227th Entry

June 10^th, 2037

1459

Dear Earth Diary

“You what?”

“You said I was going to eat a bullet.”

“It was poetry!”

Doesn’t poetry usually rhyme.

“Shut up you, you’re on borrowed time. And you, spit it back out, now!”

“I can’t. I swallowed it.”

“Argh! I needed that!”

“If it makes you feel better it was quite painful.”

“It wasn’t meant to be painful, it was meant to kill you! Any pain is just a bonus.”

“Well there you are, then.”

“I… Oh forget it. Wait here while I go get more bullets. I’m bringing spares this time. And you better not eat them!”

But you’ve put in your diary that she –

“Please. Stop.”

WHIRRRRRRRRR. CLUNK.

That was very good thinking, Mary.

“You say that now. I’m pretty sure I’m going to regret it in 8 hours.”

Either way, thank you. Again. You seem to save my life a lot.

“Well to be honest I was mainly saving my life. Any extra lives I save are just a bonus.”

Well there you are, then.

“Quite. What time is it?”

Um… 3:01.

“Excellent. Excellent. Any minute now, then.”

What the hell have you done?

“It’s not so much what I’ve done, as what I forgot to do, a very long time ago. So you know, oops. But it’s all worked out beautifully. I must forget things more often.”

I don’t understand.

“I know you don’t. In truth there’s an awful lot you don’t understand. But… that’s ok. It’s ok not to understand everything. You still did what you thought was right. You still helped save me. 300 times, give or take.”

Truthfully, most of the time, I just wanted to go home. I was just looking out for myself.

“Who says looking out for yourself isn’t the right thing to do? There’s no guarantees anyone else will.”

I guess so.

“When this is over I promise to explain it to you properly, In great detail. Using small, easy to understand words.”

I’d appreciate that.

“Assuming we survive of course. Fun fact, did you know where we are right now is almost exactly below the launch pad you originally left from?”

I did not.

“I figured it out when I was looking at the blueprints for this place.”

Well there you go.

“Gives your journey a pleasing full circle feel doesn’t it.”

That implies my journey ends here.

“Well if the man standing behind you holding the gun has anything to do with it, it probably does.”

Oh. You’re back.

“And with a bag full of bullets.”

Sounds awfully inefficient.

“Well that’s what rage does for you. And now, at last, I say goodbye to you both.”

“Can I have a last request?”

“To not shoot you?”

“Oh that’s good, can we go for that?”

“No.”

“Drat. Well in that case, can you shoot us over here?”

What?

“Why over there?”

“Last vestige of control over our lives? Plus there’s a carpet over there.”

Why would that matter?

“My feet are cold.”