The Other One
Requested by VeatriceConde. This an abstract character piece, which is based off the inspirational 'Another Earth' directed by Mike Cahill, which won the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. It focuses on the central character that has to live with the consequences of a terrible accident. It also addresses her outlook on the achievements of technology concerning the second Earth that is a main focus of the film. Hope you enjoy!
When she stares out the roof window, she can see the other Earth.
That's what they call it now. The other one. Earth 2. As though it's natural to assume they are the original one and the geographically identical sphere up there is a copy. The kind of fake that you'd associate with copied designer handbags.
It's pure, magic beauty, she thinks, this reflection of Planet Earth so close they can now see it with the naked eye.
She sits in front of her computer, researching it. She's missed out on a lot while she was convicted. There are many speculations - Where did it come from? Is it really the exact same? Should we expect a threat? How should we behave around this unexpected appearance?
It's been four years since it first emerged and she has watched it every day, hanging like a beacon in the sky, the most daunting and overwhelming sight since the first images of the moon's surface. That seems so long ago. Human beings have advanced unbelievably fast since that landing in outer space.
What she would give to be able to see it. Stand on the surface of a planet that might look like this one but hold entirely different stories. If she could ever admit it to herself, she wants to run from her past. She wants to face a place where she could have a clean slate. She's got a lot she wishes could be wiped away.
Too much has happened in the past years. Scientists have chipped away at the impossible, producing technology at such a speed that her dream is steps away from reality. Crazy to think that in the space of decades, humanity has innovated and engineered at a pace, which could make trips outside their own planet's atmosphere become normalcy. That a journey to this identical earth could be possible.
Only that she is in no position to be part of an expedition.
She's ordinary. A plain person with a couple more dark shades in her history than others her age. But everybody has made severe mistakes, one way or another. She used to be a great high school student but not in the league of the extraordinary. She's intelligent and inquisitive but she has no way to prove that.
So she lies on her mattress in the attic with the roof window open, stares up at the blue marble that hangs in the sky. She daydreams about it. Her imagination was always a vivid one and whenever she watches this way, it paints pictures of what wondrous things could be up there.
Her fascination with the universe has persisted since childhood.
She is aware that the visual distances are always an illusion, but when she reaches up her fingers towards the roof, she can grasp the planet in the curve of her hand. It gives her satisfaction to think that that place, even though it's impossibly out of her reach, could be hers alone. On other days, it seems so close, so large, that she can't even see all of it from her window.
First contact with whatever is out there occurs soon after. It's a bizarre concept. There's a room full of technology that fills the screen of the television. It has the look of a high tech radio station. She watches with her family, all of them holding their breath. A scientist sits in front of a microphone, speaking the same words in every science fiction film.
"Hello? Is anyone out there?"
Cackling. A sound. A syllable. "Copy". The woman's eyes are intent; she instructs the team in the background to try a different frequency. She sits on the edge of the sofa with her parents, watching everything closely.
When the voice comes through everyone sits shell-shocked.
"Hello…? Hello?" The words are distinguishable. Whatever it is, it's coherent and speaking English. Then the voice adds a name and even the Doctor looses the smile that's been tugging at the corners of her mouth. Her face becomes pale, she stares at the microphone as though it has reached out and shoved a gag into her mouth.
It's her own voice replying.
Everyone in the house is frantic; her mother leaps up and asks questions nobody can answer right now. She just keeps staring at the screen, at the silence in that room where first interaction with the other Earth was just produced. The desire to be there on the other side grows stronger the longer she watches.
She tries not to get too hopeful in the days that follow but it's just impossible to keep her mind off it. Everything seems so close now. It's happening every hour she stays in her small town and only studies what others are achieving.
She's lost self-esteem during her period in jail and she knows it. Even though she keeps moving forward through the daily routine now, she's too timid to think about her previous ambition. Going to university, looking into the astrophysics she reads about, believing that she could be part of new discoveries…it seems like somebody else's wish.
That is why she expects nothing when she stumbles upon the contest. It's entirely by accident.
She didn't know that everything was moving this quickly. Or maybe she is just stuck in time, in her dull rhythm that keeps her mind away from the past but occupied enough to never think about the future.
She doesn't read the newspaper much anymore so her shock at this discovery has her freezing. Her finger moves over the pad of the laptop slowly. She can't believe her eyes though she desperately wants to. The words glow back at her, right there on the screen.
United Space Ventures seem to have heard her unspoken thoughts.
'Win a flight to Earth 2'
She pauses a second to blink, breathe and focus on what she's seeing. Write 500 words below explaining why you should win the trip. It's almost too easy. It sounds heavenly but she can't process this opportunity. After all this time of waiting and envisioning…it just seems too good.
Out of sheer stubbornness or maybe it's adamant disbelief, she doesn't respond to the invitation immediately. She snaps the laptop shut and goes to bed with her head swimming in what-ifs and could-it-bes. But the call of the unknown is too much. She has no idea what is out there, but the thrill of the exploration makes her brave.
Maybe it's also because this is the first time in many months that she feels she can challenge herself. It's a chance to break the shell she's been living in.
She does submit an essay. She feels her chest grow tight at she clicks the button to send the text. There is perfect clarity inside her that she is only one person in millions. The chances of her being chosen, even being considered, are too low to be serious. Still, she secretly hopes.
The internet is an amazing tool. She only comes to truly appreciate it the day her ticket comes in the mail. It's a confirmation that she didn't dare truly consider even though she took part in the competition. She is dizzy with joy.
Sadly, she doesn't have time to celebrate the sheer, incredible coincidence because it is also the time that her identity is revealed to the public. Today's gadgets come with heaped benefit but her anonymity crumbles the minute United Space Ventures releases her name. It's viral faster than she can track.
Everybody knows who she is. Everybody knows what she has done. She thinks this should panic her but she only feels resigned. It's obvious she'll be condemned for winning a flight for hundreds of thousands of dollars when she is surely the last one to deserve it.
With the uncovered identity comes a detailed description of her past. She doesn't know what to do. She sits under the roof, laptop on her bed and scrolls through the articles that have been posted within twenty-four hours of the discovery.
There's sympathetic ones, hateful ones, sarcastic ones and completely outraged ones. It's undiluted commenting on what she's done and what she's about to do even though none of them know her. She has to shut down everything before she's overwhelmed.
The damage is done though. She's read everything and stews in the opinions of others. Most of them hurt. They've reopened old wounds and she feels the guilt claw at her throat. That drunk driving incident was the worst experience of her life and she has always lived with the knowledge that she's ruined somebody else's. She killed two people and simultaneously took away a man's family.
Somehow though, in the following days between the sudden flutter of nameless letters reaching her and her parents asking questions, she comes to a decision. She's watching the planet hovering above her head from the safety of her parent's house and changes her mind. It kills her a bit to do this but it lifts a heavy burden off her chest.
It's not that she feels it's an easy choice. But it's the fact that she can choose in this matter, which she didn't on the fateful night years ago.
When the time comes, the space ship will leave without her but she doesn't mind anymore. She watches all the preparations play out on the television and she smiles freely at what she sees. The person who has taken her place is somebody she owes everything but could give nothing. Not until she won the ticket, destination: the unknown.
What she's done for him done feels right. Even in front of the camera at the U.S.V. station, there's a smile on his face, a new glint of life in his expression. It's the happiness she unintentionally took away four years ago. To witness it back in this man is worth more than any expedition into space.
So she remains on Earth, where she was destined to stay, and contents herself with watching his progress. She observes how technology catapults him out of the atmosphere towards a different universe and is nothing but blissfully happy for him. She thinks to herself that even though she's given up her chance, she's got a choice again.
She's not just the teen who ran into somebody's car. She's not just the girl who won that ticket to Earth 2.
She understands now, watching the launch of the shuttle to faraway goals. What humans have achieved so far can be infinite in its possibilities and she wants to contribute. Even if she will always carry the taint of her accident like a chip on her shoulder, she will not give up on her dreams.
There's so much she's capable of and she if she can use what the people before her have created to bridge the distances between this earth and all others out there, she will.