Big Red Jeep
- Jasper Woods
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Adrift above Saturn, she clings to a song, a memory of home, and a final dream.
Sci-Fi Flash Fiction by Jasper Woods / Art by Blancavasart
I’m going to town. Going to town. In my big red jeep.
I sing the song as I write, as I watch Saturn’s rings swirl round and round, zipping at a fast fast clip, as things do out here in the dead end of space. The dead end of our journey anyway.
And I’m coming by baby baby. I’m coming by.
As I huddle against the side of my escape bubble, I feel removed from my voice, the whole of myself. I pick at the end of a yarn of my dirty blonde hair, knees up, cuddling my journal, scribbling out this last entry. Barefoot and still in my long, white night-gown trimmed with a field of daisies—a flower from First Home. No time to dress, grab my work boots before it happened.
I learned in engineering class that they made the escape bubbles clear so the rescue ship could see in and those huddled inside could see out. Next class we were to learn why. Guess now I’ll never know.
Through my clear bubble, I watch the frozen, dismembered bodies of my community floating by. Crystals speckle their bloating, blue faces. They circle my bubble like the rings round Saturn. Villagers dancing round a maypole, as some did back in the Before. Learned that in history class. To welcome spring when daisies bloomed, leaves unfolded from trees, birds sang. Back in the Before when there were springs, flowers, birds.
I’m gonna pick you up in my big red jeep. Red Jeep! Red Jeep!
I have no idea what a jeep is. Was. When Momma taught me the song, she said it was like the roamers down in storage. What we were going to drive around Second Home. But now all of that is a lost magic. But then everything is was magic to me. I was learning the magic of engineering. My contribution to be but will now not be. I was going to maintain and mend the great engines of the Hope. I was excited.
Gonna lift you up and plop you in my big red jeep.
Momma taught the song to me and sister. I was gonna teach it to Cousin. But Cousin isn’t in my bubble. No one is. Just me. Only me here in my bubble and only 16 sols old. Ejected from the Hope’s biome, a frozen pine tree floats by, deforming, slowly melting into nothing.
I’m gonna buy you a so-da pop—pop—pop.
That’s what happened to the Hope. Popped a good solid POP. “What’s going on?” I screamed when popping started. Someone answered, I don’t remember who. A cascade of catastrophes set off by a meteoroid. The scanners picked it up but too late. No bigger than a pinecone but hard hard and zipping fast fast, as things do out here in our dead end of space. Hit jussssst right. Then, fire, an internal BOOM! Decompression. And bodies and bubbles floating like rings round Saturn.
You’ll hold my hand and call me baaaaby.
Other bubbles float by. Roomy enough to hold five, the requirement and limit for families. Was a steep death rate in the gray box we called the Hope. My family didn’t make it out. I was screaming for them to run, run! RUN! My fingers pinching at the edge of our bubble’s door, holding it open so it wouldn’t auto-eject. But then, BOOM! The percussive wave pushed me in. Banged my head against one of the hard hard benches. Woke up in the bubble all sealed and jettisoned. Nice and safe. Barely a headache. Only heartache. But the pills are doing their magic. Can feel them working on me. Funny, even though everything is distant and removed, my hand’s shaking. Silly hand.
I’ll fallllll into your eyes and lean into you and we’ll smoooooch.
I never smooched. Never will. Another bubble floats by. A woman screaming in it. Holding her children in it. Her children screaming in it. An involuntary and sad gasp comes out of me. I don’t know them. Must’ve been in another hub of the Hope. Our eyes lock. I mouth, Take the pills. Dull the bad. I smile to show them.
We’ll fly, fly, fly outta town in my big red jeep. Big red jeep.
Debris field swinging back round. Far enough away it won’t explode my bubble like many of the others I saw go—POP!—from the shrapnel of the Hope’s massive shredded hull. Those bubbles were late getting out. Their people conscious and holding the door. Here comes one of the Hope’s rescue ships, sheared in half. Would’ve come to collect the bubbles. Would’ve done little good anyway. No Hope to return to nor Faith, our sibling ship. Guess what happened to the Faith? Got sucked into the gravity of Jupiter during a sling assist. Slight miscalculation or a bent nozzle. Something simple and internal unlike our rando meteoroid. Learned about it in engineering class last sol. I was four when we lost the Faith.
And go go go. We’ll go go go aaaaaway.
Nope. No rescue ship coming and no Hope to return to. I and the other bubble denizens continuing to breathe (until we don’t) will just float around and after breathing is done, we’ll float around some more. Most will take the pills from the locker way up high (out of reach of the little ones) and they’ll have a big tubed meal, eat all the tubed desserts till they feel like bursting, tell stories, tickle and giggle (the pills working on them), gaze on Saturn’s rings and the brightness of stars, lie down in a cuddle and sleep, sleep, sleep. In time, gravity will pull us into Saturn along with the others with no bubbles. A final resting place for all once aboard the Hope. So far from what was home, and yet only to Saturn did we make it. Only 12 years in. Who’da thunk?
We’ll drive, drive, drive in my big red jeep to a mountain and lay under the skyyyyy. The blue blue skyyyy. The starlit skyyyy. The pink morning skyyyy.
Me. I will sing, as I sing now. The pills doing their thing. Maybe I’ll eat. Maybe I won’t. But I will sing and write and watch the rings of bodies and the rings of Saturn. Floating, floating in my bubble. Not feeling what I’m seeing, remembering, wondering. Well, not feeling mostly. Fear and sorrow fading, fading like a dream. Like a dream of a big red jeep, soda pop, and smooches.
And we’ll fall asleep in each other’s arms. And we’ll wake in each other’s eyes.
I wish for that to come to me in my forever dream. Someone to fall asleep with and wake up to.
And we’ll ride off into dawn. And we’ll ride on into forever.
The Hope was the first and last generation ship of my community. Thought impossible, then made real to carry the last of people fleeing a little blue bubble we ruined for a second home far far away. So far I would’ve never seen its sky. Nor would my children to come. Nor theirs to come. But now they won’t be coming. Nope. And no more joy-rides like back in the Before when there were red jeeps, and so-da pop-pop-pop, and smooches, cuddles, and blue blue skies, sunrises. Oop. A tear leaks out of my eye. How far away it feels, this last wet tear sliding down my cheek. Pills are dug in deep. Now I will sleep. I’m scared to sleep alone but the scared is distant like what was home is distant. Sleep—all that’s left. One last sleep. I wrote this down so someone might know this song. Ok. Eyes heavy. Goodnight. One last line for you to learn.
Red Jeep! Red Jeep! Come on. Come on. Come on baaaaaby. Ride with me and let’s show ‘em what living’s all about.
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