the trip

by fred flynn

the ship was finally loaded. it was ninety-five miles long, and weighed, apart from the food, water, and oxygen on board, forty-three ounces. the food, water, and oxygen took up ninety-two percent of the ship’s space. no one could agree on how long it had taken to load, because there had been so many stops and starts. the time between the first attempt at loading, and the final clearance for takeoff was fifty years and twenty-one days, but with the innumerable delays and false starts, the actual loading time was calculated by some observers at as low as four years. public interest in the ship and its proposed voyage had risen and fallen during the fifty years, being at its peak at about twenty-seven years after the first attempt, when there had been a brief lull in the endless war that was flowing endlessly over the planet. although there had been times when it seemed that the trip would be abandoned, its most passionate proponents had persevered, compromises had been reached, and the takeoff was scheduled. it was estimated that the trip would take seventy years to reach its destination, and seventy-seven to return. it was designed not to need fuel except for its initial takeoff and hopeful return takeoff. but the fuel calculated for the return takeoff took up six percent of the remaining eight percent of the ship’s space. much of the delay over the years had concerned the passengers and crew, specifically whether there was any point to having any passengers. no one really disputed that the ship would run by itself and did not need any “crew”. in the end it had proved impossible to obtain wide public support for the project without any human passengers. it had been finally been decided to choose two passengers.. their final allotment of food and water and oxygen for one hundred and forty-seven years, plus another eight years as a precautionary buffer, had been the subject of bitter debate. they had also been provided with pills, which had not been fully teated but which in theory would extend their life spans to match the duration of the trip. the two passengers were chosen by lottery, from a pool of persons who were a) volunteers and b) deemed expendable by the authorities. the two were harry smith, of san jacinto california, classified as a public nuisance, and ali pasha, of freehold new jersey,, classified as an irredeemably obnoxious individual. at long last, the ship took off, with the event sparsely attended and perfunctorily covered by a largely indifferent public and media. on the first night of the flight, after their meal of water and a cheese sandwich each, harry produced a deck of cards and asked ali if would like to play any sort of game. they agreed to play gin rummy. harry won the first three games. ali accused him of cheating. i was just lucky, amigo, harry assured him. but we can play some other game.if you like. other game! i will show you another game, ali cried, and he ripped up the cards he had in his hand, and threw them on the table. then he stomped off back to the little space where the two men had their bunks. what a jerk, harry thought. ali’s ripping up the cards had made the remainder of the deck virtually useless. however, harry had several more decks, which he decided to only play solitaire with. and maybe he could invent a game using the mutilated deck. the ship moved through the void.