among our community that 7747's untouchable. He's my deputy, of sorts. My boots on the ground. He asks, "This going to be a problem?"
"Shouldn't be." Behind us, 3384's scream ends with a loud, wet thud.
"You sure? We're at least twelve down on the night shift, plus our guy here. If we catch another rock slide we—"
"We'll just have to be extra careful until everything settles."
6112 screams, "Dammit, you little bitch! Quit squirming!" Then, "Grab his fuckin' arms!"
"That's not really what I mean," 7747 says. He pretends to examine the stones resting near his feet. The quarry wall ahead. The sky above. Everything but the rescue operation underway at our backs. "Remember our last intake?"
Intake. A euphemism for inbound prisoner shipments. Fresh blood for the colony. "Yeah. That was, what? Three weeks ago? A month?"
"Two months at least."
"No. No way it's been that long. Just over a month. Maybe."
"I don't know." He shrugs, then shakes his head. "Maybe a month then. I'm just saying, one month or two, we used to get new boys down here every week. This keeps up, we'll be losing workers faster than they're coming in."
I don't get access to anything important—nothing I could use to escape or do any real damage—but the control tower has a calendar. It's got schedules. Important dates. I can see when prisoners come in, and when others get released.
Intake's slowing—he's right about that much. I've been in the pit more this year already than all of last, and last year I was in more than the one before that. But we've got a fresh shipment coming in next week, and another three weeks beyond that. This drought is temporary. Unless you've got life, everything here is. "It's not a problem."
What sounds like a tree branch snapping is 6112 bringing his vibro-pick down for the last time.
"Alright," 7747 says, walking off to direct the men carrying 3384 to the medical droids. "If you say so."
And yeah—this isn't ideal. Life here is hard, brutal, and cruel. It doesn't care. But that's fine. I can handle this. It isn't a forever state.
And it's really not that bad once you get used to it.
Really.
I met Aibhlinn ten years ago. It wasn't a love at first sight thing—no gut-rot-longing demanded her embrace from then forward into oblivion—but there was something more there than I imagine most ever come to understand. A muted knowing. A pacific gravity. A force, if you believe in that sort of shit. I don't know what I'd call it, but I do know that when I first saw her—cobalt dress and pink pearls over dark skin—all I could think was, I want to know more.
Zahid introduced us. He was a co-worker of mine—a fellow stevedore. More than that, Zahid was my right hand before 7747 became my prosthetic. Without me, he was worthless. Without him, I was less than that. Zahid couldn't direct shipping droids like I could, or calculate and schedule the most efficient container load between thirty-seven docking bays three months in advance, but he had a quality I deeply admired, and could never within myself achieve—charisma. He did with people what I could only hope to accomplish with machines.
Left alone, I would have watched Aibhlinn through the night in the moments I thought she believed no one stared. I would have left alone, but satisfied, never knowing it could have come to a better end. Instead, Zahid grabbed my arm, pulled me toward her, and said, "Mariah! How have you been? Here, I want you to meet—"
She stared at him. Glanced to me. Stared at him again.
You're not Mariah? Oh? I could have sworn that— You're just the striking image of— Aibhlinn. Oh. How embarrassing. No, don't apologize, it was my mistake. No, no trouble at all. I'm sorry. Pleasure to meet you, but if you'll excuse me.
When it was just Aibhlinn and I, eye to eye and silent, I apologized. Told her I didn't know what came over him. That he wasn't actually an idiot. That I—
She laughed. Looking back, I don't think it would have worked had it been anybody but the three of us. If some schmuck other than Zahid had marched me up there and willingly made a fool of himself. If another man had been in my shoes—one who wasn't so socially inept that he was the only witness blind to the idea that Zahid's false recollection was a ploy from its inception. If it wasn't Aibhlinn wearing the blue dress and the mistaken identity. It turned out she had another quality I admired despite my lack—grace.
If you asked me about it today, I'd tell you we were a live wire surging through the embers of a party long since burned to ground. I'd tell you about how her eyes lit the room like lasers in a firefight. As far as you're concerned, it wouldn't be wrong. It's only a lie if you get caught.
The truth is our conversation lived in fits and spurts. I said something. She laughed (or maybe didn't). We stood together in silence. Repeat. Repeat. There was nothing special about that night, or unique about the words we spoke. Nothing uncommon in our silence. But she must have felt the same lure in me that I felt in her, because four nights later, we met again. Then again. Repeat. Repeat.
A month after Zahid introduced us, she spent her first night in my flat, and though she left in the morning, she never really went home.
When she moved in, Zahid and I worked for Imperial City Port Authority. A long time ago, stevedores loaded and unloaded cargo from ships themselves. Still do, on some of the backwater worlds. On Coruscant we had droids for that. Our job was mostly management. Make sure all of the documents are in order. Direct ships to the right landing bays. Keep the droids moving, moving, moving. Push the cargo through customs. Kill downtime. Together, we kept ships running in and out of 150 docks. I handled computing. He handled communications. We managed the tightest port in the sector.
The problem moving in with Aibhlinn was that whether you acknowledge it or not, downsizing from two apartments to one is the first step towards starting a family, and it's always on her mind. But raising children takes Credits, and with the cost of living on Coruscant we barely broke even between the two of us as it was.
That's really all it takes. You get a call on your personal number instead of your work line. You're not good with people, but hey—they're offering a whole lot of Credits to cut through a little red tape. You tell Zahid to take a breather. Better yet, take a day off—he's more than earned it. Guide a ship into the wrong dock. Forget to file the logs that can be forgotten. Fudge the ones that can't. Push it around customs instead of through. Buy Aibhlinn that ring she's been dying to wear since before she knew what pink pearls were—the one that sparkles like the Galactic Core. Hell, book that vacation off-world she's always wanted while you're at it. Just one day under the radar and you're golden for a long, long while. Fire and forget. Never know any better. I truly, honestly didn't know what that ship was bringing in.
If you ask me about it today, I'll tell you that if I'd known what was happening I wouldn't have let them through. I'd tell Zahid about the call. About the money. The explosives. Everything. We'd contact the closest Imperial Station. Let them know exactly what was going on and when. We'd be heroes. Aibhlinn and I would find another way to get by. Another way to raise children.
And as far as you're concerned, it wouldn't be wrong.
I once knew a man who claimed we only live for a day. We pass on every night when we sleep, and every morning a new, purified soul rises from our beds. In the evenings he sat in a tattered velvet chair on his balcony to watch the sunset between the skyscrapers looming over the horizon. He'd call his mother. His children. Friends, when he had them. Told them he loved them. He brushed his teeth—two minutes even, out of habit—said a short prayer, and settled into bed to die. I don't know if he meant it as a metaphor or if he actually believed it, but he was adamant about his mantra—The only measure of time that matters is the day you're in. Yesterday you weren't you. Tomorrow you'll be somebody else.
One night that man watched his sunset, made his calls, died his nightly death, and was never reborn.
I'm sitting in my control tower again. It's not the view I had back on Coruscant, and I have nobody to share it with, but there's comfort in that. The other prisoners don't know of the red beyond the prairie, or the silhouette of the mountains—dark and towering, even in their distance—cutting into the yellows and pinks.
The reds fade to purple when my intercom crackles. "2113," a voice says. "This is 1693. How copy?"
I've been watching the clock all day. I'll watch it all day tomorrow, too. Aibhlinn's visit is the day after. The minutes between are the only thing on my mind. "1693, this is 2113," I say. "Solid copy. Go ahead."
"Look at the time lately?"
"Shift change?"
1693 holds his transmitter like always. But he doesn't laugh. Tonight it's nothing but dead air. Five seconds. Ten. "Processing through now. Making the switch in half an hour."
The radio's long quiet before I realize he's taken his finger off his button. That's new. "I'm going to start calling my shift in," I tell him. "See you for the switch in thirty. Out."
"Sure." Then he says, "I—"
And that's it. Nothing follows. A short burst of white noise, then silence. Just me and reds and yellows and purples. The end of a day. "1693, no copy on that last transmission. Say again. Over."
The com whines, on and off. Sometimes it's a short squeal. A few times longer. "You got a minute?" he asks. His voice cracks, more static than speech. "Just to talk, I mean. We speak to each other every day, but we never really talk. I know your head must be all over right now, but I think we should talk."
I haven't started bringing my workers in. Half an hour is usually just enough time to get everybody gathered together, run our post-shift safety checks, and process out. We don't really have time to spare. "Everything alright?"
"I had my medical this morning."
This isn't a half-hour conversation. Not even several hours. Zahid advised against having these talks over coms. It's a face-to-facer, as he called them. A don't disclose until you can see the whites of their eyes. Not that we have a choice. "And?"
More silence. "I'm considering it an early parole. It doesn't sound so bad like that, you know? It's almost like it's kind of nice. A parole."
The sunset is no longer my own. He can't see it, but somewhere deep within the cell block—through feet of rock and iron and concrete—1693 has taken my crimson and marigold. I ask, "How long?"
"Best case? Two months."
I'd shut the windows if I could. Make this place safe again. Nobody dies in the control tower. "Worst?"
"Another half a year." He finally laughs, long and full. Holds his button down the whole while. It sounds like the evening colors—dark, with a faint glow over the horizon.
When he's done we sit in another long silence. Maybe he's waiting for me to respond. Maybe he's got nothing more. I wait a few beats for him to break the deadlock, but he doesn't give ground. Doesn't even touch his com. "I don't know what to say."
"A congratulations would be nice," he tells me, almost immediately.
"Don't say that."
"I'm serious." He stops talking for a moment, but he's still jamming the line. "I get it. From where you're sitting over there at five years, this must seem a pretty raw deal. But from my end of the road, I've been waiting for this. Long time. You don't need to understand it now, but it'd mean a lot if you were happy for me. This is good."
I won't understand it. Not ever. Flat refuse. Deny my parole. Give me my full eighty years. In the end I'll come out of it dragging myself from the grave if I have to. I'm not weak—not like 1693. I'm not giving up.
I'm not dying here.
"I'm glad for you," I say, and it's not wrong. "Congratulations."
"Thanks."
I'm pretty sure what sounds like laughing is him crying over the com. Neither of us speak. I use the time to call my shift in. Really, I'm trying to figure a way to ignore how the yellows in the distance are gone, and how first hues of purple have already disappeared.
He says, "There's something else I want to talk to you about, actually."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Kind of related. More business, though. Procedure stuff."
"What do you mean procedure?"
"There's going to be a few changes once I'm gone."
The problem with changes is that they're never good. You always know what to expect when you have a routine. Sure, sometimes the little details shift—I'm on work duty instead of sitting in the tower, or we have a new shipment of inmates that need their hands held—but those are only inconveniences. The routine sorts it all out in the long run, and in a place like this, routine is synonymous with safety. "Anything major?"
He says, "You'll be taking my shift."
Five years of getting to know the workers under the sun—the long-timers. Learning how they act and react. Knowing what they'll do before they know it themselves. Five years of being their voice from the heavens. Their guardian angel. Five years of reds and yellows and pinks. 1693 is dragging it into his grave. "What?"
"You're switching over to nights. Taking my seat, so to speak."
"What about my shift? Who's taking mine?"
He waits a long while before answering. His com clicks once, but the line closes almost instantly. Just another burst of noise. I'll be damned if I'm giving up my sunsets. Not to anybody. Not to 7747, or 6112, or any other combination of numbers you can think up. Not even for Zahid, if he were here. It's mine. I rule our world between the hours of sunup and sundown.
Finally, 1693 says, "Nobody."
It's my turn to make him wait. Below me, my prisoners gather their tools. Get ready to reprocess. I can't look away. When I try to respond, I forget to push down my transponder. I try again, and ask, "What do you mean nobody?"
"You know how intake's been," he says. "We don't have the manpower to have a worker out all the time. They still want a Shift Manager on nights for now, what with the casualty rate, but honestly, it's only a matter of time before—"
Dead air again. Deader than 1693. Dead like a life sentence. "Before what?"
"No, forget it. I don't know what I'm talking about. In any case, it's beyond my tenure now." His laughter reverberates through the control tower. "There's some good that comes out of this, though."
"What's that?"
"You're coming onto my shift sooner rather than later. Before my release. Night shift has a few intricacies you need to grasp before you get thrown in. I'm going to teach you. Face to face."
"You mean in person?"
"I'm looking forward to it. Can't think of a better way to end this, you know? With some real conversation, for once. Be a little less lonely."
"Yeah," I tell him. "Everything I've always wanted."
Beyond the prairie, the mountains in the distance fade into a curtain of black.
On the day of Aibhlinn's visit, two security droids pull me from my cell and escort me to the visiting room. They're the kind of droids you don't get funny with unless you're looking to suicide. Armored like walkers. Blasters that'll blow holes through a man's chest big enough to fit a gallon jug. I've seen it myself, more than twice. That's enough for me.
The visiting room is nothing more than an interrogation chamber. Word is they used to torture people here, but you can't tell looking it over. The walls are clean—almost clinical. Concrete slab from ground to ceiling. Smooth tile floor. Not exactly welcoming, but it serves a reminder: Even if you have your hour, you still belong to the system. Your visitor can't save you. Your life is here now.
I'm sat at a little table, and other than two chairs (backless, and too small for anyone old enough to serve time here) the room is empty save for a clock above the door. It's the only clock I've ever seen outside of the control tower. Analogue. Thirty years old, at least. Its second hand ticks away the time before Aibhlinn arrives, and once she's here, it'll tick down the moments before she's taken away. Give us hope, and kill it as quickly as it comes.
It's a fair trade.
The droids remove my restraints—there's no need for them here. Not because I'd never hurt Aibhlinn. I wouldn't, that's for damn sure, but the droids can't take me for my word, and I don't expect them to. Restraints aren't necessary because every visitor is given a safety cord before they're allowed into the visiting room. The safety cord is a piece of string attached to a small transmitter. If anyone feels threatened all they have to do is pull the string, and the droids just outside the door storm in to escort them out. Our guests aren't told beforehand, but it's made absolutely clear to us that if that cord ever gets pulled, those droids are going to shoot us first, remove the visitor, and sort the rest out never. That's enough to stop most people.
But that safety cord, and the droids outside with their blasters, and the blood washed out of the floor, and the clock on the wall counting through the seconds of our visit before it turns over to counting down the seconds of the next five years—none of that matters. The only measure of time that matters is the day I'm in.
There's a loud bang, and the door grinds open. All I see is Aibhlinn. She steps through, and walks to her chair. She looks older than I expected, but I can't imagine the stress I've put her through, and though she doesn't exude the youthful glow I remember, she's more beautiful now than I've ever seen her. Her cobalt dress and pink pearls gave way to the beginnings of crows feet and smile lines. I want to trace them with my fingers. Memorize them. Etch them into my eyes until they're all I see when I dream.
Her safety cord sticks out of her pocket, and she brushes it out of sight as she sits.
Aibhlinn doesn't say anything. Neither do I. I've spent years imagining what I'd tell her when I got the chance. About how sorry I was for what I'd done. How I left her alone. About why we'd lost contact. Why she'd stopped writing. None of it seems to matter now. The clock ticks and ticks, and we sit, just looking at each other. It's not wasted time. "I still love you," I tell her after a quarter of our time has passed.
"I still love you too," she says. "So much."
She looks like she's going to cry. I probably do, too. Feel like it. But I'm not going to ruin this. Good tears or bad, this is what we'll remember for the next five years. "I know." We sit for another two minutes, and I can't think of a way I'd rather spend it. "Aibhlinn, I know we have a whole lot we need to talk about, but I need to say something first."
She closes her eyes. Nods. "Okay."
"I love you more than anything, but I know where I'm sitting. I know what this means, you know? Fifty years is a long time—" she scoffs, but I continue "—and I want you to be happy. I don't want you to wait for me, alright? I'll always love you. Always. But sometimes love just isn't enough. I understand that. I want you to find someone who loves you the way I do, okay? If that's what you want, I mean."
I smile. Biggest I can muster. Maybe it looks forced. Hell, it is. But too damn bad. It's what she needs. What I need. She doesn't follow suit. "Thank you," she says, but her breaths are too deep for the words to ring true. "I'm glad you feel that way. And I think you're right, you know? I really, really do. And it takes a lot of courage to say that. A lot of love." Her first tear falls. She doesn't bother wiping it away. "But that's so far away from what we need to talk about right now that I can't even begin to tell you."
It's been so long since I've seen her that all I can think about is our moment here. Her sitting in front of me. Close enough to touch. To kiss, if I could. I've left her waiting. There's so much I want to know, and so much I want to tell her, but I don't know what to say. I never have. "Alright, Aibhlinn. You're right. I'm sorry, it's just— I wanted you to know that before we said anything else. I've been thinking about this for a long time. It's been five years, and now that we're here I—"
She says, "Ten years, Akaal."
Her face is hard now. Not a glare. Not in anger, at least. Resignation, maybe? She looks at me like I've died in her sleep. "What?"
"I really need your help with this," she says, forcing the words through an unmoving jaw. "You're smarter than I am, Akaal. You always have been. You're the smartest person I've ever met, so I need you to explain it to me, because I just can't understand how you're not getting this."
"I don't—" It's exasperation. Flows out of her like blood from a severed leg. "I've tracked my time, Aibhlinn. Every day. It's been five years. I have a schedule. I have a calendar. I have—"
"You have a Dosuun calendar, Akaal. Because that's your sentence. Fifty to eighty Dosuun years. That's double the Galactic Standard. You've been here ten years, not five."
I laugh, but it sounds a ship's pilot bracing for the crash. She's taken this harder than I imagined. That's all my fault. "Okay, I'll try to explain. When I got here, I marked the date. Memorized it. Notated it. And every day since, I've crossed—"
"That's not what—"
"—the days off, one by one. And when it gets back around—"
"I know how to—"
"—to the same day where I started at, then it's—"
"Goddammit! I know how to use a fucking calendar!"
She slams her fist on the table. It's deafening in the closed space of the visiting room. She's shaking, and seething, but her hands are still far from her safety cord, and the droids don't blast through the security door. I take a breath. Then two more. Time ticks away. "Then I don't understand where the disconnect is here."
She's crying now. Openly. But she doesn't make a sound. Not even a sniffle. Even when she's at her bottom, breaking down and burning out, Aibhlinn's composed. I've always admired that. "Give me my turn to explain, then, though honestly, I don't know what I can say here now that's going to change what you couldn't grasp in the six years I wrote you. A year is—" She groans. Throws her head back until she's staring at the ceiling, then runs her fingers through her hair. And as much as I hate to see her in pain—frustrated and delusional—part of me is glad to remember that she's still human. "Forget that," she says, "let's try this: I'm going to ask you some questions. All I want you to do is give me an honest answer, okay?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. You agree that a year is measured by a planet's orbital period, right? How long it takes to make a circle around a star?"
"Yes."
"And you agree that when a planet has gone around its star once, that we'd call that a year, right?"
"Yes."
She leans closer. It's the closest we've been since she entered. Closest since I was sentenced. Her crows feet aren't deep—the smile lines faint—but she looks tired. More exhausted than I can remember. "You'd also agree that Coruscant has an orbital period of 368 days?"
"It does."
"So we call that the Galactic Standard Year."
"Right."
"But Dosuun—where we are now—has an orbital period of 729 days."
"Roughly, yeah."
It's tentative, but she smiles. "So you see then? When it's been one year here on Dosuun, it's been almost two years back home."
I can't remember our first conversation. I remember the room. What she wore. The flash in her eyes when she pretended to laugh at one of my jokes. The sheen of her hair. I see all of it in her now. But I can't remember what she said. "No, that's not right. I've marked the days, Aibhlinn. All of them. I know this has been hard on you, but—"
"Forget your schedule, Akaal!" She's not looking at me anymore. Her eyes are focused on a point half a foot in front of my face. "You don't magically skip a few years just because you put a different calender on the wall. You're not thirty-five. You're forty."
Was it all just small talk? No. Couldn't have been. I hated small talk. She was captivating. Is captivating, even tear-streaked and raving. It meant something. "No, that's not how a year works. You go around the sun once, that's one year. You're one year older. I've been around my sun five times since I got here. That makes me thirty-five. I have forty-five years to go, and I'll be eighty when I'm out."
She wipes her eyes for the first time, and in a weak voice says, "You're not getting out."
"Yes I am."
"No, you're—"
"Yes I am!"
I slam the table this time, and she jumps. Her fingers inch to her safety cord, but stop near her thigh. She lets the seconds tick by. Covers her face with her hand. When she looks back—red eyed, but resolute—she says, "I really want to be here for you, Akaal. I do. I love you, and I always will, and I don't want to abandon you, but I can't do this if this is what it's going to be. You have forty-five years left, if you're counting by your terms. But that's ninety years back home. You won't be eighty when your sentence ends. You'd be one-hundred thirty. Minimum. Just because you weren't given a life sentence doesn't mean you're ever getting out of here. You're not."
She's lost it. She loved me completely, and I ruined her for it. Aibhlinn, the strongest woman I've ever known. The indomitable. "Yes I am!"
"I'm sorry," she says, voice lost behind a runny throat. "I can't. My time's up here."
She doesn't look at the clock, but I can see it. I've been watching it the whole time. "Our time's not done! It's been twenty-three minutes!"
"No," she says. She looks over her right shoulder, then her left. Like she's not sure which way to go. "I'm sorry. I really need to leave. I—"
Before I know it I'm standing. Palms flat on the table. Leaning forward, face to face. I feel her breath. Smell her hair and tears and mucus. I don't see if she's holding her safety cord, but honestly, I hope she is. Pull it already. "I've been here for five years! Five! Not ten! Not fifteen! Five! I'm thirty-five years old, and I'll be eighty when I leave! This isn't arbitrary! It's not relative! A minute is a minute, and a year is a year, and I'm not fucking dying here!"
She stands. Stumbles back. Turns. "Goodbye, Akaal."
Aibhlinn walks to the door, graceful as ever, and waits while the security locks grind open. She looks young again—or maybe that's just what I see in her. What I'll always see. "Aibhlinn, you bitch! Get back here! You owe me this! You fucking owe me!"
She doesn't look back. Doesn't hesitate when the door opens. She steps straight through, turns a corner, and twenty-four minutes and thirteen seconds into our visit, she's gone.
It's sunset again, and it's beautiful. Not just because it's my last—the reds are deep and flowing, and melt into the orange to where I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. I haven't seen a sunset like this in all my five years here. It's fitting. A dazzling end to the first chapter of my incarceration.
Two shifts from now I'll be sitting in this tower with 1693. I don't know why the idea had disgusted me so much—why I was so attached to watching the sunset every night, and cursing every sunrise. The sunrise is what matters. It's the mark of being one day closer to my fifty years. The beginning of a new life. Sunsets are ends. Deaths. How could I have missed that before?
This sunrise is beautiful because it's the funeral for who I was yesterday. A man who couldn't get through to Aibhlinn when she needed me most. When she was at her lowest. He said things he shouldn't have—that he didn't mean. He hurt her.
That man deserves this death.
The man born tonight—he can make it right. He can heal her. I just need to figure out how.
I can't write Aibhlinn again. Not yet, at least. Not without a plan. There's something missing from the places inside that are supposed to tell me what others need to hear. I can't do it alone.
Zahid will know. He's an artisan when it comes to things like this. I'll write him first. He'll have advice. He'll make this better.
My transceiver buzzes—1693 asking if I've been watching the time, and laughing like a madman. I laugh with him, but I don't respond. This is what matters. When was the last time I wrote Zahid? A few years, at least. I can't even remember why we stopped.
Doesn't matter. It's not important. 1693 buzzes me again, but instead of reaching for my handset, I grab a scrap of paper and touch it with my pen.
Dear Zahid,
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write you. My head has been all over recently, and I've lost sight of a lot of things I shouldn't have. It feels like it's been forever since we last spoke. Can you believe it's already been five years?
Anyway, how have you been?