Captain Olimar

Vacation Journal Entry 1: Mandatory Vacation

Sometimes I wonder if I am the master of my own fate, or if destiny chooses for me. When I was a teenager, my parents saw fit to send me to military school during the summers. Not because I was an unruly child (well, no more so than the next average teen), but rather because they thought it would be "well suited" for me given my particular standards. What were these standards? For as long as I can remember, I have always demanded organization and punctuality of myself and, possibly to an unfair extent, of others. The importance of timeliness was only mirrored by the importance of people and items being ordered in a logical, practical way; sitting in their assigned seat, so to speak. I have been put into an unreasonable attitude more than once by an unkempt room. As you can probably imagine, I had no interest in art of any form.

Now as with any teenager, I protested to the top of my lungs of going to an institution normally reserved for law-breakers and the mistrusted. Focused on pleasure, I was appalled at the concept of trading a school-free season of fun and spending time with my girlfriend for military school, or as we called it back then, boot camp. But my parents were adamant about it, telling me that it was for my own good. And what my parents instructed me to do, I did. Admittedly, it was not as bad as I thought it would be, plus I learned that my skills in organization had a use in the real world.

With my military training, I was accepted into the Hocotatian Guard, but I left before too long so I could be free to marry my girlfriend. After we were wed, my search for a career eventually led me to Hocotate Freight, a small deep-space shipping company. I started as a grunt, loading and unloading docked ships, but being the only employee with any merits, eventually I rose to the position of pilot, becoming captain of a ship of my own. I still remember my pride that day.

As of the present, my salary doesn't exactly buy golden Pikpik carrots, but it is enough to live comfortably with a wife and two kids. My son is the younger sibling and unlike me absolutely adores art, especially little artisan trinkets. I sometimes bring him souvenirs from distant planets when I make stops at work. My little girl (well, not so little anymore, she calls herself a "preteen" now) is the older sibling, complete with all of the drama and quirks that you would expect from a daughter. I see a lot of her mother in her. My life mostly consists of my work and my family, and for some reason both my boss and my wife think that is a problem.

Apparently I'm working myself too hard and need to relax away from my family. Honestly! If my poko-pinching boss would just extend the amount of vacation time that an employee can acquire, then he wouldn't have to pay a fee for me going over the limit! And just because I don't go out with my colleagues for dinner (you couldn't have an intellectually stimulating conversation with them if you tried) I spend too much time with my family. Isn't that problem normally the other way around?

Nonetheless, my boss ordered me to take a mandatory vacation and my wife practically shoved me out of the house. Not knowing where to go, I did what I did best: I climbed aboard my ship and took off at warp speed into the depths of space.

While inside my ship, I wear my Pilot-Grade, Level XI enviro-hazard space suit at all times because I keep the whole interior in a vacuum. This is for safety purposes; if the ship's hull was punctured somehow there would be no rapid depressurization, meaning that no further damage would be done from things being sucked out of the breach. Unconventional, yes, but with all of the reports of ships being struck by space debris, I don't want to take any unnecessary risks.

This is where I am now, sitting in the Pilot's Seat, drifting through space without a destination, writing in a journal. It was my daughter who gave me this notebook; she said that writing is therapeutic for those in need to "relax with only themselves for company", in her own words. Yes, she keeps a diary.

Perhaps I will drift to a planet with windy beaches, abundant sunlight, and pearly white sand. Maybe I'll even have it all to myself. I sometimes have fantasies of my own dream paradise, doesn't everyone? Mine usually includes a long stretch of water, swimming is a favorite activity of mine, and my family; my wife next to me and the children playing games in the sa

Fun Author's Note: What? An unfinished sentence at the end of the entry? It's almost as if something happened to the author… :O

So yeah, it's a journal that Captain Olimar is writing about his odyssey on the Distant Planet. I tried to give a little backstory to him since we don't know too much about his past.