April | 2019 | Tim's Blog

Today I am pleased to host a sci-fi story by Chris Morton. Outer space is a lonely place …..

Outpost 269

Three thousand days alone on this godforsaken hunk of metal in the middle of space, with nothing so much as a passing comet … I’ve murdered my only living companion. But I had to get out of this interminable cycle of nothing – away from the mess I signed up for at the age of twenty-one; naïve; excited over the prospect of leaving my home planet for a life of adventure. A promise of a post aboard a starship after the minimum three years service; they seem to have forgotten me.

Once a week I talk to a computer back on Earth. Nothing to report. Systems at a hundred. What am I waiting for? The sun to explode?

Outpost 269 reporting in.

What is your status?

Status normal.

Observations?

No observations.

Equipment efficiency level?

Fully functional at a hundred percent.

Status of cat?

Alive and well.

Prepare for scan.

I move into the cubicle for a full body scan that records my mental and physical well-being. I’ve no idea how it works, but recently have begun to suspect that it may not be as accurate as I once thought. Otherwise, why did I kill the cat?

Over eight years I’ve been here.

Checking one section at a time I start with engineering in level A; finish with the observation room. On Friday and then at the weekend, donning my space suit, I examine the outside surface for faults. Once a month a pod arrives with more food supplies. The routine of non-events has at least some consistency.

Making my way around this tiny excuse for a space station, I’d hope against hope for something to go wrong. A sun storm to interfere with my settings. For a crack in the panelling. Stray bolts showing wear. An alien attack even.

If it wasn’t for the cat I would have gone mad a long time ago.

Not talking to myself. I’m conversing with the cat. Its name is Nibbles. Or rather, it was. Used to be. Former name. Former cat.

Nibbles would be hard to find at first. As a kitten it was difficult to get him to eat.

“Nibbles!” I’d shout. “Nibbles … dinner time!”

I’d find him hiding behind a canister in section D. In a bundle of sheets in my living quarters. Or often he’d be high above the space between the lighting and ceiling tiles.

Watching me. Observing my every move. Wary but interested in my behaviour.

Once I’d started to hand-feed him, we began to make a connection. Soon Nibbles was following me everywhere. In the evenings we’d lie on my bed together. I’d massage his head, rubbing the back of his ears. Nibbles used to like that. And his purring would provide me with comfort. I was looking after another living being, a life that depended entirely upon my own.

“Breakfast time, Nibbles. How about some milk? Okay, we’d better get to work.”

In the evenings we’d play hide-and-seek.

“Where are you Nibbles? There you are!”

There was a favourite piece of yellow and green tape I’d throw high into the air. The friction of this movement would cause it to crackle. Nibbles would come running into the room, eager to entertain us by chasing, catching and assuring his dominance over the object.

On the last day he knew. We’d spent too long together for there to have been any chance of me fooling him.

“Time to go,” I said, unable to meet his eyes. “The only way,” I mumbled while he blinked back at me knowingly.

“I love you,” I told him, taking hold of his neck. “You love me too, I know you do, but fate… they’ll be coming for me. Soon … they’ll have to …”

My excuse will be that Nibbles found his way into the waste disposal chute without my knowledge; the truth being that I put him there knowingly, deliberately – an execution, nothing less.

Nibbles didn’t struggle. He trusted me, and I know he was happy to give up his life for mine. As I watched him; watched the body fly into the vacuum of space and finally explode, I was overcome with sadness for the loss of my only friend.

Silently I held the tears back.

Returning to my room I shaved, showered, prepared myself mentally for what I was going to say in my weekly interview. The excuse I would make. And then, with an action that can only be deciphered as a spur of the moment spot of madness, I carved his name (N-I-B-B-L-E-S) into my forearm using a razor blade.

“Outpost 269 reporting in. Status normal. No observations. Equipment efficiency level is fully functional at a hundred percent. The cat however, has died.”

I began to laugh, more at myself that at the machine in front of me. “It’s dead,” I muttered, then hesitated before confessing that, “I killed it.”

Prepare for body scan.

Moving into the cubicle, I could still hear meowing but for a moment, a future of happiness flashed before my eyes.

You can read more stories like this on Chris’s sci-fi blog: https://newadventuresinscifi.blogspot.com

I am very pleased to reveal that I have signed a contract with Maytree Press for the publication of my first poetry pamphlet later this year.

Maytree Press

Maytree is delighted to welcome Holmfirth based writer, Tim Taylor who will be releasing his poetry pamphlet with the press in early summer 2019.

Tim has previously published two novels: Zeus of Ithome (a finalist in the 2014 Chaucer Awards for historical fiction) follows the struggle of the ancient Messenian people to free themselves from Sparta. His second, Revolution Day, is about an ageing dictator who is losing his grip as his vice-President plots against him. He has also published a non-fiction book, Knowing What is Good For You (Palgrave Macmillan 2012), on the philosophy of well-being.

Maytree 003 will be Tim’s debut collection of poetry.

The collection, which takes its reader on a journey from the dark hills of the Pennines to the far reaches of outer space, deals with landscape, people and events through themes of transformation.

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Tim Taylor