New Hope
Juanita Cox
From before I can remember my mama always dreamed of going to outer space, she would be so proud I think, I'm here with a laser gun and everything like we used to talk about while watching episodes of those old timey space shows, curled up on her bed together laughing and gasping to avoid what we both knew: she was dying. When I first heard about this opportunity, I wanted us both there, but she knew and I knew, that she wasn't going to make it. She saw me become first cadet, which sounds like I'm a badass--mostly it means I'm smart enough to follow a lot of orders. There are plenty of people higher up on this ship doing important things. Still she was my mama, my first cheerleader so she was overwhelmingly proud of me.
Look at me now mama, traveling across the galaxy, way beyond where any woman (or man for that matter) has gone before, but rather than feeling like an explorer or an astronaut I feel like that toy astronaut who thought his catchphrases and plastic wings made him the real thing. My mama loved those movies, she loved the idea of toys coming to life. Toys believing in themselves so hard they become something real. Kids loving them so much they become real. But the reality is that we are all pretending and equally reassuring ourselves of our delusions. As space technology escalated, I think lots of kids felt like becoming astronauts wasn't as far out of reach, it's crazy that now it's my life. Not like I thought my life was going to be extraordinary, some of us got to be normal folks, but I think in most of us we have some parts that hope or imagine we could be great. I know the old generations used to all tell their little ones: Reach for the stars, someday you could be president. Back when we had presidents.
The USA fell back into a monarchy in the end, my mama wasn't surprised. When they tried to separate the Whites from everyone else, she knew it was over. What’s ironic is that the economy is what leveled the playing field. I know many pushed for a better future, but most of us settled for good enough. Whatever could stop the violence and get us back to peace. It’s not all bad. Everyone has healthcare and access to what is needed for a good life. Guess it depends on what you deem a good life, used to mean having money, money, money, but after the stock exchange imploded from lacking resources to exploit, the United States finally realized something needed to change. Wish we had figured that out before it was too late to repair the earth.
Now I am caring for the next generation on a spaceship. Kind of. Just one of my many duties. You see these babies aren't babies or they are. We refer to them as the unborn, still growing, yet here. Me and my team are caring for the future literally in these Artificial Uterus Nurturing Technology, ironically called the AUNT, essentially a manufactured womb. We are specially trained as their “mothers”, even though no one on my team is their biological mothers. I suppose we could be thought of as the aunts, in place, having all the joy (though even that is limited) and if not none, certainly less responsibility. Even calling ourselves aunts is too affectionate for protocol, we have been discouraged to use "overly nurturing language" by higher-ups, still we care for these vulnerable new lives. It's hard not too, even at a distance we see them, growing, moving, changing. It's human nature to get attached.
It's all an experiment to see if they can survive in space and thrive. The AUNT has grown children who lived, but that was on earth with mothers who watched over them. And it still remains to be seen, those children are still children. Time will tell, we will all discover what happens when they will have grown enough to be released from the AUNTs. After all, even in the worst times people understood connection was important, even fundamentally necessary for human life, even for the unborn, there is a reason we call them babies before we actually know them. Why we sing and talk to them while they are still in the womb. They spend that time forming all those body parts: brain, heart, ears, eyes, might as well spend the time giving them that extra chance at developing well.
Tonight it's my shift to keep an eye on and ensure all levels stay normal. It's something like night here, most people unless on duty are in bed for sleep, relaxation, or sex at this point. I'm not doing any of the latter, but I know some people are. No matter how small and strained the population, humans will always have sex. And some people make it very clear. I haven't felt that kind of connection ever, I'm not sure I ever will, even in my younger years I just went to school and spent time with my mom. Now on the spaceship, I go to sleep, or I'm working, sometimes I read, daydream and that is the only way to mark my days. I have hope the planet we end up on will have an atmosphere and some biodiversity, and light to give something else to mark my days, give me something else to live for.
I have forgotten what outside is. What it feels like, smells like, tastes like. What I remember mostly is what it looked like and how I felt when I was there. And a little bit of how it sounded. To remind myself when no one is around I sing and for some reason, the singing helps me to remember a little more. I sing to the unborn the songs my mother used to sing. Girl bands, and stupid pop, rock songs and the cheesiest love songs you ever heard, but also silly songs like Down By the Bay and Going on a Bear Hunt. Even sillier since I don't know if I'll ever see a Moose or a Bear or any of these animals ever again. These new lives probably won't. Ever. There was only so much we could put on this ship. We prioritized plants and humans and hoped we could figure everything else out when we made our new home. Humans are perpetually optimistic and tragically arrogant. Still I did voluntarily join this mission, so that's me in a nutshell too.
As I often do, I wonder what will come of them, these motherless babies. In this new society where we all have a part and a role in the system. Where everyone is happy, or at least most people don't question their happiness. But I do. When no one is around I whisper to the babies my questions: Was it good to leave the earth? Is it going to be better on New Earth? Is it true there are no people there? Or just no humans? Is there even a real place we are going or are we just floating through space, hoping? Have we really learned from our mistakes we made on earth? Should we have left a dying planet when we could have loved her and stayed? Will anyone from this mission ever go back? Why did some stay, what do they know? What will happen to me, to all of you, to us?
I think back to training when this felt cool, adventurous, romantic, even heroic--traveling into space, meeting other amazingly smart people, leaving behind the dummies on earth, how I used to think of them. Now as time has gone on, and this long journey to New Earth continues, I wonder if we who left are actually the dummies and the small subset who stayed are going to make something beautiful from the ashes. Humans are resilient. In the older times they would talk about survival of the fittest, I'm not sure I'm the fittest anymore. Maybe I should have stayed. Would have at least been close to the same world and air and life that carried my mother, now we are light years away and the gap widens, day by day. Even worse the life I'm moving towards will be filled with a lot of things I never wanted to do on Old Earth: caring for babies, doing menial tasks, taking orders--but it won’t be all the time and I have a laser, so that's kind of cool. And the view of space from space makes you feel like all the nonsense kind of makes sense now, or at least you can parse out the beauty from all the vast emptiness. All of us fresh cadets signed on with a wild look in our eyes determined to make good from our choice to leave the old world behind prepared for alien attacks and outer space adventures, but like with most jobs, most days are fairly mundane. Burnt coffee, cyclical chores, never-ending meetings, and so much time just keeping watch over the AUNTs.
I wish for my mother, but she died before I boarded the New Hope: the mission to create, new life, new peace, on a new earth. It was the slogan that caught my eye when it came across my E-Shades almost 5 years ago now. As I learned about all the dangers we might face in outer space, they seemed pretty inconsequential compared to the hell that was the earth I left behind, that my mother never left. Whole nations and people destroyed to ashes. Whole bodies of water dried up, or too dirtied to handle any life, barely good enough to even use for waste. Desolation in so many places, New Hope offered, well, hope, but again not everyone wanted it, and to be honest not everyone was allowed to come. They only wanted the “best and the brightest”, plus their families, due to limited space. But outside of my mom I had no one, so when she did eventually pass I took it as a sign to go. I worry that all this promised change from the old ways isn't permanent. Certainly the ones who stayed didn't believe it. They feared this new planet is just going to be a new place to channel all our previous mistakes and do them better. The shadow of Earth we left behind made it clear: we didn't create a utopia in the end. Clearly we majorly screwed up the earth, despite humans evolving and coming to be in a place that was seemingly made for us. This new planet will have many challenges, and it's only hope and technology that makes us think something good will come of this mission.
One of the babies opens their eyes, looks at me, hiccups. Hiccups are good, a normal healthy thing. I touch the AUNT this new life grows in, I wonder what will become of them. Another baby hiccups. Most of the babies are sleeping, the AUNTS invoke a steady smooth rocking to mimic the walking gait of a woman. To me though it feels like ghosts all around me shuddering without making much sound. I wonder how it will work out for these babies. Unconnected to a body, unable to hear their mother's heartbeat, only white noise and a mechanical rhythm. Unable to smell their mother's scent, only some artificially created earth like smells, to connect them to “home”. A home they will never know, and someway down the line will be long forgotten into something like a myth, like those CDs and boy bands and magazines from times past.
I lean in closer to the AUNT and hum a song my mother used to sing, I have forgotten most of the words except the part, I went down in the valley to pray, Studyin' about dat good ole way. You shall wear a starry crown, Good Lord, show me de way! I asked my mama how I would get my starry crown, she told me I’d find it when I flew amongst the stars. I’m here now, but still haven’t found what I’m looking for. My mother always told me I was everything she needed.
She was for me too, and now that I lost her I feel that I’m a bit lost too, nothing like the comfort of space to make you feel endlessly lonely. Maybe I might finally find it whenever we get to this new planet--a noise startles me and I pull my hand away from the AUNT jumping. The door closes behind my teammate hurrying in, I nod to her, checking the time, she's come to relieve my shift. I start to get my stuff together and I’m about to leave to relax in my quarters, but something makes me hesitate.
“I’m all set,” she tells me, I look around one last time that odd feeling that I must have forgotten something twists my stomach into knots. I give her an awkward smile and head towards the door, when I hear them quietly lock. I look to my teammate and then the alarms blare through the ship--GOING INTO LOCKDOWN. EVERYTHING IS FINE. This refrain sounds over and over with ominous beeps between each frightening assurance that everything is fine. Finally, everything stops, and the alarm leaves behind only eerie silence.
I indicate to my teammate to pull out their gun, releasing the safety on mine at the same time. I look at the AUNTs holding these new lives, these babies that are not my babies, but I am going to protect them with everything I have. The screens turn on, showing our captain's face, paler than normal, they make a loud swallow, “Everything is fine, but we have been taken over,” they say. The screens go black for only a second before a creature pops up on the screen. It is purple and wrinkly and oddly human-esque, but leathery, and the slant of it’s eyelids make it look angry before it speaks in my language, “You humans are so persistent thinking your lives are meaningful, but I am not overly callous, we are on a path to bring the universe to greatness and taking only those who are willing to support us in this endeavor. Differences have been the demise of too many peoples over the ages. Our great people the Wylogs will need all the bodies and labor we can get. If you can be loyal to us and the future we are working towards, you can stay alive, but you and this ship and everything in it are now the property of the Wylogs. We will be taking you out of lockdown, if you have a problem with this, you will be taken care of, otherwise, welcome to your new family!”
My teammate and I exchange glances as the screens go dark, for a moment despite the light in the ship, my vision goes dark too. I feel my chest tighten, I feel an intense desire to shoot everything, but I catch a slow movement of the AUNTs and turn back to face these innocent lives
“We’ve got to prioritize these babies, whatever happens next, I can’t believe something they talked about in training is finally happening to us.” my teammate says. A genuine spark in her eye, like back in training.
“You’re right, we were trained for this, and it sounds like there is little we can do to stop them, hopefully they can see the worth of these babies.”
I know if the unborn are going to have a chance of survival they're going to need me to advocate and be there for them. Despite myself I want the human race to continue, I want myself to continue. I may have left earth, but I haven’t let go of the hope that my existence has some meaning. I put my gun in my holster, and wink at my teammate as the doors open, I see a flash of purple and smile, wide, hopeful.
Juanita Cox is an emerging writer. She loves to use words to connect with others, share ideas, and reflect. Outside of writing she is a Black mother, community builder, and loves to spend time in Boston with loved ones.
