The empty chair

I explained a fault in the navigation display to an empty chair this evening. Halfway through, I noticed I was simplifying the explanation. There was nobody there to object to the simplification, so I made it worse.

Ava would have stopped me at the second sentence.

The display was behaving perfectly well. I had wanted to speak, and an instrument fault seemed a respectable reason. I left the chair where it was and went to find the kettle.

There are more cups than I need. This is usually true, but tonight I counted them. I had taken several down before remembering that Ava, Cal and Anna would not be coming through the door. Matteo would not arrive asleep against someone's shoulder. I put the spare cups back carefully, as though making a noise would be embarrassing.

They have work to do where they are. They chose it. I was there when they chose it, and I understood them. An hour alone in the ship ought not to be enough to make that difficult to remember.

Nevertheless, I found myself reviewing the invitation. Had I rushed it? Made the ship sound too dangerous? Too easy? I could produce evidence for any of those arguments if I sat here long enough. It is a talent with very few useful applications.

So I wrote their names on this page. Beside each I tried to put what they had actually said or done, without adding a private translation in which the subject was invariably me. That took rather longer than the navigation lecture.

Somewhere behind the wall a mechanism cleared its throat. The ship has a great many ways of sounding occupied. Usually I am grateful for them. Tonight I asked, aloud, whether she thought I was being foolish.

She continued whatever she was doing. Sensible ship.

I would like to go back and see them. That needn't become a departure order tonight. They deserve time in the lives they have chosen, and I can survive an evening without turning my loneliness into someone else's surprise visitor.

Florence keeps returning in pieces. A face. A room. Something I should have noticed sooner. There were people we helped and people we could not reach. When I try to make one set balance the other, I lose the people themselves. I have crossed out two sentences on this page for doing exactly that.

The tea is cold now. I could warm it, but getting up would give me an excuse to consult the coordinates again. I know myself rather well in that respect.

I shall drink it cold. Tomorrow I can look at the display and discover, with appropriate professional disappointment, that there is still nothing wrong with it.